Movie Suggestion: Borat

           When beginning the process of trying to pick a movie that will aid in the definition of comedy that we have began to develop through the plays and articles that we have read, one observation seemed to stand out.  That observation was that many of the comedies that we have read is making fun of the characters themselves.  In this was many of them are based on satire.  Rather it is a comedy criticizing the justice system as in “The Beaver Coat” or women’s roles as in “Lysistrata”, it is a common theme throughout.  This observation is what led me to suggest the film “Borat” to watch as a class.

            I just recently watched “Borat” and almost felt guilty for giggling at some of the incredibly offensive things that it said.  I can imagine that the audience of many of the plays that we have read may have said the same thing.  In “Lysistrata”, it was humorous to think that women tried to end the war by withholding sex, yet I am a female, and it is almost degrading to think that that is how society viewed women’s power.

            “Borat” holds many of the same satirical elements.  The same element that is so offensive is the element that creates its appeal.  “Borat” criticizes our entire way of living, but does so by making us laugh.  An international man travels around the country, but the people he interacts with do not know exactly what type of movie is being created.  Using this technique, the main character, Borat, gets people to admit to bigotry towards homosexuals and demeaning views of women.  He pretends to have the same views and says outrageously offensive comments that provide the comedy, but reveals exactly what is wrong with America (some would say).  We are laughing as how women are only good for sex due to the ridiculous presentation, but it is common people who are admitting to this.  If the same idea was portrayed in a documentary, people would highly reject it.  Although, this does happen to an extent to the movie “Borat”, it provides many with giggles that the documentary would not. 

            There are many other examples in the movie that would both make your cringe and laugh.  The plays that we have read so far probably caused the same reaction in the audience.  Although, the social topics differ (mainly due to differences in society culture/ morals) the effect is the same. 

Naturalistic Comedy

Hauptmann’s play, The Beaver Coat, is written based on the concept of combining early European Naturalism and Realism into a comedy based on everyday life.  The author uses infinitesimal details, down to how people walk and stand, to describe the scene and set the tone for the play. Many, many elements that are defined are not necessarily pertinent to the story, but in the big picture, those details help focus the reader on the way Prussian people lived during the 1880s, and the activities that happen while looking for the truth becomes more important than actually finding the truth. I think this is one reason there is no definite ending. Sarcasm is much more common in this work than a straight answer, and people’s reactions to everyday actions are very comical. Mother Wolff is portrayed as a female ‘Robin Hood’ archetype, ‘just doing what she has to, to survive’, for herself and her family. This lets the audience be more vested in the story and the outcome, although the lack of finale is almost annoying. I feel the author portrayed this story as real life would normally happen, because real life goes on, and people find different, never-ending paths in their journey. That is extremely natural and realistic.

I replied to an earlier post that it was a little disappointing to read a story with so much detail and nothing left to the imagination, but I feel Hauptmann’s use of naturalism, realism, and comedy combined is brilliant, and really makes up for the hanging ending that the audience is not accustomed to in other comedies during that time.

The Beaver Coat: A Satirical Play

                The play “The Beaver Coat”, to me, was obviously satirical.  Satire is defined as the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose or criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics or topical issues (Google Definitions).  The idea or persons that “The Beaver Coat” used satire to mock was the judgment system, or court, to me.  It should be said that I came to this conclusion with little to no knowledge about the time or setting that this play was written in.   The judge in the play, Judge Wehrhahn, seems very smug and is blinded by his drive to rid the village of Democrats or free thinkers (I must admit I am not too sure of what category of people he despises).  The conclusion of mocking the justice mainly comes from a quote from the play, “… It is simply disgraceful for a police official to permit himself to be deceived by anyone…” (Act II).   

The author, Gerhart Hauptmann, chose for the justice to say this and many other things of the same effect while the basis of the play is an average woman misleading him.


The justice, who as he hints, should have superior instinct into a person’s character; however, he does not. In fact, he trusts the characters in the play that deceive him the most, and are not high standing members of the community. Usually, one would think, a rich squire and a doctor would be honored within a society and trusted (Hauptmann, it could be said, uses these professions to reinforce the honorability and contrast it with the known scalawag, Motes, to make the satirical element that much more obvious). Judge Wehrhahn however does not trust Mr. Kruger or Dr. Fleischer. In fact, he finds Mr. Kruger annoying and does not do much to aid him in any way that is not required of him by law and is suspicious of Dr. Fleischer from the very beginning. This initial role reversal of characters that is trusted by the judge could be interpreted as mocking the court system of the time. It is only reinforced by the chicanery of Mrs. Wolff and how easily she deceives him and also by the role of Motes. Motes is known as the most hated man in town who does not pay off his debts and is also a favorite of the judge.





In conclusion, the “should-be-insightful-and-fair” judge is exactly the opposite. He trusts the most deceiving and guilty people while pointing his finger and being the most harsh on the respectable members of society. Hauptmann could be using the judge to portray his feelings on the entire court system in essence saying that the court is so focused on one thing that it is easily persuaded by the most astucious people.

Lysistrata- Debunking the Presence of a Feminist Agenda

          As some have by now surely pointed out, Lysistrata might appear to the modern audience to have a somewhat feminist/pro-matriarchal agenda, as admittedly was also my initial impression. However, it surely cannot be so, and I would argue that the purpose of the play was surely more satire than feminist-agenda. There are two details in the play that, when they are compared with what I would consider the typical feminist agenda, reveal inconsistencies in the plot that don't allow for the presence of such an agenda. Let me clarify: these particular inconsistencies are not criticisms of the plot itself; on the contrary, I thought it was amusing. However, if one is looking at the play through the lens of the feminist agenda, the faults become increasingly evident as the play proceeds.

           In the ancient world, nearly all societies were considered patriarchal, which means that things were both run and done in a very masculine regard. Wars were a source of revenue, men were the only ones given the privilege of serving in the military, and in almost all cases, were the exclusive subjects of artwork, literature, and history. (There were a few exceptions, granted, such as in the case of Hypatia, the mistress of Pericles, but they were so few in number in comparison that little is left to doubt as to the presence of strong record-favorability.) The Greeks regarded the female forms as “defective males,” possibly even going so far as to suggest the birth of a woman the result of improper heating of the growing child in the womb of the mother. (Coincidentally, they could have attributed womankind’s seemingly eternal state of “It’s freezing in here” to this idea.) They even had a term for the perfection and idealization of the male existence, called Arȇte. It should be noted, however, that in Greek society, women had more rights than they had ever had before in almost the entirety of human history, but it still wasn't anywhere close to the level of modern-day gender-equality that we experience. The point to be made is this: even at this time in history, Greek playwrights certainly weren’t going to write for women. At the same time, they probably wouldn't seriously suggest, and to a largely male audience at that, that women could run the government better than the men; that suggestion wouldn’t fall in line with the opinions of the age, and certainly wouldn't have garnered much of an audience.

If that didn't convince you, let's take a look at the whole point of the feminine agenda. Most would argue that in a work designed to promote the favorability of women over men in the making of ancient-world political decisions, it would be unwise to give the audience any reason to believe that the smart, strong-willed women protagonists had any kind of defining trait, or motivation, that they shared with their baboon-like, sexually-driven male counterparts. However, in the play, the reasoning behind the beginning of the coup-de-etat spawned from what seemed to be a very masculine issue: sexual starvation. Now, don’t get me wrong, both men and women obviously have basic, biological desires for certain kinds of… relief… but the idea of sexual starvation is one that most people commonly associate with men, simply because men have a higher sex-drive, on average, than women do. (Don’t believe me? Comedians joke about this subject all the time, there are segments of the Bible that discuss the issue of wives denying their husbands, and so on and so forth.) In my opinion, to give the women this very masculine motivation for their scheme in the first place would seem to undermine their femininity, and by extension, also the potential for a feminist agenda.

           My opinion as to the purpose of this play is possibly a little more sarcastic than it would appear in the modern world. I think the play served as a method by which the author wanted to show that things in the Greek government were getting so bad regarding war that a bunch of women could do things better. It would be like saying “A bunch of five-year-olds could run this university better…” In this case, the women merely serve as the placeholder for anything “less than” a Greek man and his Athenian government. The sexual motives in the play? Merely a vessel (and one that certainly everyone in the audience can easily understand) by which the point can be delivered to the audience: we want these stupid wars to end.

(Disclaimer: I happen to love women, and approach feminism the same way I approach masculism: they're both ridiculous and backward. Men and women were intended to exist in harmony. My pastor said once that "Women are better than men... at being women. And men are better than women... at being men." )