If you have so far managed to avoid “Borat,” count yourself fortunate and spend the 10 bucks on something else. If you want to be entertained by actors who are actually skilled at intelligent improvisational comedy, go see Christopher Guest’s “For Your Consideration,” which I plan to do this weekend. Or if you want to laugh at guys wrestling each other, performing various bodily functions and pulling public pranks on unsuspecting victims, go see “Jackass No. 2,” which I gleefully enjoyed.

“Borat,” the hugely successful film — $120 million in U.S. box office so far — starring British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, doesn’t pull off the blend of sophisticated and scatological humor that Cohen is so desperately trying to create.

Borat is an eager foreign television reporter dispatched by his government to obtain “Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” as the film’s subtitle loquaciously informs us.

Borat is also completely oblivious to the fact he is a racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic bigot. The funny is supposed to, and sometimes does, happen when Borat’s unwitting interviewees squirm in their chairs while trying to tell him that we don’t say things like that in America. And we’re supposed to gasp in shock when Borat hooks someone who is an actual bigot, like the hateful rodeo guy or the loutish frat boys.

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It’s always useful to be reminded that there are such creeps among us, even in if it’s in a much-edited comedic ambush. But I wonder how funny it would be if Borat tried the same gags in places like Egypt, Iran or the Palestinian Authority where bolder hatred can be found on state-approved television or in the daily press?

Sharing the smug delight Cohen takes in mocking his less-clever prey is simply too easy to be funny.

“Shut Up & Sing,” the new Dixie Chicks documentary, also pits an enlightened liberal protagonist against benighted conservatives.

Singer Natalie Maines, a Lubbock native, told a London crowd on the eve of the 2003 Iraq invasion that “we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” A professional film crew happened to be on hand that night, so we have a complete account of how the band dealt with the negative reaction among many of their fans and most of the country music industry.

The Chicks obsess over the blog buzz they’ve created and sneer at those who trash their CDs. They make a calculated decision to shed their country label with their new album, yet pitch a fit when country radio doesn’t play it.

“It was a joke made to get cheers and applause,” Maines explains. It’s pretty amusing to watch the Chicks fidget when they realize all the adulation, fame and money jeopardized by a botched joke.

President Bush reacted to the comments by saying, correctly, that freedom of speech is a “two-way street” and that the Chicks “shouldn’t have their feelings hurt just because some people don’t want to buy their records when they speak out.”

That comment prompts Maines to look into the camera and call Bush a “dumb [expletive]” Who does she think she is, Bill Maher?

Most performers have a strange psychological need to have their insecurity validated by their fans. Rare are geniuses like Miles Davis and Van Morrison who can get away with literally turning their backs on the crowd during a show.

Moderately talented pop-country bands don’t have the luxury of contempt for their public. Not if they want to maintain the lifestyle to which they’ve grown comfortably accustomed.

Aaron Keith Harris writes about politics, the media, pop culture and music and is a regular contributor to National Review Online and Bluegrass Unlimited. He can be reached at aaronkeithharris@gmail.com.