Borat Gets a New Suit
It was only a matter of time, wasn't it?
Two University of South Carolina students are suing 20th Century Fox, purveyor of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, claiming that they were tricked into engaging in the boorish onscreen behavior that has become the fake Kazakh journalist's stock-in-trade.
The unnamed plaintiffs alleged in their lawsuit filed Thursday in Santa Monica that, by the time they were asked to sign waivers allowing their images to be used in the mockumentary, they were inebriated with alcohol provided for them by the film's crew.
The young men charged the studio with fraud; rescission of contract; statutory and common law false light, for framing their comments to make them appear "insensitive to minorities"; appropriation of likeness; and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
In Borat, which grossed a whopping $26.5 million its opening weekend despite playing in only 837 theaters, the title character gets drunk with three fraternity members in a motor home and watches the infamous Pamela Anderson-Tommy Lee sex tape. A student also comments at one point that "minorities have all the power."
And now, two of Borat's party mates are stating that they have been made "the objects of ridicule, humiliation, mental anguish, and emotional and physical distress" and have suffered "loss of reputation, goodwill and standing in the community."
Obviously the critically lauded delight that is Borat: Cultural Learnings… hasn't opened in their town yet.
According to their court documents, the plaintiffs were told that the film would never screen in the U.S. After being taken to a bar to "loosen up" before shooting their scenes with Borat, the brainchild of British "prankster" Sacha Baron Cohen, they "engaged in behavior that they otherwise would not have engaged in."
Although, isn't the beauty of Borat the fact that his own feigned ignorance usually elicits the most instinctual responses from people, people who don't realize that their interviewer is baiting them to reveal their true colors?
But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, apparently.
Citing the film's financial success to date, the complaint states, "The funny part is when we, the audience, see how these individuals react to him...The problem, however, is that its success rests on the backs of unsuspecting players. This lawsuit seeks to remedy that."
"If you watch the movie, one of them can barely keep his eyes open," the plaintiffs' attorney, Oliver Taillieu, told Variety. "It's pretty obvious to me that these guys did not know what they were getting into."
The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified monetary damages in excess of $25,000 and an injunction preventing 20th Century Fox from displaying their image or likeness.
"The lawsuit has no merit," studio spokesman Gregg Brilliant said Thursday, denying the plaintiffs were tricked into engaging in, well, stereotypical frat-boy behavior. One America Productions, Everyman Pictures and Gold/Miller Productions were also named in the suit.
Chi Psi's national director of operations, Brad Beskin, said in a statement that the fraternity "condemned" the remarks made by the young men in the film. He said that two of them have since graduated from the University of South Carolina and one is still in school.
A fellow frat boy also weighed in, telling the Associated Press that he supported the lawsuit if the guys were really tricked.
"It obviously doesn't make us look good by any stretch of the imagination," Kappa Sigma member Harris Todd, 19, said. "It's definitely not helping any stereotypes that there are about South Carolina, and the South in general."
Meanwhile, Borat's Cultural experiment opens in wide release Friday.
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