‘Borat’
– garbled English for a bigoted
America
by
Christy Lemire
Associated
Press
In
U.S. and A., people can be bigoted.
And homophobic and misogynistic,
and just closed‑minded in
general.
That
becomes glaringly, uproariously
clear through the innocent eyes
of Borat Sagdiyev, a Kazakh TV
journalist (and we use the term
loosely) who travels to the United
States to make a documentary and
bring his findings back to his
homeland.
“Borat:
Cultural Learnings of America
for Make Benefit Glorious Nation
of Kazakhstan,” is his surreal
showcase of a movie, an ingenious
blending of fiction and reality,
improv and lies, which pushes
guerrilla filmmaking to exhilarating
new heights (or depths, depending
on your perspective).
The
brash but strangely likable Borat
is the creation of Sacha Baron
Cohen, one of several personae
the British comedian has crafted
through “Da Ali G Show” and by
far the raunchiest and most effective
in exposing society’s prejudices.
There’s also Bruno, the flamboyantly
gay Austrian fashion correspondent,
and Ali G himself, an ignorant
Cockney hip‑hop wannabe.
As
Borat, Baron Cohen’s targets can
be a little obvious and sometimes
his ruse seems a bit cruel. Among
the many stops on his cross‑country
tour is a Dallas antique store
where the clumsy Borat stumbles
around causing hundreds of dollars
in damage. His obese producer,
Azamat (Ken Davitian), then pays
the husband‑and‑wife
owners a mere fraction of the
amount owed.
We
can say this about “Borat” without
equivocation: it’s consistently
double‑over‑laughing
hilarious, never an easy feat
when you’re extending a comedy
sketch into a full‑length
film.
And
Cohen is a marvel of timing and
dedication, never veering out
of character despite the outlandishness
of every situation. His unpredictability
is addictive.
The
plot goes something like this:
Borat arrives in New York, sees
Pamela Anderson on a “Baywatch”
rerun in his hotel room and becomes
obsessed with her. He drags his
producer across the country so
that he can meet her and marry
her (once he learns his surly
wife back home is dead) and along
the way, meets various people
and conducts interviews to learn
about American culture.
There’s
the dorky humor instructor, the
exceedingly polite etiquette coach.
He asks crass questions in garbled
English and receives answers that
probably weren’t meant to be funny.
As
on the TV show that spawned the
movie, some moments are intentionally
worthy of cringes. The minute
Borat walks across a Virginia
rodeo ring, dressed in a cowboy
hat and a button‑down shirt
emblazoned with an American flag
pattern, you know you’re in for
trouble. Then he opens his mouth
and draws boos with his mangling
of the national anthem–but first
earns hearty applause for proclaiming,
“We support your war of terror!”
This
is, of course, the same person
who got an entire honky tonk in
Tucson, Ariz., to join him in
singing a rousing chorus of “Throw
the Jew down the well!” on television.
Which
brings us to another frequent
topic of Baron Cohen’s satire:
anti‑Semitism. In real life,
the comedian is an observant Jew;
in Borat mode, Jews are even more
fearsome than homosexuals. (His
village in Kazakhstan features
an annual “running of the Jew”
ceremony.)
