Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious People of Israel
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Last Sunday marked my introduction to Borat Sagdiyev, everyone's favorite Kazakh television news reporter, created and played to perfection by Anglo-Jewish comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. Borat, previously seen on Cohen's Da Ali G Show on HBO and BBC Channel Four, made it to the big screen in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan with more than a few grumbles and complaints from PC-mongers the world over. Although I'm usually not inclined to plunk down seven bucks for a ticket to a matinee, the slew of criticisms surrounding Cohen's portrayal of a racist, sexist, anti-Semitic Eastern European goy piqued my interest. That, and, well, Cohen's a Jew; I've got to support the tribe. (It's a mitzvah.)
The film begins and ends with credit sequences that appear as if they were ripped from those 1970s filmstrips you used to watch in science class. Peppered with subtitles in Kazakh and shot using a variety of mediums ranging from amateur film cameras (I'm thinking Super-8 at some points, maybe) to the standard 35 mm, Borat is a technical film watcher's delight, proving both visually appealing and stylistically appropriate to the plot.
Borat is exactly what its title claims to be: a film chronicling the journeys of a Kazakh journalist through America's heartland, from New York to LA and all points in-between. Sent by his government to study the culture of "U S and A, greatest country in the world," in order to see where improvements could be made in Kazakhstan life, Borat quickly becomes distracted by reruns of the popular American TV show Baywatch. Before you know it, he's convinced his producer to change their plans so that he can travel cross-country to Los Angeles, where he plans to marry model/sex superstar Pamela Anderson. While the plot may seem weak at best, it is purposely vague and affords a lot of elbowroom for Borat to interact with average Americans along the way.
Employing the improvisational style that made him a star, Cohen interacts with people on the streets of New York, walking up to them with such greetings as, "I am Borat, I from Kazakhstan, I want to say hello. I want to kiss you." After an incident on the city streets last year, when playing Borat on the fly got Cohen and pal Hugh Laurie into a fist fight with a humorless New Yorker, Cohen could be seen as nothing less than brave for trying to kiss the Big Apple hello. In fact, Borat's interactions with Americans throughout the film were comprised of some bold choices made by Cohen, who could've easily been shot once, if not multiple times, for the things that came out of Borat's mouth. His ability to stay in character and think quickly on his feet has made Cohen such a success. His willingness to push the boundaries in character is what makes Cohen a star, and what makes you think twice about what he's doing with his Kazakh character.
Not for the faint of heart, Borat has its share of potty-humor. I'm not talking dirty words as much as I'm talking dirty jokes, mainly about bodily functions, gratuitous shots of frontal male nudity, and one extended scene involving two naked men in a wrestling match that I could've done without. There's also a fair share of jokes, mainly verbal, regarding female sexuality. Needless to say, Borat is not a film to bring the kids to, or your parents, for that matter. However, Borat's essentially perverted nature serves to support Cohen's brilliant thesis on the true nature and character of anti-Semitism.
In his introduction, Borat informs us that, while Kazakhstan is a glorious country, it has three main problems: "economic, social, and Jew." One of the Kazakhstan traditions portrayed in the film is the "Running of the Jew," an event, not unlike the running of the bulls, in which a man and a woman wearing grotesque head-masks run down the street in stereotypical Jewish garb while the people chase them and throw money at them in order to get them to go away. At one point, the female Jew stops to lay an egg, which the children proceed to pounce on. It is an ugly, vilifying scene, but one that serves to prove a point many Jews in America seem to have forgotten: That anti-Semitism is an ugly, disgusting ideology that can have deadly results.
Although his dialogue is peppered with anti-Jewish comments, Borat has only one interaction with an American Jewish couple in the film. Arriving at a bed and breakfast in the country, Borat is horrified to see the walls of the stylish home covered in Jewish art. When he asks the hostess why she has paintings of Jews hanging on her walls, she informs him that she is Jewish, and Borat goes green. Holing up in their room, Borat and his producer do their best to hide their fear, not wanting to provoke an attack from the "shape-shifting Jews." When offered a sandwich by the Jewish couple, Borat tries to casually pawn it off to his partner before taking a bite and carefully spitting it out once the hostess's back was turned.
What could be deemed the most offensive anti-Semitic scene didn't involve the Jewish couple at all. Two cockroaches slip under Borat's bedroom door in the middle of the night. Borat and his producer, convinced the Jews have shifted shapes, ply the bugs with money before running out of the house in horror. Putting the cherry on the sundae of ignorance, Borat screams, "Let's go back to New York! At least they don't have Jews there!" as they pile into their truck and drive off.
While the hosts must have been left confused, they themselves were never subject to Borat's anti-Semitic rapport, nor were they abused in any way. Instead, both the humor and the humiliation belonged to Borat himself, as well as the gentiles around him who fed into his anti-Jewish schtick. In the following scene we find Borat in a gun store, asking the owner what would be the best weapon for protecting himself against a Jew. Without blinking an eye, the storeowner recommended a number of guns and even let Borat try a few (but refused to sell to him because he "wasn't an American"). Later in the film, Borat hitches a ride with some college boys on a road trip. In the midst of a beer-fueled conversation, one spouts out that "the minorities of this country" are the ones with the real control; at the top of the list were Jews.
At the end of the film, Borat informs us of the improvements made in Kazakhstan due to his American journey. "We don't make fun of Jews no more. That not nice. We Christians now!" Borat declares before the film cuts to a shot of an Orthodox man hanging on a cross, his Kazakh neighbors poking at him with pitchforks and raised fists. Despite the brazen imagery, this one shot is probably the most poignant in the film. In showing the Christians hanging a Jew from a cross, Cohen negates the concept of Jews as "Christ-killers" while, at the same time, drawing attention to the gross anti-Semitism so prevalent in the Christian church. It is as if we are being told that, although some things change, some always stay the same.
Should the viewer be offended by the Jew-raking that goes on in Borat? In a recent interview in Rolling Stone magazine, Cohen comments, "Borat essentially works as a tool, by himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice, whether it's anti-Semitism or an acceptance of anti-Semitism.... I remember, when I was in university I studied history, and there was this one major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw. And his quote was, 'The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.'"
In a world experiencing a sharp rise in anti-Semitic attacks over the past five years, especially in Western Europe, viewers should take heed of the classic technique of Jewish self-mockery; often, it is something used to illicit more than laughter. When actor, comedian, and Orthodox Jew Jack Benny released his infamous tongue-in-cheek film To Be or Not to Be in 1940, his own father condemned him for making light of the growing Nazi threat in Europe. It was only after Benny explained that he was using humor to make a very serious point that his father, and the rest of the country, saw the light. Now, Benny's film is hailed as a World War Two classic.
Cohen's Borat can be seen in much the same way. In a post-Twin Towers world, with the remnants of Nazism in the Arabian penninsula gaining global power and precedence, Borat's anti-Jewish attitude should act as a wake-up call to a country and a people deluded into thinking that anti-Semitism doesn't exist. While Borat chases after Jews and hangs them on crosses in Kazakhstan, the most incriminating aspect of his anti-Jewish attitude exhibits itself in America, when he explains that he chose to drive cross-country instead of fly, out of fear that "the Jews would blow up planes again," like they did on 9/11. This oft-repeated conspiracy theory that originated in the Muslim world and is growing in popularity among anti-Semites the world over (especially among the White Pride movement in America) is not anything to be taken lightly. With the publication of Mearsheimer and Walt's "The Israel Lobby" and a political return to the Arabist policies of anti-Semite James Baker following the midterm elections, American Jews should think twice before dismissing such notions as nothing more than the cannon fodder of the minority.
Despite its frat boy sense of humor, and, perhaps, even through it (because, what better way to portray a virulent anti-Semite than to have his disgusting behaviors mirror his disgusting beliefs), Borat provides a wake-up call to many American Jews who remain blind to the times we're living in. In an atmosphere of political correctness that presents anti-Semitism as nothing more than fodder for Jewish comedians, Cohen's use of Jewish self-mockery proves the point that hatred of Jews is anything but a laughing matter, and can often have deadly consequences. From crazy Kazakhs with pitchforks to your average American frat boy with a beer, Cohen's improv proves that anti-Semitism is no respecter of persons, Jew or goy alike. In defying the conventions of Jewish self-mockery, it is clear that Cohen's attitude toward Jew-hatred is anything but indifferent; perhaps, as a member of the priestly tribe, he is setting an example for us all.
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
20th Century Fox, One America/Everyman Pictures
Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Ken Davitian, Pamela Anderson
Written by: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer, Todd Phillips
Directed by: Larry Charles
MPAA Rating: R for pervasive strong crude and sexual content including graphic nudity, and language
Running Time: 82 minutes
Release Date: November 3, 2006
Borat
anti-Semitism
Jewish
Judaism
posted by Shoshana @ 9:51 AM
