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November 3, 2006 > Arts & Entertainment > Borat defiles American, Khazak cultures with satirical performance

Borat defiles American, Khazak cultures with satirical performance

By Julia Bursten | Thresher Editorial Staff

Sometimes, the boundaries of political correctness just need to be crossed. And sometimes, they need to be assaulted, molested, mooned, tarred, feathered and poked with a stick. That is precisely what Sacha Baron Cohen does in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Cohen’s brand of comedy is simply, caustically revolutionary, and it is an indispensable tool to point out the need for cultural change here in America.

Unless the wool of mind-numbing network television has been pulled over your eyes since the year 2000, you have seen Cohen before. His Da Ali G Show, a British satirical variety show with Colbert Report-esque irreverence and characters that would make Andy Kaufmann proud, airs on in the U.S. on HBO and has been honored by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He assumes a few recurring characters and interacts with the unsuspecting public to produce offensively innovative social commentaries — he has interviewed celebrities from Gore Vidal to Noam Chomsky as Ali G, a purposefully dimwitted hip-hop fan.

Now, Cohen hits the big screen as Borat Sagdiyev, a Kazakh television personality on a fact-finding mission to America. He must make a documentary for the Kazakh Ministry of Information and use the secrets of the first world to benefit his home country. On the way, he goes over budget, offends most of the people he encounters, discovers Baywatch and falls in love — with plenty of time left over for gratuitous, hairy male nudity, the mocking of fraternities and tongue-in-cheek anti-Semitism.

The film begins in Kazakhstan with Borat giving the audience a show-and-tell tour of his home. The village he invaded for this purpose is comically antithetical to many American ideals of progressive society, but its inhabitants revere capitalism and materialism — women have few to no rights, but they compete for the honor of being the best prostitute in the area. It sounds terrible, and it is truly and deeply offensive, but Cohen’s idiosyncratic mix of gravity and sarcasm keeps audiences laughing so hard they cannot move their feet to walk out in disgust.

As Borat and his sidekick Azamat Bagatov (A Man Apart’s Ken Davitian) head to America, the parodies hit closer to home. Crowd scenes in New York City and Los Angeles prove particularly humorous, mainly due to the fact that it is impossible for the bystanders to discern whether Borat is serious or sarcastic. The uncertainty becomes outright turmoil once Borat heads south to learn etiquette, but his calling a Midwestern housewife a gypsy because of her garage sale is surprisingly anticlimactic.

Borat is not intended to be impressive for its technical filming, and it isn’t. Quite a few of the scenes look homemade, full of shaky cameras, poor angles and shadows. But the film’s premise as a low-budget documentary explains away the camera mishaps, and the amateur framing actually contributes to the atmosphere of the story.

Some of the most interesting twists to the Borat story have come from off-screen performances by Cohen in character. The comedian has a knack for confusing his media cohorts and the general public when it comes to his identity, and the Hungarian news wire MTI reported last November that “Borat Sagdiyev” hosted the MTV Europe Music Awards. Sure, any publicity is good, but Cohen also got into some trouble with the government of Kazakhstan after the production of the Borat film: They threatened to take legal recourses against him for registering a Kazakh Web site under a false name. Cohen responded as Borat, denying any connection with Cohen and encouraging the Kazakh government to “sue this Jew.” And yes, Cohen is Jewish.

Basically, entering the theater to experience Borat is simply not enough effort to appreciate the satiric genius of Cohen’s movement. So, unless you are offended by scenes full of villagers singing, “Throw the Jew down the well/So my country can be free,” go — please go, because the film is as hilarious as it is rude. But read up on Cohen once you finish your popcorn, watch for him on YouTube or rent a copy of Da Ali G Show, and take some time to think about the cultural holes he is exposing — the ones that are not in embarrassing parts of his briefs.

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