The folks at the dinner party were reacting less to a black woman than to what was surely the last straw: the presumptuousness of a rude, inappropriate guest bringing in an uninvited third party.

Most importantly, this movie is relevant because of the clear verbal statements it conveys. The content itself is far from extraordinary or new.

I really experienced that in the South (”The South” meaning, the “Deep South” of the USA), an appointment with White people is automatically - and without any further consideration or any further contact ever (!EVER) - cancelled the moment that a black person becomes part of it. Now, this is a problem seeing as if my wife is an African American, and I do relate to this. If your mind is upset about “sadism”, would your mind include people like me at all? Of course not. You are only concerned about the US-version of “White People” and “White Privilege”. That is why the reversed view - what is seen as sadistic from point of view of a victim of racism - doesn’t cross your mind. I can’t change it, but it is part of your make and self definition, hence, the active loathing of this film.

So far, people thought I was telling something crazy, particularly in Switzerland, but also in the US, when I talked about Southern discrimination and racism. It is very nice (HIGH FIVE) to see some Natchez White Folks showing on screen that they twiddle with that Borat character’s bagged feces, but get up and leave when a black person enters the house (HIGH FIVE). It 1:1 matches real life experience no one believes me. Now what :-)

It does take a fair amount of offered prejudice in order to get another person to admit their prejudices. And this movie is about prejudices that people are otherwise not ready to admit. That such prejudice is more than relevant can be seen when reading simple, very simple statements such as this:

“White households had incomes that were two-thirds higher than blacks and 40 percent higher than Hispanics last year, according to data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau.”

If you use the words “more than arrogant” in this context, I am afraid that you may have to revise your definition of arrogant, maybe to compare with “super arrogant” and “extraordinarily arrogant”. But then, of course, you’re a white American boy and not likely to “”"understand”"” (this being a publically accessible webpage).

As long as all it takes in this world for you to align your prejudices with the rest of the world to “actively loathe” this movie, hm well, maybe you could also actively loathe my office plant that just died?

I did, Hugo. Does that mean your subsequent posts don’t count?

Dude, it’s why it’s on my blog.

Your reaction is very personal and doesn’t seem rooted in much. Pulp Fiction and Borat and Natural Born Killers are three distinct films. Your attempt to tie them together as just inherently cruel, misses one thing. Two are fiction, one is, like Jackass, mostly staged for potential amusement and / or horror.

I haven’t seen Borat and don’t plan to do so, but mostly because of the annoyance of the character, the one trick pony joke and fakery. It presents itself as having a VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE, but doesn’t, it would appear, deliver. Because, at it’s base - it can’t. It’s very selective and very fake.
- Temple

Isn’t it likely that having lots of different ways of bringing racism and sexism and the like to light in people’s lives would be better than having fewer ways? Maybe some people will only respond to shame. Or perhaps some people will more strongly/more quickly respond to shame. Shaming some people into not being bigots might not be the best solution all of the time, but maybe sometimes it is the best. I’d say (having not seen the movies) that racist/sexist frat boys are a prime candidate for having shame work to getting them to see their own faults, while shaming might not work so well in other contexts (i.e. trying to ’shame’ out-and-out KKK members is likely not going to work, or trying to shame a 7-year old whose parents are KKK members probably isn’t the best way to get her to not become a racist, etc.).

Why is it all or nothing, as far as techniques we might use?

I think the whole idea of a complete, utter dichotomy between ‘who a person is’ and ‘a person’s actions’ that Hugo continues to refer to is misplaced. Yes, we’re not simply any one se of our actions. But our actions are shaped by us and, in turn, shape us. Separating the ’sin’ from the ’sinner’ seems ad hoc, and is likely a vestige of Platonic/Aristotelean Christianity (at least) that even Christians might want to disgard. What the heck does something like “god hates the sin but loves the sinner” mean, anyway? He doesn’t just hate the sin–he hates *you* committing the sin–that’s why *you* go to hell (or get removed from his presence or whatever), not your sin.

A person who is a devout racist of some type isn’t inextricably a racist–she may learn not to be–but that (to me) doesn’t entail that we treat her as somehow completely removed from her racist beliefs, as if she is somehow a person that isn’t the sum set of her beliefs. Even if you believe in an individual soul, doesn’t that soul interact with the world? Isn’t that soul, in some sense, racist if the person is? I just don’t get the separation on which Hugo’s ideas about this stuff seems to rest.

Tam, i’m thinking about what you said about how shame works effectively for people. this is a interesting point:

Why do most people choose their words carefully when talking about sensitive issues? We know how embarrassing and shameful it would be to offend others.

do we choose our words carefully because we don’t want others to see us as behaving offensively, or because we genuinely wish to not offend out of concern for the feelings of others? i’m not sure it’s entirely all of one or the other. i think that shame maybe works for the appearance aspect but not so much for the desire to actually be that thing.

and in response to this: Some people don’t care and shaming them may make them more hostile, but what other method would you suggest?

well, i’m not sure what exactly to suggest; someone like hugo who has experience actively working to alter people’s perceptions & bigotry without shaming them may have some ideas.

but i do think that doing something that you know doesn’t work and will likely have the exact opposite effect - just because you don’t know what else to do, is generally not a good idea.

this is a good discussion!