Borat has invoked such strong reactions from people from those who claim to like him to those who have filed suits against him etc.
But theres something else that has happened. Which I call his beauty. He has become everyone’s alter ego. He has ruptured the heterosexual space and has created a space for heterosexual men, to talk about sex illicitly and dirtily in the public. And within that dirt he has allowed men to express their desire for women, which is dirty but erotic, which is dirty but titillating and because it is dirty it has desire. And it has allowed heterosexual women to respond, engage, and flirt in this dirty space.
When guys talk, they talk not as themselves but as Borat and in that sense are liberated from having to bear the moral consequence or conscience of their talk. He gives them that space. For example, when my friend rounds his forefinger with his thumb to make a “hole” and hits it against his palm and says “it is a taeeght”…. Or “I like-uh taeeght”…He talks like Borat. Or when he talks about “the vajeen”….Infact, he is Borat. It is Borat talking through my friend’s body. And hence when I listen to him, I don’t get “offended”, I laugh, I respond. I enjoy the sexual interaction. Because I think Borat is talking and not my friend. We’ve created a strange hallucinatory dirty space between us. As we talk we are making fun of Borat. He has been internalized by us and given our evil, dirty side, our alter ego an identity, his identity. Once done, he has allowed us to detach a part of ourselves, externalize it, bring it out in the public in his identity and make fun of him. We have othered it and then enjoyed it. And in that process he has a made of ourselves more public, or a “repressed” discourse public.
Now to think that if every man spoke like that, the woman would like it would be a misconception as well. Secondly I am not legitimizing his movie but am more interested in seeing how men and women have appropriated him in their daily bodies. Though does he give heterosexual women the same space to talk or does he silence them? I do agree that he does not give me space to talk about my body the way it liberates men to do so.
7 comments:
Wow,
but why you being apologetic on your own blog? : ) What is this fear of being misunderstood that we all tread cautiously? Look at how uncautious rohan is on his blog.
very interesting
Hey Ladyy!!
Hmmm...I dont know...why..
You know I was uncomfortable about something while i posting it but i could n't say what it was...Like it was incomplete...it is the cautiousness..
even when we claim to be 'expressing our very strong opinion', we are so concious of the people who will read it...dont you think>?...also...do you think this 'dirty space/talk' is tittilating enough?
I dont think sex is the intention, if thats what you mean. The titillation is enjoyed in flirtatious conversation. Like you dont need to be "proper" or speak with proper pronounciation. Also I think borat infuses desire in his words. For exmaple, when he says "I laaaike very maach".... or "Sexy taime", which makes you aware of the weight and constraint of proper pronunciation
And i (have recently) realised there is this need, when talking to friends to be asexually sexual, or even when dancing etc. That there is a sexual something but if its too obvious it might scare the other person away (or conversely give them the wrong idea), and in that sense its great to have a space, where although you are mocking, you are talking!
nice post...i really never blamed borat for my obsessive need to talk dirty....maybe now I have an excuse.....if Borat is what you want to call it....all of use male female have a borat deep down inside....maybe only some of us express it, while some may supress it
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