Rabbi Stern suggests a 1-10 ratio of those who lionized Archie Bunker vs. the majority who laughed at him. I have no idea if the ratio is accurate but I think the more important analogy is that those who laughed at Bunker also represented a population engaged in politics and the issues of the day.…

Rabbi Grossman and some of our respondents worry that the character of Borat will be taken as anti-Kazakh, which in turn triggers a mind-numbing satiric chain to untangle: a Jew mocking Kazakhs mocking Jews… In fact, one of the most salient aspects of Baron Cohen’s performance is that he rarely gives an interview out of…

I think Rabbi Grossman’s analogy to Archie Bunker is excellent! Did many white 50-year-old men identify with Archie, thereby creating a racist cultural icon? Sure they did, but for every 50-year-old white racist bigot laughing along with Archie there were 10 people under the age of 50 who were laughing at him. More important, the…

Truth be told, my first three years watching Sacha Baron Cohen was spent fast-forwarding through Borat on to Ali G. And for the last year or two Bruno has replaced Ali G as my favorite character. But recently–maybe only the last six months or so–I have gained a new-found appreciation for that Khazakh Borat. Whatever,…

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