Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

I apologise for the extended dead air on the blog. I became quite apathetic to my job, and that apathy spread into my private life. I also dedicated a lot of time to watching stuff that really wasn’t interesting enough to review. I have a new job now, which isn’t nearly as boring as the last one, and so hopefully, this will be the first of a series of regular posts, as I have a pile of CDs and films to watch/write about, a few books that I’d like to get into, and I still haven’t done that analysis of The Dreamers which I was talking about ages ago.

But for now, let’s have a look at last year’s hit comedy Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. I hated it.

For those of you who don’t know, Borat is a creation of Sacha Baron Cohen (better known to most Brits as Ali G). He’s supposed to be from Kazakhstan and is in America to gather information on the country for the Kazakhstani government. Cue cultural misunderstandings as Cohen annoys people across an entire continent, and points out America’s faults in hilariously politically incorrect fashion.

I’m not a fan of political correctness by any means, but I think there are only special occasions when certain jokes should be made in a public forum, particularly jokes about Muslims and Jews. If these form part of some coherent critique or the expressing of a valid political point-of-view, I can understand it. But Borat isn’t a film with a political stance – it simply pokes fun at these targets for a cheap laugh, and I think that that’s a dangerous mentality and attitude when it comes to anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim sentiment: it renders the two acceptable by laughing off a very serious problem. Quite apart from that, the jokes aren’t even original. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Jews are greedy and want your money. Er, yeah...

Now, there’s some potential interest in the film as far as it being a snapshot of America, but even these insights lack depth, and don’t tell us anything we don’t already know: yes, the South is xenophobic and bigotted, frat boys are idiot man-sluts with all the rafinement of a boar, and Texas sucks. There’s a very cool scene with Borat and a group of black teenagers, who turn out to be the friedliest people in the film, totally toppling the stereotype. But Cohen’s aim isn’t to explore the culture, it’s simply to get a cheap laugh and run, and many potentially interesting scenerios and interviews are cut short because they’ve served that purpose.

If you want a politically incorrect comedy which actually makes an intelligent political point (and not one I necessarily agree with, but a thought-out political position nonetheless) try Team America: World Police. But avoid this crap.