Borat Sagdiyev (Sacha Baron Cohen) is a television personality in Kazakhstan. His government sends him to the United States of America to learn culture and report about the "greatest country in the world."
With this assignment, Borat and his crew shoots a documentary of Borat as he learns the great American culture through interaction with different kinds of Americans.
However, Borat’s naive-stupid sexism and colonial mind bring him more trouble than cultural acceptance--his twists in fate usually depending on the norms and standards of the people he interacts with. Borat’s disinterest in pursuing their assignment as he diverts to finding and marrying Pamela Anderson provides the narrative impetus for the Borat adventure in the American subcultures.
Not like us?
Borat is a Saddam look-a-like, impoverished and chauvinist. He is a graphic example of a man trapped in his own world of phobias and biases while attempting to learn “civilization” from the “great nation of America.”
Poking on our phobias, the film allows the audience to experience learning together with Borat. It becomes a powerful tool to show how the great cultural empire and land of freedom is likewise enmeshed in its own prejudices and cultural –moral contradictions.
It allows us to look at ourselves through the Borat mirror and realize that we all have prejudices, that we all tend to ‘judge a book by its cover’ -- even if we claim to be civilized members of society who advocate equality and humaneness.
I admit that before seeing the movie, I feared if I had the persevering tolerance for whatever racist or sexist joke I will hear from Borat. Later on, I saw myself laughing at all the jokes that Borat throws at his audiences while realizing my own prejudices in the process.
Borat tours the subcultures of America
Here is Borat: A lower class male aspiring to be elite and civilized; comes from a poor, rural village in a poor country; and, talks openly about loving the great American culture, his boring sex with his wife, extramarital sex escapades and gratifications, prostitutes and sex with them, sex with black prostitute women and gay men, fear of Jews and suspicions towards Christians, and a plethora of other sensitive, not easily discussed topics.
Borat in New York: the big apple where different races thrive. As a man who has been used to greeting males with a kiss on both cheeks, Borat was strange and scary to male pedestrians. In a subway, passengers’ anger reached the peak when Borat’s suitcase breaks open and his petrified pet chicken disturbs everyone on board. Why would city- dwellers be repelled by a traumatized chicken and a village idiot? What’s in a chicken-induced commotion that will make urban dwellers angry enough to push a stranger out of the train?
Borat studies American humor. The filmmakers’ ingenuity shines as they lay the basis for Borat jokes. With Borat’s conversation with a white male American humor consultant, the admonition for audiences not to be too stiff and trapped in rules on what is a funny or not became clear. Over other meanings, this scene asked me not to be a bore and go along with the film’s nasty humor.
Borat appears on television station. This segment reveals the idiocy of media and the staff who allowed Borat to appear on camera and be interviewed about his culture and his admiration for America without checking who Borat really is. It seems that even if you are not credible or real, as long as you appear or act funny and can entertain, you can appear in a television station and become a celebrity.
Borat with the white female etiquette coach and the white people’s etiquette club. In this sequence, Borat asks his etiquette coach:
“Should you be polite to all?”
“Yes.”
“Should you be polite to prostitute?…”
“In America we don’t discuss that…”
This dialogue reveals the culture of who are privileged to receive politeness and who are not. People working in restaurants deserve tips, but prostitutes? Nah.
Borat’s consultation with his coach is interspersed with formal dinners with white upper class Americans who have mixed reactions towards Borat’s uncensored discussion of sex with prostitutes, his sister prostitute and boring sex with his wife.
Surprisingly, Borat’s dinner mates were able to take in all his “uncivilized” and ignorant ways, e.g., not knowing when to discuss sexual matters, how to use the American toilet bowl. What made them hit the boiling point and push Borat out of the mansion was when Borat’s date for the night-- a backstreet pot-bellied, bleach-haired, black woman named Luenell-- arrives. White upper class American prejudice is revealed in their disgust for lumpenic concerns and their blatant dislike for women in prostitution.
Borat with gay community. This seem to be the only community where kissing and hugging, just like what Borat does in his community, are accepted. There was no fear at all for Borat’s strange ways. In the midst of the queer and the feared “immoral” populace, he was accepted as he is. Of course, the filmmaker most likely intended to project the gay community’s friendly culture.
Borat with American rodeo. This is a truly scary portion of the film where Borat was able to elicit the opinions of American cowboys about homosexuals, reinstitution of slavery and the American war on terror. The cowboys openly support the idea that homosexuals should be given the capital punishment and be put to death. With the Brokeback Mountain movie still fresh in the film audience’s mind, the chauvinist and violent cowboy bias isn’t new but looks much scarier. After his chat with phobic-supremacist cowboys on the ringside, Borat, dressed in a cowboy suit with an American flag design, walks to the stadium’s center. Put in the program to sing the national anthem of his country to the tune of the American national anthem, he first begins with praises for the American president’s “war of terror.” The public, perhaps hearing the “of” as “on,” lets out a big applause. Borat proceeds with many other praises and almost spills over his satiric intent with a prayerful declaration that the American president will “drink the blood of every man, woman, and child in Iraq." There were less applause with this one, but, still, there was. For his weird utterances, Borat was booed and threatened to be mobbed by the rodeo audience only at the time he sang his country’s national anthem with lyrics declaring his country as the greatest of all while other nations, America included, are like “little girls.” The white American patriarchal supremacist pride of these redneck cowboys will really scare you off.
Borat with State of Georgia representative Bob Barr and frequent candidate Alan Keyes. The State of Georgia is known for its Christian conservatives and racist history where the African Americans suffered a great deal of slavery, inequality and discrimination. In real life, the Borat interviewee Bob Barr is a hardcore anti-abortion advocate while interviewee Alan Keyes is a black Republican and Christian conservative. Predictably, Borat’s immorality, homosexual tendencies and uncensored lumpen language baffles these two men.
Borat with the black male community and high class hotel. Desperate to fit in and be hip, Borat drops by a group of adolescent African American boys in a dimly lit suburb, consults them about how to be cool and asks how he, a foreigner who wants to be like American, can dress like these cool boys. Then, the sequence brings us to Borat entering an expensive hotel and asking for a room. Strangely dressed with his pants pulled down (to make it really low-waist) and speaking in a black accent and lingo, the hotel receptionist runs away from Borat. Lesson: If you want acceptance, dress “normal” and speak “normal.” Fair-skinned Borat dressed like black and speaking black is not “normal.”
Borat, Azamat and the long dildo chase in a white corporate gathering. This is the portion where much of the nudity, and most of the audience laughter comes out. Borat, seeing companion Azamat masturbating on Pamela Anderson’s magazine photo, beats up Azamat and chases him all around the hotel—the hallway, the elevator, and conference hall. Azamat, nude. Borat, nude and with a dildo in hand. Azamat was nude because he was masturbating. Borat was nude because he just came from the shower. The dildo, Borat accidentally picked to use as Azamat’s beating stick. Of course, the people witnessing the chase did not know that. They saw another kind of “reality” based on an uninformed assumption.
Borat with the Christian Pentecostals. Off all the film’s sequences, this is the ambiguous one. The scene opens with Borat joining a Pentecostal worship service where the Christian god is exalted, and proceeds to footages of Borat being absorbed into the cultic-hypnotic trance of the congregation. This cuts to a scene where Borat gets free ride nearer to where he thinks Pamela Anderson is. In this sequence, there was no sexist or vulgar Borat. The cross-cultural issue of chauvinism and vulgarity did not come out here. Perhaps, the filmmakers wanted to show the “religious” in everyone, including politicians and justices (a Mississippi congressman and justice of the state supreme court were among those present in the gathering). Western Christian religion is no different from the Islam who also has religious political leaders.
Borat with white fraternity men. Here, Borat receives some acceptance but in a different manner. He was accepted for his strangeness because he was sexist just like the frat men and was entertaining enough for the booze-induced male laughing trip.
Borat with veteran white Feminists. I placed this last because this was my favorite part. I see myself as a feminist and advocate of women’s human rights and equality, including liberation from male dominance that perpetuates sexual objectification of women’s bodies. If I were one of those feminists, Borat’s chauvinist talk will really turn me off. I might not just walk out, but might actually punch him the face. However, as an audience who saw the context of Borat’s existence and sexism, I was spurred to think about my own biases towards persons like Borat.
I like this scene because it shows the dominant trend of white female moralistic feminism in the United States from which a big part of feminist practice in many parts of the world is patterned after. White feminism, although a crucial catalyst for early women’s liberation movements, needs to examine its own flaws and prejudices, especially against women of color and women in prostitution or sex work.
Borats in us
The film spurs a popular, worldwide cultural debate that crosses human-made boundaries of religion, nation, culture, societal norms and standards as well as bases of discrimination such as class, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, work and so on. It asks us to see ourselves. Realize and laugh at our prejudiced tendencies. Across cultures, we love to hate those we see as prejudiced against us but we refuse to see and hear our own prejudices.
At the film’s conclusion, Borat brought prostitute Luenelle to Kazakhstan as his wife. All his funny talk about prostitutes and sex in sexist tones did not really affect his perception of Luenelle as a full human being. Luenelle’s work was not a problem at all. This is where the filmmakers’ intent became very clear: Turn away from discrimination and really see all people as equal, including Borat, gays, blacks and prostitutes.
Changing this world necessitates that we all look at ourselves first and know our own phobias, biases and impositions on how fellow humans should look, act or speak. The film’s approach in exposing prejudice across cultures is brave and effective. Choosing the American subcultures as templates of cultural trappings in many parts of the world simply fits.
Every adult should see this film. Anyone too “Boratophobic” to do so should not expect that this phobic and conflict-ridden world will change within his/her lifetime.
