Borat dupes unwitting NSA Speech Coach
The hit movie Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan takes tastelessness to new extremes in a relentless skewering of contemporary American (and Kazakhstanian) culture. Swept up in the “mocu-mentary” is National Speakers Association member Patrick Haggerty who appears early in the movie coaching Borat in American humor. Associated Press reports that Haggerty
agreed to be filmed for what he thought was a benign documentary on his client’s journey across America. He hurriedly signed a release form, was paid $400, and the lesson began.
As cameras rolled, his client told raunchy stories in garbled English and laughed heartily at the expense of handicapped people. “And then, I’m starting to smell a rat,” Haggerty told The Associated Press. “Each passing minute I’m going, `You know, this can’t be real.'”
Confused, he ended up playing along. He later figured out _ thanks to his son, an HBO-watching college student _ that he’d been duped.
Duped by Borat.
“They were exercising a First Amendment right,” said Haggerty, adding that he enjoyed the movie. “And this Sacha Cohen guy’s going to make 87 gazillion dollars. You know, good for him. I’m just sorry that he had to do it in such a way that he allowed people to make jerks out of themselves exposing their character flaws.”
Haggerty comes off far better in the movie than some of British comedian’s Sacha Baron Cohen’s other victims: the etiquette coach in the genteel South who has to deal with a dinner guest who does not know how to use a flush toilet; the attendees at a National Mortgage Brokers Convention who are faced with the spectacle of two naked men invading their stage; the members of a Pentecostal Congregation who take Borat at face value as a sinner who must be saved.
Cohen, who has a history degree from Cambridge University, plays the cultural idiot savant to the hilt. It took more courage than book learnin’ to stand in a Rodeo ring in Texas and whip the crowd into a frenzy praising “Premier George Walter Bush’s” war against Muslims in Iraq, stating to loud cheers “We support your war of terror – may George Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq.” And then usurp the US National Anthem with lyrics praising Kazakhstan as the crowd as loudly boos him out of the arena and stallions tumble around him.
It’s an unusual movie that makes you wonder how the actor/director survived filming of some of the scenes. Releasing a live chicken in a New York City subway car while trying to kiss stockbrokers on the mouth is not everyone’s cuppa tea.
As Pat Haggerty would no doubt say “This is a movie your maiden aunt would enjoy … not!”
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[…] The one issue we missed was what to do if two naked Kazakhstan men run onstage. But then. That never happens, unless you are attending the National Mortgage Brokers Association Awards dinner when Borat hits town. […]
By Ian Griffin’s Blog » NSA Pro-Track: October Meeting on 11.13.06 8:39 pm
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