Kerching! How British comedies are conquering America

Blackleaf

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Oct 9, 2004
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British comedies are once again taking America - and the world - by storm. It seems that the Americans love our rude, non-politically correct type of humour. We've always had the greatest sense of humour.

The Sunday Times







November 05, 2006

Focus: Kerching! How British comics beat the world

Never before have British comics made so much money so quickly. Richard Woods on how Borat, Pollard, Brent & Co have conquered America and ushered in a new (and terribly rude) style of comedy







It must be the biggest mass mugging in history. This weekend America is waking up to the fact that a lone British comedian, armed with no more than a false moustache and a chicken in his suitcase, has exposed the superpower as never before.

The perpetrator appears in the hit “movie-film” Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, which opened in America and Britain on Friday. In fact “opened” is too kind a word: the film, which took nearly $9m in the US in its first night, leading one critic to predict it could break comedy box-office records, has arrived more like a proctologist’s finger up America’s rear in search of its irony gland (the British see Americans as not being able to understand irony).

It presents the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat, a hapless television reporter from Kazakhstan making a documentary about the “US and A”. It shows him driving across the country mangling the English language and confronting unsuspecting politicians, preachers, feminists and everyday citizens with his sex-mad, mysogynistic, homophobic, anti-semitic, gypsy-bashing views as if these are normal in his country.

“Is it not a problem that the woman have a smaller brain?” asks Borat of a group of feminists. “The government scientist has proved it is size of squirrel.”

When one of the feminists looks appalled, he advises: “Hey pussycat, smile a bit.”

Fans say it’s all designed to mock prejudices in others by revealing what is really under their skin. On the other hand, critics say it’s Jeremy Beadle with a silly accent.

Whatever your view, the film manages to be gross, crude and funny, while flying a couple of jumbo jets into the twin towers of political correctness and cultural sensitivity. It’s also going to make Baron Cohen, who created Borat, a fortune.

British comedy is hitting home in the US on an unprecedented scale. Last week Hollywood handed Baron Cohen £22m to make a film about another of his outrageous characters, Bruno, a gay Austrian fashion fanatic.

Celebtastic wealth, Borat vows, will not change him. “I try to stay normal persons,” he told one US interviewer. “I still shoot dogs. I drink horse urine with the boys. I’m a regular boy but proud of my new status. I am fourth most popular person in Kazakhstan. Number one is children’s favourite animal actor, Joanie the Monkey, the star of many pornos.”

What is changing is British comedy’s international power and reach. Ricky Gervais has reaped a Golden Globe and a cash pile the size of Slough from selling The Office to the US and has lured Robert De Niro to appear in his latest series, Extras.

Eddie Izzard is a big live draw on both coasts of the United States. An American version of Little Britain, which boasts a cast of dodgy gay, disabled and ageist characters, is due next year. And the hot topic in Los Angeles is how to transport Steve Coogan’s character Alan Partridge Stateside.

As these British inventions go west, the frontiers of comedy are shifting, too. After years of being veiled by political correctness, comedians are now finding ways to mullah everyone and everything. Sometimes it wobbles perilously between humour and offence, but audiences for Borat last week were heading for rib fractures, not the exit.

“British comedy is now one of the hottest things in Hollywood,” said Stephen Armstrong, the Sunday Times critic and Edinburgh Festival comedy judge. “The staggering wealth pouring in is something that has never happened before to British comedy.”

In the 1980s and 1990s it was very different. American sitcoms were television’s equivalent of the 101st Airborne: they got parachuted in to sort out troublespots all over the place. Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Friends, they could spew gags with a machinegun slickness beyond British fare.

In the late 1990s came a turning point. A satirical sketch series started on Channel 4 called The 11 O’Clock Show. Taped on the day of transmission to ensure topicality, it ran three nights a week. It satirised the news using spoof interviews and mocking vox-pops. Although it was not a ratings success, it was a testing ground for many young talents who are now conquering America.

Since The 11 O’Clock Show required vast quantities of material, few subjects were off-limits. One of the highlights became Ali G, the “voice of black youth”, created by Baron Cohen. Interviewing one official about drugs, Ali G asked: “Does class A guarantee quality?”

Speaking to a bishop, Ali G asked whether Jesus was “a man or a woman”. The bishop replied: “He’s neither a man nor a woman.” Ali G: “Is he a . . . ladyman?”

Audiences laughed at both the targets’ gullibility and the character’s dumb effrontery. But there was a strong political element. Gervais, who was also involved in The 11 O’Clock Show, perfected the style in which sensitive subjects could be addressed by creating characters who failed to see their own faults. In the first episode of The Office, the central figure of David Brent summed this up by announcing: “I haven’t got a sign on the door that says white people only. I don’t care if you’re black, brown or yellow — you know, orientals make very good workers.”

This boldness has spawned other shows and performers who push the boundaries, including Green Wing and The Catherine Tate Show.

“The US has become much more open,” said Jon Thoday, managing director of the comedy producer Avalon. Performers have also become more professional at commercially exploiting their talents.

“Sacha Baron Cohen, for example, has always wanted to work in America. He’s been preparing for it for years.”

Nor is it just in America that British comedians are flourishing. The proliferation of television channels has also accelerated success for programmes such as Smack the Pony, Nighty Night and Monkey Dust.

Have the British given comedy a new edge or are the likes of Borat in danger of making crude fun out of bigotry?

“A decade ago people were walking on eggshells,” said Simon Fanshawe, the writer and comedian. “Now people are realising that if someone makes a joke about a particular group of people, it’s not necessarily hostile; and often the joke they are making is not about the people — it’s about us.

“The thing about Borat, and Ricky Gervais in particular, is that they are really careful about who the object of the humour really is.”

The risk is that some audiences can miss the subtleties. Borat asks one gun dealer in America for a weapon good for killing Jews. “That’ll be a 9mm or a .45,” replies the dealer.

The exchange is meant to highlight how easy it is to let anti-semitism pass, and Baron Cohen himself is Jewish. Yet one poster advertising the film in London last week had provoked a scrawled “I hate Jews”.

What do Kazakhs make of it all? Among those who saw the film last week were Marua Miyanova, 25, who is studying at University College London, and Marat Raimkhanov, 23, who is at the London School of Economics. Miyanova was less than enthralled: “The film was so primitive. I hope that every time I say I am from Kazakhstan people will not think about this film.”

However, Raimkhanov was almost in tears with laughter: “I was not offended at all. Kazakhstan, my country, is much greater than this five-year-old level of humour.”

That, of course, is probably because of all the horse urine they drink.



Hilarious - The wit and wisdom of British humour

I did bring my 11-year-old son Bilak here with his wife who is a similar age. They have recently given born to a baby which we are hoping to sell to singing transvestite Madonna

— Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat


Men who blow themselves up are promised 72 virgins in paradise. That’s a high price to pay for a shag
— Shazia Mirza


Honey bees are amazing creatures. I mean think about it, do earwigs make chutney?
— Eddie Izzard


Some comedians will have picked on other stuff, you know, been more nasty. Like he’s got a little withered hand like Jeremy Beadle — I didn’t mention it. No need
— Ricky Gervais as David Brent

No but yeah but yeah but yeah no but yeah no but yeah ... but no because I’m not even going on the pill ... because Nadine reckons they stop you from getting pregnant

— Matt Lucas as Vicky Pollard


No wonder Bob Geldof is such an expert on famine. He’s been feeding off I Don’t Like Mondays for 30 years
— Russell Brand


I’ve got no problem buying tampons. I’m a modern man. But apparently, they’re not a “proper present”
— Jimmy Carr


Nobody thought Mel Gibson could play a Scot but look at him now! Alcoholic and a racist!
— Frankie Boyle


thetimesonline.co.uk
 
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CDNBear

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Sep 24, 2006
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Ontario
True enough, British humour is a laugh and a half, but does everything from you have to come with a sence of "I hate yankees" in it?

BTW, the blonde in the pink warm up suit, what show is that? I saw it once on the comedy network. Laughed my ass off, and thats a lot of ass.