I just discovered something: In one of my books for my Contracts class there is a copy of the release form the producers of Borat asked participants to sign in order to appear in the film. The form describes the film as a "documentary-style film.... that the producer hopes [will] reach a young adult audience by using entertaining content and formats."
You may have heard that some of the participants sued the filmmakers, to no avail.
It was funny to flip through my school book and see a contract titled "Borat Release." Ha!
2 comments:
Do they say anything in the scholarly portion of the book about how sneaky and deceptive the release was, compared to what was actually being filmed/planned/created?
I understand that the suers lost, and I think that Sascha et al did a great job highlighting some deeply disturbing details about our lovely America, but there seemed something slightly unfair (like dynamiting fish in a barrel) about getting morons to agree to expose their moronhood in a nationally released hollywood film disguised as a small-time documentary (seemingly about a fellow, but less fortunate, more 'foreign' moron). Oy. Vey.
Oh man, you hit the nail on the head, as they say. I didn't quote the rest of the agreement, but it stipulated (essentially) that they couldn't sue the filmmakers if they didn't like how they were portrayed - that one in particular jumped out at me.
All the suits were dismissed because of this release form, by the way. I'm sure their attorney must have argued fraud or misrepresentation, but I guess it didn't work. The description "documentary-style" film is possibly broad enough to encompass "reality-style comedic satire" - ? not sure.
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