I came accross a very interesting blog post entitled “Borat is no Ali G” in 3Quarksdaily.
Ram Manikkalingam, a professor of political science at the University of Amsterdam, makes an important cultural argument about communication:
“The way we get along in strange places is by depending on the interpretive charity of strangers. We expect that they will make amends for our mistakes – linguistic and/or cultural – and assist us in interpreting a different world. What is remarkable is how well this works, seldom leading to complete failure to comprehend each other in the midst of linguistic and cultural difference. It works because when we come across people with whom we struggle to communicate, they also struggle back.”
After reading this blog post, I revisited some of the scenes from Borat, which made me realize how much people go out of their ways to help “others” (whether they are in England, USA or Kazakhstan).
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0dbSdZc0Cg[/youtube]
Manikkalingam reminds us that this mutual struggle is also about “suspending the judgement” and is the basis of the success of communication:
“Success in communicating depends on the willingness to suspend judgment during those crucial initial moments when you are not certain that you understand exactly what the other person is saying. And this is exactly what Borat exploits to pull his stunt – the human propensity to communicate in ways that make us seek to understand each other better, even if we may not ultimately agree. He does this by exaggerating exactly the kind of cultural difference – accent, gesture, walk and attitude – that would make any interlocutor assume a high likelihood of miscommunication, thus ensuring that they would give him even more latitude in making the most outrageous comments about women, Jews, Muslims and others, who may come to mind.”
In the movie Borat, Cohen takes advantage of this human effort to communicate with the “other” in a variety of settings: in the Hamptons vs. in a village in Kazakhstan. But the effect is very different. In the Hamptons we laugh at the homophobic attitudes of the members of a priviledged class, in the village in Kazakhstan we laugh at the “strange” habits and the empoverished living conditions. It is clear that the laughter does not erase the inequalities (by making both sides equally ridiculous). On the contrary, it deepens the divide.
However, the question about communication remains: what to do with our preconceived ideas when we communicate with others?
Well, this is my first time watching Borat in action, thanks to the YouTube insert, and I think he is “exploiting the tolerance towards the ‘other’” well enough. I would never had the patience of his interlocutors, for sure. And, after all, I do not think he wants to communicate at all; what he does is comedy, indeed farce, and there is no genuine need or desire on his part to make himself understood, on the contrary, he exploits all the possible opportunities for misunderstanding.
I do like the idea of the “willingness to suspend judgment,” though; it reminds me of Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief” as the primary requisite for any act of the imagination and for reading literature. I hope that many of us remain willing enough to suspend our judgment and honor our interlocutors with the gift of our patience. (I’ve just finished reading Eric Hobsbawm’ Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism, and I am obviously “under the influence” of his rather bleak diagnosis of our contemporary world where what we eminently lack is precisely tolerance and respect for others and the wish to, indeed, communicate with them.)