Israeli Comedian To Sue Sacha Baron Cohen Over “Borat” Catch Phrase
Posted January 30, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat” character may have earned him international acclaim and even an Oscar nomination, but it’s also brought the British comedian a lot of unwanted legal attention.
Since the release of his film “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” made waves around the world for its in-your-face, racially-charged laughs, Cohen’s been targeted in law suits by subjects of his films, special interest groups and people who claim they did it first.
Another one of the latter emerged Tuesday, when reports surfaced that Israeli comedian Dovale Glickman intends to sue the Golden Globe-award winning comedian for copyright infringement.
Glickman claims he coined “Wa wa wee wa,” Borat’s signature exclamation of excitement.
The former star of Israeli comedy show “Zehu Zeh,” Glickman used the phrase as far back as 16 years ago and also popularized the expression in a series of commercials for the Israeli yellow pages.
It caught on and apparently can still be heard on streets in Israel.
“Borat” was a huge hit in Israel, in part because Israelis were among the few that understood what the anti-Semitic, misogynist Kazakh journalist was actually saying.
A little-known fact is that in the film Borat isn’t speaking Kazakh, but Hebrew.
Since the movie’s release, Southern conservatives, Romanian villagers and even a pair of frat boys have tried to take down the man behind Borat Sagdiyev.
Baron Cohen capped his Golden Globe acceptance speech by thanking “every American who has not sued me so far.”
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