One Borat Lawsuit Down, and Fox Probably Doesn't Care How Many Are Left To Go

Via WeSmirch (the new Techmeme, for pop culture and gossip): an L.A. judge has thrown out a suit filed by those frat boys who claimed they were duped into getting drunk and wistfully bemoaning their lack of slave ownership in Borat. At the height of Boratmania (a dark and mercifully brief era which will no doubt go into the history books as a regretable side effect of temporary post-millenial insanity), TMZ's Harvey Levin predicted that other studios might look at the success Fox stumbled into with this film, see that ethically questionable filmmaking practices could be financially advantageous, and thus not only allow filmmakers to bend previously set-in-stone rules, but actually budget with the expectation that legal departments would need to quietly put out any fires that might ensue. With the courts now having flatly denied these plaintiffs' claim twice (they've been seeking to have their scene removed from all existing prints and future releases; one assumes they have a seperate suit seeking punitive damages on the way), I have to wonder if Harvey wasn't on to something. Could the traditional release form and all it represents be headed for the grave?

Above, my none-too-enthusiastic review of the film, for Netscape.