Borat lawsuits Options

[pebkac]

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=1693042006

Well, this apparently answers the question of how much of the show was staged. Apparently, most of the people in the show were informed they were going to be on TV (kind of hard for them not to know that considering there was a camera watching them the whole time), but weren't told exactly what was going to happen.

But apparently the college frat boys and the hotel clerk are suing....

The hotel publicity manager had expected to be featured in a Central Asian travel TV segment when Borat, fresh from a lesson in street dress from a group of young black Americans, turned up with pants pulled down and white underwear showing.

Calling Davis "vanilla face", Borat tried to book a room while uttering profanities.

Not so for two University of South Carolina fraternity brothers who are shown guzzling alcohol and making racist and sexist remarks. They sued the studio and producers for fraud, saying the filmmakers duped them into appearing in the movie by getting them drunk.

However, it is nice to know that SOME people do have a sense of humor...

"I think he's a comic genius," said Patrick Haggerty, a public speech coach featured in the movie trying to teach Borat how to tell a joke.

"When I first shook hands with him I said to myself 'this guy is really weird but that is life.' But about 15 or 20 minutes into the filming I really started to smell a rat."I went up to the director and I said 'Why don't you let me in on the gag? I know there's a gag'. He said 'No, no, no, no, you misunderstand. You're doing fine. This guy needs your help."

New York artist Linda Stein, who appeared in the movie throwing Borat out of her studio after a botched conversation about feminism, is confused by Baron Cohen's tactics.

"I was so earnest in my desire to help women and to teach what I thought was an uneducated man perhaps from a tribal community," she told Reuters. "I wish him luck even though he's not going to need my luck with $26 million in one weekend."