This weekend we’re watching: irreverent reflections on the nature of hate

In 2006, British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, famous at the time for his fictional persona Ali G, smashed the box office with his irreverent mockumentary (or shockumentary as it was subsequently dubbed) Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. “Great success!”

Armed with an exaggerated unrecognisable accent; nonsense Kazakh which is mostly appropriated Hebrew, razor-sharp improvisational ability, and a willingness to thrust himself into embarrassing and dangerous situations, Cohen’s new persona was able to send up all the touchiest aspects of American culture. Islamophobia, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, greed, and crucially, widespread ignorance about the rest of the world.

Borat’s rapid rise to fame made it impossible for Cohen to pull off his silly candid pranks, so he retired the character in 2007. None of Cohen’s films since Borat have come close to the same edginess and popular acclaim, until now.

 ‘Borat Subsequent Movie Film’

In late October 2020, Amazon Studios released Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The sequel was filmed mostly in secret during the pandemic and was only made public about a month before it aired on Amazon Prime Video.

Image 'Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm' (Supplied)

Here’s the premise: Borat has spent the last 14 years slaving away in a gulag as punishment for the success of his last film which made Kazakhstan the laughing stock of the world and caused their exports in “potassium and pubis” to plummet.

(Interestingly, although the actual Kazakh reception of the film was mixed, its economic effect was overwhelmingly positive, with the Kazakh foreign minister reporting a tenfold increase in tourist visas issued in the years after Borat was released.)

In those 14 years, America has been ruined by an evil man who stood against all American values … Barack Obama. But then a miracle occurred - McDonald Trump. So Borat is sent on a mission by the Kazakh government to the US and A to give a bribe to Trump’s administration as a thank you for making America great again (and also to make benefit diminished nation of Kazakhstan).

Borat is instructed not to give the gift directly to Trump, since during his previous misadventures he had shamelessly taken a shit at Trump Tower. Instead he should give the gift to “America’s most famous ladies’ man”, vice-pussy grabber Michael Pence.

Image 'Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm' (Supplied)

Image 'Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm' (Supplied)

The gift is Borat’s 15-year-old “non-male son” Tutar, who just wants “to live in a golden wife cage like happiest wife, Melania”. The role of Tutar was originally credited to the pseudonym Irina Nowak, but it has since become clear that she was played by little-known Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova. Bakalova’s performance is somewhat overacted, but she is every bit as fearless as her accomplished counterpart.

The decision to switch out Borat’s travelling companion Azamat, played by Ken Davitian, for Turan also served a practical purpose - to help reduce Borat’s recognisability - but to be certain that his stunts would not be foiled by his fame, most of them were performed in a second layer of disguise.

Image 'Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm' (Supplied)

There is greater focus on scripted elements this time around, which makes for overly elaborate setups that feel more akin to sitcom gags than those of the first film. This was likely the influence of director Jason Woliner, whose greatest directorial successes have been episodes on big sitcoms such as Parks and Recreation.

Overall, Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm is not quite as nerve-rackingly ballsy and laughable as the forerunner, but it is significantly more hard hitting. Among critiques of American anti-abortion idiocy, conspiracy theorists and sexism, Cohen makes a forthright condemnatory point about the dangerous sickness that riddles the US - hatred.

It is shocking to see how people just go along with whatever Borat says, even if it is absurdly offensive or simply criminal. “Would this be enough gas to kill 20 Gypsies in a van?” “No, you might need the bigger one for that.”

Borat’s humour is offensive. It’s filthy. Although Cohen is obviously poking fun at his clueless, often depraved targets, his comedy still benefits from the social licence to make sexist, racist or perverted jokes. His critics might justifiably accuse him of trying to have his cake and eat it, and inadvertently contribute to an indifferent attitude towards hate and bigotry.

Cohen is a progressive intellectual and an excellent satirist - he is keenly aware of this controversial aspect of much of his work, but he sticks with it because the obscenity of his characters is an essential ingredient in his hard-hitting exposé-style parodies. Cohen’s craft is moulding a protagonist whose wretched bigotry so frankly reflects that of the assholes he entraps that they let down their guard and freely unveil their ugliness to the world.

In the first Borat movie, three frat boys were filmed proudly making horrifically sexist remarks. After suffering well-deserved public humiliation as a consequence of their total lack of human decency, they tried to take Cohen to court and promptly lost. Cohen’s latest instalment leaves many such scumbag victims in its wake, and once again, the worst of them pertain to the treatment of women.

A Fed-Ex employee oversees the trafficking of Tutar, an underage girl, without a complaint; a doctor at a women’s health clinic refuses to give Tutar an abortion even while under the impression that the 15-year-old girl was raped by her own father; a plastic surgeon agrees to give Tutar breast implants so that she can attract an old American man, and admits that he would “sex attack” her if her father weren’t there.

When the US goes into Covid-19 lockdown during production, Borat asks some guy in a parking lot if he can stay with him and his housemate, who turn out to be QAnon conspiracy theorists who believe that Democrats are demons and the Clintons drink the blood of children. It is therefore appalling and deliciously ironic that the pair is still more than willing to help Borat deliver his adolescent daughter to be a sex slave for a member of the Trump administration.

But the misogynist scumbag crown has got to go to Republican Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York, who after flirting and leering his way through an interview with Tutar, who he believes to be 15, follows her into an adjoining bedroom and begins unbuttoning his trousers with the expectation of sex. What a slimy creep.

Although Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm will likely make you laugh, gasp and grin with glee almost as much as its predecessor did, the implications of its jokes are darker and more damning of the American public. When faced with Borat’s shameless prejudices, the people of America, the great superpower which for so long has touted itself as the leader of the civilised world, are easily revealed to be morally bereft, apathetic or simply rotten cowards, unwilling to stand up for what’s right.

And you have to wonder, how would people in your community react to a character as unashamedly depraved as Borat if they did not know they were being watched? How would you react? Calling out toxic behaviour can be tiresome, futile, and even scary, but when people choose, for whatever reason, to bite their tongue rather than speak up, they inadvertently bolster the kind of insidious culture of hate that put a greedy, braggadocios, racist, xenophobic, pussy grabber in the White House. DM/ML

The first Borat Movie is available for be watching on Apple TV+ and Google Play. Borat Subsequent Movie Film is available for be watching on Amazon Prime. Viewers outside of US are advised for use a VPN to accessing film. Very Nice!

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