Wednesday, November 08, 2006

The funny and the sacred.

I went to see the Borat movie tonight and my head is all over the place. Dont really know what to make of some bits of it, so I am just planning to type on till I can make some sense of it.
To be honest I actually made the decision not to go and see it last week, cause I thought it was wrong to laugh at guys who were been humilated and used on camera. I read an article on the BBC, which said that a lot of the guys in the film didnt know what they were in for. I guess I thought that it wouldnt be a thing Jesus would do or a thing that would glorify him.
What changed my mind was that some course mates who I feel like I neglected were going so I thought it would be great to spend some time with them. I wasnt 100% sure if my decision was the right thing to do, but I thought my motives were good and my heart was in the right place. I did think that some bits of the film were hilarious, but I couldnt laugh at a lot of it. The crude sexual jokes about his sister being a prostitute and the jokes about his underage wife. The worst bit was the 10 minute long scene with the two naked men fighting in a hotel room. I had my eyes shut for most of that.
All I have typed about was hard to watch, but the hardest bits were near the end. He went into an American Pentecostal Church during the service and I dont really know what to make of what I saw. The guys in there were all hyped up, raising their arms in the air and running around inside during the service. They were speaking in tongues and the pastor lay his hands on Borat whilst he was doing this. He fell over, his tongue started wagging, maybe he was pretending he was touched by the Holy Spirit. I dont know. Several things trouble me about this scene.
1) I understand that different Christians worship in differnt ways but I just cant help wandering if running around like you are in race during praise and shouting and getting all hyped up during a service is of God. I dont profess to be an expert but It just appears to be people acting crazy.
2)I believe that the Holy Spirit is at work today and that people can speak in tongues and miracles do happen, but I just suspect that often it can just be for a show. Anyways, I thought you had to have an interpretation whenever that happened. Didnt see that happening.
3) What I take issue most with is Cohen himself. I could be wrong in this, but I dont mind taking the mic out of the silly things us Christians do, but taking the mic out of the Holy Spirit is too far. Also I think he appeared to accept Jesus into his life in the film, which just takes it too far. At the end of the film, he made a comment that because all Kazahs became christians after his return, they didnt chase jews anymore but crucificied people. Wouldnt be a strectch of the imagination to think that was a reference to Jesus.
The point I am trying to make through this rant was that in hindsight I think I was wrong in seeing the movie and that even though I love a laugh, some things cannot and shouldnt be taken the mic out of.
Hope this made sense. It would be cool to get opinions on it if you seen the film or just generally.

Looking forward to Houseparty.

God Bless,

Okiki

1 Comments:

At 10:44 AM, Blogger Daniel Hames said...

Good example of decent, intelligent, throrough engagement with a film, Keeks.

 

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