Suing Borat

It's starting to look like that, as funny as he is, Sacha Baron Cohen is kind of an asshole. According to the AP, impoverished Romanian villagers were tricked (like everyone else in Borat, to be fair) into all sorts of antics, led to believe that they were participating in a documentary

Residents and local officials in [Glod,] the scruffy hamlet 140 kilometers (85 miles) northwest of Bucharest said Tuesday they were horrified and humiliated to learn their abject poverty and simple ways are ridiculed in a movie now raking in millions at box offices worldwide.

"We thought they came here to help us - not mock us," said Dana Luca, 40, sweeping a manure-stained street lined with shabby homes of crumbling brick and corrugated iron sheeting.

"We haven't got anything here. We haven't got running water. We can't even bathe," she said. "We are poor people, but we are still people."

...

[Their reprsentative] accused the producers of paying locals just 10 or 15 lei (US$3.30 - US$5.50), misleading the village into thinking the movie would be a documentary, refusing to sign proper filming contracts and enticing easily exploited peasants into performing crass acts.

In response, Borat suggested that the blame lies with "the Jew", which, um, happens to be the case here. Thanks, Sacha.

(via Table of Malcontents)

--YY