| by Jill Vernon | 11/10/06 | 195 views |
It is disheartening that as of late it has become politically incorrect to make fun of Jews, women, Middle-Eastern culture and Americans. I yearn for the good ol’ days where I would sit in my rocking chair on the front porch, reading the New Testament, cursing at homosexuals, beating my wife and praying to God to undo Reconstruction. Then came British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” a film that is so unapologetically racist, sexist and offensive that not a single soul can leave the movie theater without bleeding from a wound after being ridiculed.
A plot is completely unnecessary in “Borat” because the audience is entertained and kept laughing at almost every minute. The film is in the form of a mockumentary with a camera crew following Borat, the Kazakhstan reporter, as he discovers the heart and soul of America to show to his own nation. The audience is satisfied with the simple concept of Borat traveling across America in order to learn more about our culture. After discovering that an elevator within his hotel is not the room he is going to stay in, he learns how to wash his face in a toilet and how to work a television. Subsequently, he falls in love with Pamela Anderson after watching a marathon of Baywatch. Tricking his manager, he convinces him to drive out to California in an ice cream truck in order to marry Pamela Anderson. During the road trip he comes across endless obstacles on the road to finding true love, for without these road blocks the film would just be boring. Although, that is hard to imagine in a movie where humor is found in “accidentally” breaking thousands of dollars of antiques.
As Borat moves from Kazakhstan to New York to the Mid-West to California, the audience groans whenever he decides to make a public appearance. Borat’s journey begins in Kazakhstan where he makes out with a woman and then claims she is not only his sister but also the number four prostitute in all of Kazakhstan. Upon arriving in New York, Borat kisses every person he meets and visits a humor coach who reveals that it is not, in fact, very funny to make fun of the mentally challenged. When he drives west, Borat attempts to sing the National Anthem at a rodeo, only he substitutes an impromptu solo performance of a Kazakhstan anthem with The Star-Spangled Banner. He then journeys to an Evangelical church to get Satan exorcised out of him, shortly after he narrowly escapes a house of Jews.
The concept of “Borat” is nothing short of brilliant. It is a film that is purely original and utilizes a humor that has not been seen since Andy Kaufman graced the screen. “Borat” is a twisted satire that mixes cultural misunderstandings to become, as Borat would say, “most funny.” Cohen’s characterization of Borat is sure to become an icon for the years, with his quotes being thrown around as often as we had to endure hearing horrid Napoleon Dynamite impressions. Whether or not you find the film to be hard to swallow or brilliantly funny, “Borat" is arguably a movie experience you have never had and never will again. After all, no other film features a cast of characters who recommend a .45 millimeter gun in order to defend yourself away from Jews and a man who supports our American “war of terror.”
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