Michael Smerconish: Borat's just another smug jerk

IMAGINE that the ad at the right had run in the

Daily News

.

And assume that fans of extreme fighting packed a Philly venue and got tanked up on $1 beers in anticipation of watching some cage-fighting and hot chicks.

Then, after a couple of matches, things took a strange twist when two guys entered the cage and started to embrace and remove each other's clothes.

What would've been the Philly reaction? Imagine if 20,000 people came to a wing-eating contest and this occurred?

That's what I'm wondering in the aftermath of the near riot in Fort Smith, Ark. Eventually, we'll all get to see it as a scene in a new Sacha Baron Cohen movie, no doubt portraying Southerners as homophobes. Sight unseen, can that portrayal be fair?

The flier with the bikini-clad babe, along with a round of local radio and TV ads, drew an estimated crowd of 1,600 to the Fort Smith Convention Center on June 6, according to Police Sgt. Adam "Buddha" Holland, with whom I spoke last week.

The crowd was promised beer, babes 'n' brawling. Audience members were apparently all too willing to sign waivers allowing a production company to film a purported documentary on cage-fighting.

But "it took a little bit of a different twist at the end," Holland told me. First, a few brief fights took place. The crowd got free T-shirts. The emcee, a guy wearing camouflage named "Straight Dave," kept the audience riled up while reminding them of the cheap beer.

Law enforcement was aware that, at some point, Straight Dave would challenge an audience member to a fight. Holland had been told that Dave planned to add a bit of comedy to the confrontation. The gag was supposed to be the embrace that the two "fighters" would share at the end of their match - a dig at male wrestlers' rolling on the ground together, like the embrace between Ricky Bobby and Jean Girard in "Talladega Nights."

But the actors soon pro-

gressed to stripping each other down to their underwear. Then they began kissing each others' chests. "The crowd had a rather angry response," Holland said. Some launched their beers toward the cage. Others threw chairs.

Private security officers had difficulty keeping angry audience members from climbing over the cage and into the ring. Backstage, other fighters, some of whom never got to perform, were aggravated by the perceived disrespect for their sport.

As the scene became more unruly, Holland told me, the actors ran out of the cage, down a tunnel and out the back door. They'd built an escape hatch knowing what would occur.

Everyone was taken by surprise, although in retrospect Holland recalls hearing some audience members guessing that Straight Dave was actually Cohen (who also played Borat).

Sure enough, Bruno (another of Cohen's alter egos, a gay journalist from Austria) is reportedly filming a follow-up of sorts to 2006's Borat movie. The working title of the flick is "Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt."

They aren't laughing in Fort Smith. "It's definitely trying to feed into some type of anti-homosexual climate and maybe a stereotypical response from what they might think would be . . . those people who live in the South," Holland said.

"They said they were just trying to get a response from us here so they could make fun of the people in Arkansas. The cameras were there; they never stopped filming the entire time that was going on. And if that was their intention, to get that reaction, then they got the shot they were looking for."

And that's what has me thinking about what would have happened here. My hunch? The same thing.

But not because of homophobia. Rather, it's because Americans, no matter what part of the country they're from, want the show they paid to see.

Remember in 2002 when 20,000 Guns N' Roses fans rioted at the First Union Center because the band never showed up? That tour was marketed as the reincarnation of one of rock's most boisterous acts. And when lead man Axl Rose failed to show up, their fans didn't hold back - though their protest was not against heavy metal.

Same with the infamous attack on Santa in 1968. Nobody would say Eagles fans were anti-Christmas just because they pelted Old St. Nick with a few snowballs. (The incident was caused by fan frustration with a 2-12 season.)

SAME THING IN Arkansas. The producers didn't deliver on a heavily advertised promise of bikinis and brawls, and Fort Smith raised hell. It had nothing to do with homophobia.

I loved Borat. But I'm starting to question the lengths to which Cohen goes to get the reaction he wants. Fort Smith will now be the setting for a stereotyped romp in a major motion picture - without ever having been invited to audition. *

Listen to Michael Smerconish weekdays 5-9 a.m. on the Big Talker, 1210/AM. Read him Sundays in the Inquirer. Contact him via the Web at www.mastalk.com.