Baby Borat
Posted: March 25th, 2007 | Author: kristen from motherload | Filed under: Husbandry, Miss Kate | No Comments »Mark and I had a sort of marital standoff about seeing the Borat movie. He’s a huge fan of Sacha Baron Cohen’s show, and–call me crazy–but it makes me uncomfortable watching someone interview a Bishop and asking them questions about sex with animals and such. To me it’s not funny, it’s painful. But Mark–and evidently millions of other Americans–find it uproarious.
So when we were in North Carolina for Thanksgiving, and were thankful for having Mark’s mother not only offer to but want to hang out with Kate solo for a few hours to allow us to skip out to a movie, the issue came to a head about the Borat movie.
Ultimately Mark caved. As much as he wanted to see it, he didn’t want to see it sitting next to me if I was going to squirm and sigh and make quiet disapproving noises while chomping on my popcorn. It’s a sad kind of victory when your mate gives into you based on the knowledge that when you don’t get your way you can be so unbearable that it’s better to just give you your way.
But be that as it may, I won.
Sadly, the movie pickin’s were slim. It’s the typical scenario like those rare times when your parents were feeling generous when you were mall-shopping as a kid. When every other shopping adventure left you desperate to own something that would change your life it was so great but you couldn’t get it, when you had the green light to shop you never found anything you really liked. But you bought something anyway, because you could. And like that, Mark and I still went to a movie. I mean, how often do we get to do this without spending a small fortune on a babysitter? Like all my friends with kids before me said, it really does make a good case for waiting for movies to come out on DVD.
It’s shameful what we settled on, and worse, how the whole afternoon panned out. I am, or rather was, a huge Jack Black fan. (Wither the days of High Fidelity?) So we went to see some abominable movie that he was in with his Tenacious D band mate. The movie was clearly for 15-year-old stoners. I mean, the opening credits were an animation of people farting, propelled around the screen like wayward balloons by the amount of gas they were expelling.
But we had hope. We had a babysitter and we were free!
Alas, the movie droned on. Painfully. So painfully in fact that our bad decision to see it in the first place was made more glaringly evident as each minute passed. Somehow through whispers in the dark we managed to come to the joint conclusion that cutting our losses and leaving mid-way would be the best tactic. We returned to a house full of Mark’s relatives, our heads hung low with shame. “How was the movie?” they all chimed in excitedly, knowing what a treat it was for us to get to one. I almost felt tempted to lie.
Well, shameful for us, but as an actor, you’ve got to be embarrassed about being in a movie that the parents of a baby–people who adore movies and never get out to them–are compelled to walk out of.
God, Jack Black. Fire your agent, dude.
Of course, this whole scenario just provided Mark with more Borat ammo. Every time any friend relayed some scene from the movie to us, and when we were quiet and they’d ask us if we’d seen it, Mark would just sigh and look at me with big cow eyes. “No, no, we didn’t,” he’d say, his voice heavy with regret. Sometimes he’d mention the other movie we saw instead. And sometimes he didn’t even need to say anything.
So once the Borat movie came out on DVD I was, of course, backed into a marital corner. What option had I other than to consent to bringing the awful DVD into our home? At least it would save Mark from the social stigma of not being able to chat with friends and coworkers about the movie if it ever were to come up in conversation years from now–it being so terribly past the point when all other humans had already seen it.
And I have to admit. It wasn’t that bad. It certainly wasn’t half as bad as that other movie, the name of which I’ve committed to deep repression.
At any rate, just when I thought we’d buried the whole Borat plot line from the McClusky family existence, Kate picked up a small verbal affectation. When she’s bidding her adieus to people, or inanimate objects as is sometimes the case, Kate lets lose a Bah-Biiiyeee that is a remarkably uncanny imitation of Borat. I mean, she did it at Macy’s yesterday to the saleswoman in the Faconnable area. And as I stooped down to pick up the hat that Kate’d dropped I muttered something under my breath about Mama’s little Borat, which the saleswoman heard and squealed, “Oh my God! She does sound like him! How funny!”
Adorable, I think as we trudge off, as Kate, excited that the woman is laughing and smiling at her, smiles back a huge grin and calls out another, “Ba-Biiiiyeee!” over her shoulder. The woman chuckles and shakes her head as she reaches to ring up the clothes of the next person in line saying, “Did you hear that little girl? She sounds just like Borat!”
Wonderful. Just the sort of thing I’d hoped for my daughter. This sort of karmic backlash will teach me to give into Mark’s preferences a little more often. When the next Lord of the Rings movie comes out, I will feign enthusiasm and put aside whatever “good” movie it is that I’d rather seen. Better that then risking Kate taking on some dwarfish Hobbit-like qualities that I’ll never live down.
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