By Marc Larocque
American hypocrisy
Why not throw more attention at the cultural curmudgeon? After the “Borat” movie was originally released, he hit America like a virus. And that virus still continues to affect me today.
Now, my roommate Marco walks around our apartment almost every day saying “king of the castle, king of the castle.” My grandmother told me a story the other day about how she and my grandfather accidentally walked into a theatre and witnessed the “disgusting filth” when they mistook it for a nice foreign film. My manager at Shaw’s Fenway, Sergey, a native of Belarus, now has to deal with all the local high school kids calling him Borat and picking on his accent more than usual.
“Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” was released on DVD March 6, and is available for $16 on Amazon.com. It comes on a disc made to look like one fabricated for the black market.
Borat, played by Sacha Baron Cohen, is a reporter from Kazakhstan sent to America by his government to make a documentary. It is a tale of verbal slips and the pursuit of Pamela Anderson.
He and his butterball buddy, Azamat, hold together a flimsy plot that conveniently leads them across America, allowing ample opportunity to disrupt and disturb unsuspecting victims on their sex-charged, hedonistic escapades. Cohen is the film’s only actor as he convinces everyone from a pastor to a group of frat boys into thinking he’s shooting a real documentary. Viewers are not given a shred of evidence that any of his victims are aware of his true identity. It is a guilty pleasure.
Cohen is best known for the three characters he plays on “Da Ali G Show.” The show features the eponymous journalist from England, named Ali G, and Bruno, a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion reporter. Borat is now the most famous and most controversial.
Borat takes off where “The Tom Green Show” left off. He uses his role as the ignorant foreigner to mock normal folk by playing devil’s advocate. In the film, Borat crosses the line of political correctness in pretty much every scene. He pokes fun at feminists, mentally handicapped, homosexuals, southerners, African-Americans and Europeans.
The character is especially hard on Jewish people. But this is not new to Borat. The first instance of anti-Semitism I can recall of Borat was on “Da Ali G Show” when he performed at a country western bar. While strumming a guitar he told the crowd how Jewish people had undermined his people and had stolen all their money.
But the crowd exuberantly embraced a sing-a-long chorus of “throw the Jew down the well!”
These types of instances are the most brilliant. No, not when he picks on Jews. But when – along with making people feel uncomfortable – he throws some offensive (yet, hilarious) crap out there and sees if any humans reciprocate (also hilarious). Borat is valuable because he shows us our own bigotry.
If you have not seen it and you have time to blow, see it. The special features are loaded with funny scenes like visits to a pet shelter and a Civil War reenactment. The only other extra feature is clips of a promotion tour for the film, where Cohen stays in this role on shows like Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno and flusters Martha Stewart.
