Do Women Find Borat Funny?

Gail Dines, a Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Wheelock College in Boson, has published a sharp critique of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat movie.   In CounterPunch magazine, Professor Dines argues:

[W]hen Cohen makes misogynist jokes about rape, prostitution and incest, they feel anything but funny. Okay, so Cohen may well be trying to satirize American sexism by unveiling the dark side of American men but when the audience laughs, I feel rage because I know that some of the men in the audience may well be on the prowl that night ….

Violence against women, unlike violence against Jews, is a major public health issue of our time and the costs to women makes it a very unfunny topic. In recent school shootings, girls were specifically targeted by men, though few newspaper reports highlight this. Had the killer selected only Jews to kill, there would have been a national debate on the resurgence of anti-Semitism in America …. In Borat, the jokes about women dying (his wife), being raped (his sister) or being stalked by a crazed fan (Pamela Anderson) are passed off as business as usual in the life of being a woman….

I do know that the fear I feel in the world is because of my gender, not my religion. This is what separates me, a Jewish woman, from Sasha Baron Cohen, a Jewish man.

Professor Dines’ full article is available here.

-Posted by Bridget Crawford