Posted on 10/29/2007 1:46:29 PM PDT by murdoog
Yet another victim of the 'gotcha' humour of the mega hit movie 'Borat' is taking Sasha Baron Cohen to court - or at least is having a go.
Alabama woman Kathie Martin, who runs an Etiquette School, has filed a lawsuit against the actor and also 20th Century Fox, saying she was emotionally assaulted by Cohen in a scene from the movie.
The segment involved Cohen, masquerading as the fictional Kazakh reporter, showing her a photo of a naked man and telling her it is his son.
Clearly unamused, Martin's Manhattan Supreme Court suit seeks unspecified damages, citing 'commercial misappropriation, fraud, unjust enrichment, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.'
Cohen has not yet commented.
That movie is disgusting...............I hope Kazakhstan sues him , too.............
Haven't seen his movie. Don't intend to.
I’m fairly open minded about my entertainment, but I honestly found Borat to be boring and unfunny.
Took long enough to decide she was “emotionally assaulted”. Sheesh.
Do you really want people to be able to sue over bad taste? Be careful what you wish for...
Borat had me in tears from start to finish I was laughing so hard.
She had to wait to see what the combined box office and DVD revenue was. Big $$$$$$ = emotional assault. If this movie made nothing - no lawsuit.
the movie opened a year ago and she just now figured out she was injured? I guess it doesn’t take much smarts to teach etiquette.
If she signed a release, there is no case.
If there was never permission to film, then Sasha would be an idiot. (I think people signed off)
Yeah, the movie was a major disappointment. The opening sequence where he’s saying goodbye to the villagers is hilarious but the rest of the movie was awful.
I set my cable box to record Borat so, I could watch it at my convenience. When I started to watch it Friday evening, I got just past the halfway point of the film where this scene is, and I stopped watching and erased the recording from the hard disk.
Add slander to it too. “Borat” is claiming that her son is the kind of person who has nude pictures of himself readily available to the public.
I thought it was funny for about 20 minutes then it just seemed like the same joke over and over.
No, she would be the idiot as she would have to be blind to not see all the people with cameras standing around her the entire time Borat was at her home.
I think they have different ways of taking care of things over there.
Worst movie I have ever seen! However, I don’t like lawsuits like this...
The article says that he identifies the naked person as “his” son, not “her” son.
I didn’t make it through the whole movie. Didn’t take long for it to become tiresome, since there were essentially only two jokes — sex and anti-semitism — in the whole film; just repackaged in different ways and repeated ad nauseum. Entertaining for 12 year olds, I suppose.
Most likely the case has been in negotiation for some time. Strategically, for the plaintiff the best course is try to negotiate without actually filing when you have a defendant who would rather avoid publicity. In this case he may prefer it. I imagine the statute of limitations has run, so she had to file.
As to the merits, I imagine she has a tough case to prove as she probably signed a waiver to allow publication. Having seen the way they exploited her, I hope she succeeds. I can't stand "entertainment" that exploits innocent bystanders to get a laugh.
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