Borat a Bad Influence?

Nov. 14, 2006 — -- Stephanie Serrano recently saw the hit movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

She didn't like it in the movie theater. And she didn't like it in the streets when teenagers inspired by the movie's offensive leading man made her a target.

"Some guys have been more disrespectful [to me]," said Serrano, a 17-year-old student at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology. "They go around repeating that line, 'Very nice. How much?' to some of the girls. I think it's disgraceful."

Call it the Borat effect.

The top-rated comedy is making thousands of high school and college students laugh -- and inspiring some of them to imitate the eponymous character's offensive behavior to women and Jews.

Since "Borat's" Nov. 3 release, the movie about a hapless Kazakh journalist who thinks that women have smaller brains and that Jews were behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has ruled the box office.

It has raked in $68 million, and it's managed to offend a cross-section of groups, from the Anti-Defamation League and feminists to the Kazakh government and fraternity brothers at the University of South Carolina.

With its coarse behavior and offensive statements, "Borat" has also infiltrated the youth culture -- for better or worse. Although most students recognize the humor behind the hateful dialogue, some of them say that they've experienced harassment inspired by the movie.

Jonathan Melendez, a 17-year-old high school student from the Bronx, N.Y., says that he's heard teens repeat some of the more misogynistic lines from the movie.

"They talk about women being b-- and prostitutes," he said. "And I asked my friends who are Jewish if they were going to the movie and they said that their parents wouldn't let them go."

Many teens, from Georgia to California, Rhode Island to Canada, have heard fellow students repeating some of the movie's more offensive lines such as, "Throw the Jew down the well," and "We make sexy time?"

As a result, some parents are outraged at the movie and are actively discouraging their children from seeing it.

"Our family and friends will not watch 'Borat,' and we'll certainly encourage other parents to boycott as well," said Michelle Arnold, a parent from Cobb County, Ga.

Calling the movie a "disgrace and an insult," she said that "Borat" was reversing some of the progress her community had made teaching its teens to be respectful and ethical.