The Anti-Defamation League takes its vigilance to extreme lengths. Now they are warning about the dangers of comedy that is too high-brow for everyone to understand. For example, the movie Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan features an anti-Semitic character from Kazakhstan named Borat. Borat is created and played by a Jewish comedian named Sacha Baron Cohen.
The ADL worries that not everyone will understand the satirical nature of Cohen’s sketch, fearing the humor to be dangerously too sophisticated for some: “When approaching this film, one has to understand that there is absolutely no intent on the part of the filmmakers to offend, and no malevolence on the part of Sacha Baron Cohen, who is himself proudly Jewish. We hope that everyone who chooses to see the film understands Mr. Cohen’s comedic technique, which is to use humor to unmask the absurd and irrational side of anti-Semitism and other phobias born of ignorance and fear.
“We are concerned, however, that one serious pitfall is that the audience may not always be sophisticated enough to get the joke, and that some may even find it reinforcing their bigotry,” the press release elaborated.
You be the judge.