Mad props to you for posting these!

Pure comedic Gold, Jerry, Gold I tell you!

respek!!1 *dip snap*

He is f**kin’ brilliant! I have never laughed so hard as I when I’m watching the Ali G show … and Bruno is priceless!

Not that I have any hip credentials to worry about losing, but I simply don’t see what is funny about Sacha. Yes, he is terrific at making people look ridiculous. Yes, it seems to work better when he picks on the powerful than when he is picking on ordinary folks. But, really the whole shtick is just laughing at people trying to be polite and hoping if they play along the crazy man go away. I don’t get it.

Not that that makes me boring and old! As Sgt. Hulka said, “I have a helluva sense of humor!”

fardel:

Yeah, seconded. Have only seen Borat, but I didn’t get into the whole pointless nastiness of it. He has a right to be pointlessly nasty, I just don’t get anything out of it comedically.

He has his moments but he’s no Chris Morris, who was doing this sort of thing but with meaning years ago. See Paedogeddon!

It took me a while to get into SBC, I must admit. I first saw him as Ali G, and thought he was a tosspot of major proportions. But after watching a bit more (admittedly involuntarily), I came to see that he’s actually a very talented satirist. It’s not just that he’s pointlessly nasty, it’s that he’s exposing some of the absurdity of aspects of life that we never really reflect on. And that’s a very valuable skill, and one far too rare.

He does this not as Swift does, by using the language and the reasoning of the targets, but by letting the targets themselves do most of it. And I think the best part is that he also shows the goodness in some people, as he did in the first clip: these guys show themselves as willing to make themselves look foolish in a good cause, where far too many politicians would rate their own image (or even just their convenience) more important.

I think, overall, he holds up a mirror to society, showing us the unexamined bad, and the unexpected good. We need more of that, and less thoughtless cruelty, in our humour.

there are three shows that do the same thing these days (all on HBO)
larry david show
extras
Ali G

they humiliate people in public for laughs. now, you can see there’s a slight difference between 1 of these and the others in that Ali G is “real”, sort of. at least he is belittling people who often are not powerful, although sometimes as a group they have power (e.g. a bunch of people at a country bar singing “throw the jew down the well”). larry david and extras (literally the exact same show but from different countries both use humiliation of the main character (plus one sidekick) for almost all the comedy. in this, they both update the greatest example of this in entertainment history: the jerry lewis mansion scene from King of Comedy. those who remember that scene upon reflection will realize that it is EXACTLY what happens week after week on extras and LDshow (shit, throw in Fat Actress as well, and even Louis CK did some of this on his show). i used to wish that people could engender that kind of train-wreck-watching emotional feeling more often–it seemed King of Comedy was never going to be followed up.

now we have a surfeit of such shows, and it is just too much. i don’t deny that ali g, ricky gervais, and larry david are all comic geniuses–they clearly are. but they hit the same note over and over and over and over and over and i just can’t take it anymore. it’s too vicious, too harsh, too punk rock for me. i guess i’m a pussy or something, but at a certain point enough is enough. and that’s usually about episode 3 of any of these shows.

Gore Vidal playing island black is revolting. (To think I had sex with that guy!)

“Lighten up Francis!”

/Sgt. Hulka

I still love the part where the kids join the parade to smash the Jew Egg.

Oops. Uh, yeah, me too.

You know you’ve arrived when Bruno offers to take it up der schtinker from you.

he’s no Chris Morris

Indeed, indeed.

Big Up Yourself. Respek!