message in the movies By Rev. Bruce Batchelor Glader

            
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.  Rated R
Directed by Larry Charles
Starring Sacha Baron Cohen, Ken Vavitian

Photos © Copyright 20th Century Fox

Satire, by its very nature, is risky.  And satire coupled with irony is even riskier.  But satire, irony and stupidity together is riskiest of all.  Such is the case of Borat, a film that is simultaneously brilliant, crude, insightful, offensive, silly, and profound.  Borat is a “mockumentary” featuring Borat Sagdiyev (Cohen) a fictitious television personality from the real country of Kazakhstan, which in no way resembles the real country of Kazakhstan, but is rather a stereotype of an impoverished, backwater and racist nation.  Borat and his producer (Vavitian) come to America to make a documentary about our way of life and, in their own naïve fashion, offend, provoke and expose our own prejudices.  Some of the film is spontaneous performance art in which Borat is able to mix it up with unsuspecting people, who fall for the charade (ala “Candid Camera” or “Punk’d”).  Other scenes are improvisations with other actors.  It is possible to find this film very funny and also offensive.  Within the first five minutes of Borat you will find jokes about rape, incest, and prostitution and see an anti-Semitic gag reminiscent of Nazi propaganda.  Later on there are jokes involving defecation, masturbation, and pornography.  But…these situations come about because Borat Sagdiyev is totally clueless about how offensive these topics are.  Such is the way of prejudice; it is perpetuated by folks who just don’t seem to understand how it hurts entire groups of people, diminishing people of worth to a few broad brush strokes of dismissal or contempt.  So there is the brilliance of this film.  However, the movie is stupid enough and racist enough that a close-minded bigot might enjoy the film without understanding its subtext.  Borat is therefore, in the final analysis, a litmus test of the viewer’s sensitivities.  Thus, the more compassionate and caring the viewer, the more you may dislike the film.  So, if you really hate this movie, then it has accomplished its purpose.  And, if you get the joke and laugh and enjoy the film, knowing that it’s just good satire (even the Anti-Defamation League will grant that it is not to be understood as anti-Semitic), then the film has succeeded.  But, if you harbor prejudices against Jews and Iraqis and gays and feminists and enjoy Borat’s crude stereotypes, then the movie will only fan the flames of intolerance and the film will have failed (and the Anti-Defamation League is aware of this risk, as well).  So there.  You can’t say that you haven’t been warned.  

Pitchfork Rating: Two halos.   (A brilliant film that is also stupid enough to run the risk of perpetuating the very things it critiques.)   Four pitchforks  (Much crude language, spoken and sub-titled, sexual, racist and anti-Semitic humor, graphic male nudity.)

 

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