The Art of the Insult

Richard and I went to the Dendy Newtown last night to see the Borat movie. I was SO in need of a good laugh, it was wonderful. There was a woman in the row behind us braying like a donkey for much of the time, but I enjoyed that too. The movie is just so incredibly politically incorrect... potentially insulting to just about everyone. There was only one scene that worried me. At a Southern dinner party Borat declares that the women sitting either side of him (a heavily made-up redhead & a glamorous blonde) would be very popular in his home country. He then adds that the other woman at the table, a quiet person with short grey hair, would be popular not so much. There was a longish silence. For me, this was the one place in the movie where he went too far. Perhaps that's the key to this sort of very confronting comedy - always taking it too far for someone. George Saunders has written a brilliant "memo" in The New Yorker - I recommend it as an antidote to the movie if you're planning to see it.