.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

New on DVD by Mike Lippert

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan presents a conclusion that I fear may be lost on the many viewers who will see it just to get a good laugh: The joke's on us.
I say I fear this because as I sat in the full theater, I was surrounded by people who found the film a significant amount funnier than I did. I couldn't figure it out; I laughed but not like most people were. I've also heard people complain that the film is nowhere near as funny as they had expected. But you know what; in retrospect, Borat is a very funny film, so funny in fact that my enjoyment of it worries me a little. Then it came to me. I'll explain.
There are three kinds of people in the world. Conservatives who get offended, liberals who don't, and people who sit in the middle and try to figure out where both sides are coming from. This is a review from the middle.
The fact is, offended or not, Borat is a trangressive comedy; so important a comedy in fact that I believe my reaction to it sprang from a desire to deal with this material instead of simply laughing it off as most will. The truth is, Borat does a remarkable thing. It doesn't mock American culture or Third World culture as much as it turns its comedy backward upon us, the individual. It makes us think that we are laughing at how Borat's primitive ignorance clashes with our advanced society, but in fact, he is the one laughing at us, as he tells jokes at our very expense.
Let me talk a little about the film's concept. Borat is played by fearless British comic actor Sacha Baron Cohen (Talledega Nights). He is a video journalist from Kazakhstan who is being sent to America to make a documentary on the way of life in the 'U.S.& A." On his journey, Borat conducts many interviews with feminists, black youths, the upper-class elite, and Pamela Anderson, some of which are improvised and others staged.
Upon arriving in New York, Borat sees a rerun of Baywatch on television, falling instantly in love with Anderson and decides to venture to Los Angles with his producer to wed the starlet, on the way, taking driving lessons, being scared off by two Jews at a bed ands breakfast and flailing around naked during a press conference being conducted at the hotel in which they stay; a strategically placed black bar being the only thing keeping the film this side of an NC-17 rating.
Borat is such an interesting character, and why so many people find him funny is because he comes from a primitive society (he leaves his town via horse drawn car) which is completely ignorant to the ways of America. We see him laugh at the feminists, insult the bourgeois at their diner table, talking about how he keeps his handicapped brother in a cage, and in a startling scene talks to a cowboy at a rodeo about how homosexuals are instantly hanged in his country.
The obvious conservative reaction is to lash out against Borat for being in such bad taste, but the truth is, people find this guy funny because they are scared. Cohen brilliantly takes all of our fears, cultural anxieties and hatreds, and throws them back in our face. There are two possible reactions to seeing a man laugh in a feminists face: 1) be conservative and offended, or 2) be liberal and laugh it off. This is because you are either for or against the feminists. To laugh at this act is to come to terms with ones own fears and prejudices: it's great to see someone finally give it to those preachy man haters isn't it? There is an overriding dread at the end of this film that suggests that under all the chasing of plastic dreams, when Borat is broke and lonely, that for as powerful a society as America is, it is no more advanced than poor ignorant Kazakhstan. At least at home Borat was happy and free. You get the idea.
Now don't get me wrong, to say that everyone is either conservative or liberal would be incorrect because the categories are not absolute, people can fall on both sides of the divide. What I am suggesting is that to be completely offended or completely entertained by Borat is missing the point. The point is that no matter how open minded we try to be, no matter how advanced a thinker we tell ourselves that we are, the simple fact is that, at one point or another, we all have ugly little social stereotypes passed down to us through the generational ladder. And as much as we would like to think that we are beyond such petty things, such petty things never go away.
Cohen proves this very notion by taking these stereotypes and throwing them back in our face, essentially making us laugh at our own ignorance. Look at it this way. Almost instantly after the film was released, Cohen was sued by a couple of rowdy college students who pick Borat up in an RV, get drunk and utter completely misogynistic nonsense. I'd be mad too, but you know what, if it had happened to anyone else, those same guys would have been the ones in the theater laughing themselves silly.