In recent days since the Borat movie became an international sensation there have been many people who were in the film coming out of the woodwork and making their voice heard. First 2 of the 3 drunken frat boys filed a lawsuit, then it was the inhabitants of the town that stood in for Kazakhstan who are threatening legal action. Now comes the news that the lady from the etiquette school has filed a complaint against the movie as it relates to unfair trade practices, with a possible lawsuit in the works. To me, these people seem to be quite disingenuous in their intentions, especially since this movie has made a boatload of money since it opened. My guess is that it would never have resulted in lawsuits all over the place had it flamed out in theatres, but because there’s money being made, here comes the lawyers.

In the first case of the drunken frat boys they claimed that they signed a contract while drunk, then acted and said things that they wouldn’t normally do or say had they been sober. This is garbage. Drinking does tend to loosen your inhibitions, but it doesn’t put prejudices in your head that weren’t already there to begin with. It just makes you more forthcoming in mentioning these things. You don’t all of the sudden become a male chauvinist and a racist because you drank some Jaegger. These guys seem to be the typical drunken frat boy stereotype and now they are crying about it because they’ve been outed as such. The lesson to be learned here is to not be an idiot on camera, as the repercussions can last a very long time.

The inhabitants of the town of Glod, Romania are crying foul because they feel the movie makers took advantage of them. From the couple of articles I’ve read on this people were paid roughly $5.75 USD for their work in the film. While this does seem like a pittance, consider the local economy there. There are only 4 people who have jobs in the town. According to this article one of the townspeople with jobs makes $132 USD a month. Lets assume a 40/hr work week and 160 hours worked in a month. That works out to $.83/hr. And that was for one of the people who had a job. Paying these people $5.75 for their work doesn’t seem that outlandish when looked at in those terms. They also donated televisions and computers to the community as well and paid people for the use of their houses. To me this doesn’t seem as horrible as they want to make it out to be. This production wasn’t a huge budget movie, so paying on scale with the local economy doesn’t seem that out of sorts. The people of the town said they feel embarrassed by how they were portrayed, but in actuality they were paid extras. They weren’t even from Kazakhstan. I’m sure if they hadn’t made a big deal of it probably nobody would have even known where Glod was. Again the lesson learned is that if you don’t want to look foolish on camera, don’t take money and sign releases from people who want you to do just that.

In the third case with the etiquette teacher, I think she came off very well in this whole venture. She did her job, instructed Borat on etiquette and came off as competent in this capacity. I don’t think her appearance in the movie necessarily reflected poorly on her at all. My guess is that she’ll get more business as a result of the movies success then anything else.

I don’t really think any of these lawsuits will result in anything major. Many of the people come off as transparent in their attempt to make money off the success of this film. These people all agreed and signed waivers about their appearance in the film. Now that they’ve been made a spectacle of to the world it’s simply sour grapes. Suck it up, you made your bed, lie in it.

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