WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!After seeing the “it” movie of 2006, I seriously felt like my brain had been tossed in a blender. Borat is quite a piece of work, but whether or not that’s entirely a good thing is up for debate.
In case you don’t know, Borat is a fake documentary of a Kazakh reporter’s journey across America. He is to gather information on the culture and compile his findings for his homeland. What we end up with is a grim yet darkly humorous view of stereotypes and prejudice in America today. Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) finds a way to expose various levels of sexism, misogyny, homophobia, racism, as well as cultural and religious insensitivity through unwitting passersby who think they are taking part in a documentary for Kazakhstan.
The truly scary part about all that Borat exposes is how much of it is consciously expressed. This is the 21st Century for crying out loud- people should know better than to say some of the things they do during the course of this movie. The fact that they are saying such things knowing that it may be used in a documentary elevates the absurdity of the whole thing. Simply saying it on camera is merely in bad taste, but saying it for a documentary when you full well know better is absurd.
This concept of quick snippets of prejudice would get old quick, so Borat includes several longer bits where he allows his own cultural misunderstandings to be a catalyst for the humor. His seeming innocence brings out some good in people, as it shows that some Americans are at least willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Borat of course exploits this and takes them to their respective limits. I’m amazed by the fact that Cohen managed to stay completely in character during all the scenes and that nobody killed him during filming. Most of what he does in the film is fairly harmless and I had no problem with it. However, one scene gave me chills and I desperately hope it was staged-
Borat enters a Civil War antique store in the South (presumably filled with Confederate era antiques) and he proceeds to “accidentally” knock over and destroy hundreds of dollars of antique lamps and dinnerware. At this point, Cohen goes too far and the situation is no longer funny. You can say what you want about the Confederacy and how it shouldn’t be remembered in a positive light, but antiques are antiques. They are pieces of American history and should be respected as such. So far I have not been able to find out if this scene was genuine, but I sincerely hope it was not. The destruction of historic artifacts is not within the bounds of humor.
The other part that was a turn off for me was the naked fight in the hotel. Borat and his producer end up fighting nude in their hotel room and carry the fight downstairs into the middle of a convention being held at the hotel. The fight went on too long and it indulged a bit too much in schlock humor seen mostly in the Jackass series.
In the end, Borat’s long and demented journey across our nation makes you laugh for all the wrong reasons and then makes you laugh again when you realize that you shouldn’t be laughing in the first place. Thinking people will pick up on how bleak a picture of American culture has been painted. While not everyone in the country is like the people on display in Borat, there are enough people like them out there to make their prejudices and insensitivities seem commonplace and normal.
I feel no sympathy at all for the people who had their racist and sexist views displayed to the world through this movie. Some filed suit claiming Borat either misrepresented them in some way or tarnished their reputations. I call BS on all of you- you were racist/sexist/whatever before and while you made those comments. The world just knows now that you think that way.
Borat is potentially highly offensive and can be a difficult film to watch at times, but it’s worth seeing, if you can handle it.
RATING: 3.5 out of 5
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