Blame the girl
I don’t like the type of humor presented in the movie "Borat", I find it to be way to vulgar for my taste. However I have to admit that Burat expose some dark corners of the American society, some that we would have to keep in the dark. Therefore I wasn’t surprised when I read this prude criticism:
WASHINGTON — "Borat" is many things: a sidesplitting triumph of slapstick and scatology, a runaway moneymaker and budding franchise, the worst thing to happen to Kazakhstan since the Mongol hordes, and, as columnist David Brooks astutely points out, a supreme display of elite snobbery reveling in the humiliation of the hoaxed hillbilly.
But it is one thing more, something Brooks alluded to in passing but which requires at least one elaboration: an unintentionally revealing demonstration of the unfortunate attitude of many liberal Jews toward working-class American Christians, especially evangelicals.
It isn’t that we, in America, has some anti-Semitism - it is the attitudes of the Jews that is a problem! really? isn’t it the same tactic a lawyer that defend a rapist will use? It wasn’t the rapist but the girls fault! obviously it was those damn liberal Jews who crowded that Arizona bar and sang blasphemy songs.
And if the first line of defense fall, we already built the second line:
With anti-Semitism re-emerging in Europe and rampant in the Islamic world; with Iran acquiring the ultimate weapon of genocide and proclaiming its intention to wipe out the world’s largest Jewish community (Israel); with America and, in particular, its Christian evangelicals the only remaining Gentile constituency anywhere willing to defend that besieged Jewish outpost — is the American heartland really the locus of anti-Semitism? Is this the one place to go to find it?
Why us? everybody else is much worst! and even our anti-Semitic president Nixon save your Jewish state. It doesn’t matter that Nixon did sent the weapon supply only after USSR start re-supplying the Syrians and it doesn’t matter that it happened when Israel already won the war - like any argument in this essay the facts and truth are irrelevant factors.
To put things in perspective, I don’t think that the US has a major anti-Semitism problem. I also less concerned about the anti-Semitism in Europe. Unlike 60 years ago, the Jewish people has choices and they can choose to live in their country. However it is more important to the American society to deal with the unpleasant images Borat’s mirror exposed, than blame it - again - on the Jew.
Technorati Tags: Borat - Anti-Semitism - Nixon - Humor
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