‘Borat’ victims aren’t laughing

Two fraternity members from South Carolina have sued 20th Century Fox, claiming they were duped into making racist and sexist comments on camera in the spoof documentary “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” The film opened No. 1 at the box office last weekend.

“Borat” follows the adventures of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s Kazakh journalist character as he travels across the United States and mocks Americans.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court in Santa Monica, contends the young men “engaged in behavior that they otherwise would not have engaged in.” The lawsuit, which does not identify the plaintiffs, “to protect themselves from any additional and unnecessary embarrassment,” alleges that in October 2005, a production crew took the students to a bar to drink and “loosen up” before participating in what they were told would be a documentary to be shown outside the U.S.

The plaintiff’s attorney, Olivier Taillieu, told the Associated Press that his clients “were put into an RV and were made to believe they were picking up Borat the hitchhiker.” After a bout of heavy drinking, they signed a release form they were told “had something to do with reliability issues with being in the RV.”

A spokesman for the studio said the suit “has no merit.”

*

-- Robert W. Welkos