Andy Kauffman LIVES . . .

. . . as Sacha Baron Cohen.

When my husband brought my attention to Borat and suggested that his creator, Sacha Baron Cohen, was Andy Kauffman all over again, I thought he was referring to similarities between Borat and Kaufman's character, Foreign Man.

Yesterday, we went to see Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

At several points during the movie, my husband said "Now THAT was set up." I finally said "The whole thing is set up - it's a movie!" He said "No, a lot of these people didn't know they were going to be in a movie."

What the hell does that mean? Was not the presence of camera people a give-away clue???

My husband explained that many people were misled with regards to the kind of movie it was going to be. They were told that it was a documentary about a Kazakhstani man traveling across America.

Some of the scenes were so outrageous, such as the photographs of the genitals of Borat's son being shown to the etiquette coach, the singing of the Kazakhstan national anthem to the tune of the American national anthem, and so on.

Apparently, most of the participants of the movie had no idea what they were doing. For instance, members of the Veteran Feminists of America thought they were being given an opportunity to further women's rights for third world women.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6071486.stm

Here is Borat's website: http://borat.tv

The movie was a lot funnier when I believed the participants were all actors. But now that I know it was just mean humor, it's not funny. There was a line in "Man On The Moon" in which Danny DeVito's character (Kaufman's agent) says Andy's humor isn't funny because Andy is the only one laughing.

It's the same reason I don't like Rick Mercer's "Laughing At Americans." It's just mean.