Dad asks, “Did you read Brooks’ column today? It’s so good that I forwarded it to everyone.” As everyone knows, Thursdays are Style and Home section days of the New York Times. Naturally I totally missed the news, because I had to learn how to organize my bookshelves. But Daddy’s rejoicing was setting off some warning bells, so I fished the paper out of the recycling bin.
David Brooks is up in arms about a new form of dangerous comedy, one that makes fun of people (no!), especially “the sorts of people who are guaranteed not to be in the audience.” (In the past, comedy was very respectful of people not in the audience.) It’s all part of the on-going culture war. Man of the people, David Brooks, points his finger at Jon Stewart and Bill Maher, but he saves most of vitriol for Borat.
The genius of Sacha Baron Cohen’s performance is his sycophantic reverence for his audience, his refusal to challenge the sacred cows of the educated bourgeoisie. During the movie, Borat ridicules Pentecostals, gun owners, car dealers, hicks, humorless feminists, the Southern gentry, Southern frat boys, and rodeo cowboys. A safer list it is impossible to imagine.
Cohen understands that when you are telling socially insecure audiences they are superior to their fellow citizens there is no need to be subtle. He also understands that any hint of actually questioning the cultural suppositions of his ticket-buyers — say by ridiculing the pretensions of somebody at a Starbucks or a Whole Foods Market — would fatally mar the self-congratulatory aura of the enterprise.
My eyes have rolled so far back into my head that I’m checking out my own ass.
I’ve seen clips of Borat (it’s on the agenda for date night tomorrow) and quite a lot of episodes of Da Ali G Show. When Cohen was in character as Ali G, he interviewed a lot of east coast Harvard types. He played on white, liberal guilt to get high powered policy wonks and professionals, like C. Everett Koop, to answer the rapper’s stupid questions. Like any good comedian, Cohen makes fun of everybody.
But who cares? Funny is funny. I don’t want my art or my jokes politicized. I don’t care if feminists give this movie a green light, and I don’t care what Brooks thinks about it. If the man tells a good fart joke, then I’m cool.
Brooks seems to think that there is some new breed of leftie, snob comedy. Has he seen Blue Collar TV on Comedy Central? They’ve got one guy on there who just goes by “Larry the Cable Guy.” Ron White is especially excellent. “You ever go into the john and take a dump so big that when you come out, you’ve dropped a notch on your belt?” And then he goes on from there.
