He
blamed the world’s wars on the Jews and not only won the weekend,
but his new movie opened bigger than “Braveheart.” The word
is that Disney is launching a campaign to promote him for an
Oscar, with the subtext that an anti‑Semitic rant isn’t
nearly as bad as what Woody Allen or Roman Polanski did.
So
what do these kids have to worry about? Compared to Mel?
The
issue in all of these “Borat” lawsuits is the validity of waivers
drafted to stand up in precisely these circumstances. The reason
most of these plaintiffs are relying on oral representations
is because
otherwise, based on what they signed, they lose. That’s not
a good position to be in, if you know what I mean.
Moreover,
when you’re trying to quash free speech in advance of a full
trial on the merits, which is essentially what the college boys
are trying to do, the burden is especially heavy. Demanding
that a judge take a scissors to a movie, pretrial, no less,
is an extraordinary sort of remedy. It requires, as Judge Biderman
properly recognized, a showing both that the party seeking that
kind of relief is (very) likely to win on the merits and that
money damages would be inadequate to compensate him for the
loss.
Neither
was established here, nor is it easy to see that they could
be.
In
Mr. Gibson’s case, it is becoming astonishingly clear that his
anti‑Semitic rant may not have cost him or Disney at all,
in terms of damages. Nikki Finke reports in her “Deadline Hollywood
Daily”
column that the weekend box‑office estimate of $14.2 million
far exceeded both the star’s and the studio’s expectations.
Why
no price to pay?
Here
these poor boys are worried
about a racist rant, and Mel Gibson is laughing all the way
to the bank.
It’s
not what it says about him, but what it says about us that troubles
me.
Do
we not care how he behaved? Why are we laughing at the “Borat”
boys if we’re all headed to “Apocalypto” the next weekend?
Have
I been missing Woody Allen movies for all these years for no
reason at all?
Was
it because it was “mere” anti‑Semitism, and America doesn’t
really care about that? Would it have made any difference if
it were another group, another race, that were insulted? Where
is Borat when we need him?
One
of the messages of “Borat” is to underscore the prevalence of
anti‑Semitism, both of the European
and American version. The “Running of the Jew” and the “running
of the mouth” are both expertly engineered by Sacha Baron Cohen,
himself an observant Jew who has stepped out of character with
the press to underscore his commitment to addressing issues
of anti‑Semitism.
After
Mel Gibson’s famous rant, the silence in Hollywood among top
studio executives– with the notable exception of Sony’s Amy
Pascal–was stunning. Why was it so difficult for so many, so
many of them Jews themselves, to say anything?
Because
of personal relationships, or because they accurately predicted
future box office? Because that’s all they cared about, even
then?
The
“Borat” boys are claiming lost job opportunities because of
their racist rants.
