Babel and Borat

[Ian_Lee]

After watching these two movies, I just wonder what those liberal filmmakers in Hollywood have become?

Under their portrayal, the Arabs, Mexicans, Kazakhs and even Japanese (to a smaller degree) are all negatively depicted.

And of course, the worst is reserved for Kazakhs. They seem to be the beasts -- barbaric, incestous, anti-semitic, sex-driven,....etc. No wonder its government has to put ad on major western newspaper to clarify such stereotype.

[Ding Yiyi]

While I haven't seen Babel and therefore cannot comment on it, I must stress that Borat is satire. If you haven't read "A Modest Proposal" by Johnathan Swift I would encourage you to do so, it is just as ascerbic as Borat and has an equally appalling storyline to prove a bigger point about society. (The short of it is that Swift proposes that the Irish should begin to practice cannibalism so that fewer Irish would starve during the potato famine.)

[Ian_Lee]

I agree that Borat is satirical to American society as a whole. But for the part of movie on Kazakhs and Kazakhstan (which most Americans don't know who they are or where the country is), I think it has gone overboard.

[Ding Yiyi]

In my mind, the idea of the whole movie was to satirize racism, not the Kazakh people. The thing that I took away from that movie wasn't the "horribleness" of the Kazakh people, but the ludicrousness of being openly racist/sexist/etc.

[Ian_Lee]

But are Kazakhs really openly racist, sexist, barbaric and incestuous as the movie portrayed?

Since this movie aims to be just satiricial, why doesn't it pick any other ethnic groups (whom are more familiar to average Americans) but Kazakhs whose present is almost close to nil in US?

If Kazakhs are replaced by any other ethnic groups and portrayed in the same manner, be they Poles, Italians, Armenians, Chinese or Koreans, I believe this movie will definitely create a political storm.

[gato]

I just wonder what those liberal filmmakers in Hollywood have become?

Borat is a British movie, and Babel is a Mexican movie.

[Ian_Lee]

Other than British actor Cohen, Borat is a Hollywood movie. Babel is a Mexican movie.

[gato]

Other than British actor Cohen, Borat is a Hollywood movie.

Isn't Cohen the whole thing?

[gougou]

I disagree with your judgment of Babel, Ian. I watched the movie and I didn't think it portrayed whole nations as bad. There were some bad people, or rather people doing stupid things, but never were all the people of the countries uniformly portrayed as bad. In Morocco, it was two young boys fooling around without thinking. I thought their father was quite a good person. In Mexico, the guy driving the car had a bit too much to drink and made a less than wise decision, but the 阿姨 was a good person. As for Japan, the girl obviously had a difficult background (not making her bad in any way, I think), while we never learned what actually happened to her mother.

What the movie wanted to show is that you should take care of your children, and in this respect, the American couple didn't fare any better than any others.

[roddy]

Have you seen Team America, Ian?

[Lu]

I completely agree with gougou on Babel. No truly bad people in this movie, only a lot of ignorance and misjudgement. If anyone came of as bad, it was the Brad Pitt character, in my opinion, who seemed to believe that money is everything. (To the Mexican ayi: Nevermind your son's wedding, I'll pay for another wedding! To the guy who helped him and his wife so much, he tried to give money, not comprehending that someone from a poor and strange country can do something good just because.)

The Mexican nanny meant well. Her nephew (?) didn't mean to hurt them either. The Japanese girl was just angry, but not bad. The Algerian boys were just playing, they didn't realize the consequences of their actions (kids just shouldn't have guns).

Haven't seen Borat, but I might agree with Ian Lee on that one. If I were Kazakh, I would not be amused. I guess Baron Cohen didn't realize enough that Kazakhstan is a real country, with real people with real feelings in it.

[Ian_Lee]

Roddy:

I haven't watched Team America yet.

Gougou and Lu:

I have to disagree with your opinions on Babel. For Morocco, the police there are portrayed as really abusive, i.e. shooting at the kids without any forewarning. Moreover, the film shows that the country is so backward where no ambulance can come to rescue a shot victim in a rural village. Even though I have not been to Morocco, most likely I believe it is not true.

For Mexico, the scene that the head is twisted off from a living chicken with blood spilling all over during the wedding party is really gross. Maybe the Mexicans really have that tradition. But portraying such ritual in the movie would just stereotype Mexicans as barbaric.

[gougou]

But portraying such ritual in the movie would just stereotype Mexicans as barbaric.

But is it really the movie that says this is barbaric, or is that your own perception of something that was depicted completely without judgment?

Assuming this is a common thing in Mexico, what else should the movie do? Leave it out? Wouldn't that be bad to the culture, leaving out essential elements because they don't conform with the American way of life?

I do believe that a policeman in Morocco is more likely to open fire than in, say, Germany. I do believe that an ambulance takes longer to get to a remote village than to a suburb of San Francisco. I do believe that more chickens' heads get twisted off in Mexico than in Finland. But does that make these cultures bad? I think the film depicts events without much judgment, and any negativity you feel is more the result of your own perception.

It'd be interesting to hear what somebody from Morocco/Japan/Mexico felt about this movie.

[wushijiao]

The makers of Babel are Mexicans, so I assume they at least got the Mexico part somewhat right.

To some degree, they were showing the richness of Mexican family events and fiestas, which have a deeper more communal meaning than, say, dinner parties in the US, if you read people like Octavio Paz (who of course is dead, and thus dated). Until things went downhill, I think the little gringos were having a good time and were learning about Mexico. I thought the border thing was a bit forced, and only served as a vehicle to not so subtlely opine about the injustices and dangers that average Mexicans face when crossing the border.

I didn't think Babel was a great movie, but it did show (quite fairly) how power influences relationships between different human beings, and between countries.

[Lu]

Yet again I agree with gougou, and with wushijiao.

'Blood spilling all over the wedding party'? I don't remember seeing that. And anyway chickens are killed for parties all over the world (including China). When I saw that movie I didn't think the killing of the chicken was barbaric, I just saw the kid seeing something he had not expected, and he seemed to hesitate whether to enjoy this new experience or to gross out. It was interesting. But then maybe I'm more open-minded than some moviegoers.

The Moroccan police was quite ruthless, true. But then they were probably egged on by their superiors, who in turn were egged on by the government, who in turn were egged on by the American government who had immediately interpreted the random shooting as a terrorist attack. Now who's bad in this line of events?

As to the ambulance not arriving in the small village, yeah, considering that the tour bus didn't seem to have much trouble getting there, that does seem a bit implausible, in hindsight. I suppose it's for the sake of drama, can't have the movie end too soon. I don't think it makes Morocco look bad. I think we all agree that it's a bad idea to get hurt in the middle of nowhere in Morocco, as there are easier things to do than trying to get into an ambulance and into a hospital from such a place.

And anyway, the Moroccan guide, who helped the two Americans, was no doubt a good guy. I would say he was a better person (as far as we see in the movie) than the American. Doesn't that help the balance?

[Ian_Lee]

Thanks for all your opinions. Anyway, Japanese moviegoers complain that "Babel" made them sick:

http://www.canada.com/topics/entertainment/story.html?id=775a5924-1d6a-4f2b-8b63-5182c03fd68a&k=70096

[wushijiao]

As far as the Japanese girl, I actually didn't think her "Japaneseness" wasn't all that important to the plot. Much more important, I thought, was her deafness. In the US at least, from what I've read, the deaf community is very tight-knit and often has problems relating to the hearing world (or, more accurately, the hearing world has problems understanding and accepting them). Add to that, the girl was going through some issues with her father (which probably many girls do) and there is the drama with her mother, which the film never touches on too directly. Overall, I thought she was a good character.

Anyway, after doing some Googling, it seems that the deaf community was upset that they choose a hearing actress to play a deaf person.

http://www.deafdc.com/blog/shane-feldman/2007-02-27/babel-disintegrates-the-tower-of-babel/

http://jarednevans.typepad.com/blog/2007/01/babel_uses_a_he.html

http://raysofraychelle.blogspot.com/2007/02/babels-deaf-character-slams-not.html