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Borat: Cultural Leanrinigs of
America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
by Varun Roperia, Staff Writer
Borat, released Nov. 3, caused strong reactions among many of its
viewers, whether this was laughter or disgust, while some viewers
were probably left clueless. In Borat: Cultural Learnings of America
For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, a half gross-out
physical comedy and half satire of the American dream, Sacha Baron
Cohen acts as a fake journalist from Kazakhstan, sent to the United
States of America to report back to his government what makes this
country so great. Filming a documentary, Borat and his coworker
Azamat travel across the U.S. in an old ice cream truck, all the
while, Borat is intent on marrying Pamela Anderson after watching
reruns of old Baywatch episodes. After attempting to drag Pamela
Anderson away in a burlap sack to marry her, Borat returns to the
South, marries a prostitute he met while traveling and returns to
Kazakhstan.
Borat is actually a character in Sacha Baron Cohen's
HBO show, Da Ali G Show. Usually performing a five-minute skit as
Borat on his show, Cohen combined a "fake" documentary with actual
undercover footage of him acting with people unaware that they are
on camera. The portions that include acting with unsuspecting people
are definitely the funniest parts of the movie. These include asking
a car dealer how fast he needs to drive into a group of gypsies to
insure a kill, asking a feminist group why they think women should
be equal to men when, according to leading scientist of Kazakhstan,
"[women's] brains are the size of squirrel," and high-fiving the
postal worker who delivered a telegram announcing the death of his
wife. Borat also celebrates with a rodeo worker after telling him
how homosexuals are executed in Kazachstan.
However, perhaps Borat's funniest stop is Dickson,
Tennessee, where he was invited to sing the national anthem at a
rodeo. After being warned that he looked too much like a terrorist
by a rodeo veteran, Borat wins over the hearts of an extremely
patriotic crowd by assuring them that, "we [Kazakhstan] support your
war of terror" and "may Premier Bush drink the blood of every Iraqi
man, women, and child."
Kazakhstan vehemently condemns nearly all claims made
by the movie, and issued several statements denouncing the movie,
attempting to assure the public that depiction of Kazachstan is
false. The Prime Minister passionately announced that there is no
"Running of the Jew", and that the Kazakh community is open-minded
and tolerant. He continues that the conditions depicted, involving a
kindergarten playground that was actually a pit where the children
played with machine guns, as well as a mechanic who used his shop as
an abortion clinic, were farcical. He vowed because the film was
shot in Romania, there was no reason to believe Kazachstan is such a
place.
I would recommend watching this movie; however, based
upon my experience, how much you enjoy Borat will be based mostly
upon how much tolerance you have for humor at the expense of Jews,
feminists, homosexuals, women, and many others. What makes Borat so
funny, however, is how the film operates on a two-tiered system of
comedy. While Cohen's outrageous behavior is certainly cause for
laughter, it is actually the way his "victims" react that yield the
biggest laughs. Many of the lighthearted encounters are typically
more enjoyable than the slightly more controversial ones, such an
incident where, upon walking into a gun store, Borat asks the owner
what gun would be the best to kill a Jew and the owner actually
responds with a gold-plated 9mm pistol. Most of the media interest
in the film, however, are over the films supposed "bigoted and
Anti-Semitic" outlook, as illustrated when, after arriving at a bed
and breakfast run by a nice elderly couple, Borat runs screaming to
his car upon discovering the owners were "shape-shifting, horned
Jews" despite the fact that Cohen himself is Jewish. In conclusion,
I found that this film was very funny, though after some of the more
contentious scenes the audience seemed perceptibly guilty and/or
awkward as some of the jokes were funny, yet people felt
uncomfortable laughing at the caustic nastiness of Cohen's humor.
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