Naughty, Naughty!

Lawsuits, everyone! Lawsuits!

For the uninitiated, in the movie Borat is picked up on the road by three frat boys who are quite clearly drunk (but really not THAT drunk…somewhat toasted but still lucid and coherent) and start asking Borat questions like, “Hey, are women slaves in your country?” When he answers no, and asks if they have slaves in America, they respond, “No, but we should!” They also make many more sexist comments along the way, in the end encouraging Borat to “never let a woman make you who you are!”

Now, two of the three kids involved are suing the filmmakers, claiming that they got them liquored up at a bar before filming, assured them that it was part of a real documentary, and that it would “only be seen outside the United States.” They then said that “they engaged in behavior they would not have otherwise engaged in.”

Uh-huh.

A.) Logic states that for the footage to be seen in the film, the guys in question would have to have signed some kind of release. Seeing as how the film’s distributor is Fox, my gut tells me that puppy’s gotta be airtight.

B.) I’m SURE that as college kids they are fine, upstanding young men who have NEVER before let alcohol touch their lips and would never, ever have gotten drunk of their own accord, without the help of a group of filmmakers forcing, LITERALLY FORCING, that devil’s juice down their throats.

C.) Sacha Baron Cohen may not be a household name (before last weekend, anyway), but he’d played the character of Borat for quite a while on the “Ali G Show” before ever starting the movie. Any self-respecting college kid probably should have known he wasn’t “making a real documentary.”

D.) Now, if we accept the reality that they thought it was a real doc, drunk or no, they should have known better before tossing around such tasteful bon mots like “we should have slavery here in America” with a movie camera rolling nearby.

And, most of all…

E.) They’re filing this lawsuit EXACTLY when the movie is widening it release, giving it MORE publicity leading into the weekend and probably sending even more folks into the theatres to watch them humiliate themselves, as folks will now KNOW that actual frat boys, not actors, are saying those things.

Yep. What Chief Wiggum would say with conviction, I say with sarcasm: “That’s nice work, boys.”