CS Weekly Archive > DVD of the Day > 03/23/07

Funny as Hell…
But Should We Be Laughing?

by jason davis

Existing somewhere between mockumentary and fraud, Borat!: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is a remarkably constructed comedic attack on the audience that confirms, beyond a doubt, that the formula for comedy equals tragedy plus distance.

Sacha Baron Cohen & Anthony Hines & Peter Baynham & Dan Mazer
Story by Sacha Baron Cohen & Peter Baynham & Anthony Hines & Todd Phillips

Kazakh television personality Borat Sagdyiev (Sacha Baron Cohen), on the orders of his government's Ministry of Information, travels to "the United States and America [sic]," where he and his obese producer Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian) seek to make a documentary on American culture for the betterment of their native society. Arriving in New York and quickly offending numerous Americans with their backwards ways, the two men find themselves heading west in a second-hand ice cream truck so that Borat may attain his dream of stuffing Baywatch star Pamela Anderson into his wedding sack. A marriage of cinéma verité undercover expose and scripted social satire, Borat! fashions a series of chaotic vignettes into a unique and disconcerting comedy that begs the question, "How far should you go for a laugh?"

It is perhaps most telling that a film intended primarily for entertainment and with no real documentarian aspirations is allowed to misrepresent itself to its intended victims for the purpose of exploiting them as figures of fun. Such is the American "corporatocracy" that values businesses over individuals. Still more telling is the fact that Borat's alleged victims seem bereft of a healthy media skepticism as they leap in front of his cameras.

As the film unfolds, the viewer witnesses Cohen's character committing increasingly offensive stunts before unsuspecting participants who often find their sensibilities offended or their personal prejudices revealed. Cohen's dedication to his craft can only be described as religious as he goads rodeo owner Bobby Rowe into a racist and homophobic dialogue before offending Rowe's audience with a now-legendary attack on US military policy followed by his alleged Kazakh national anthem sung to the tune of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

That Cohen and his cohorts have designed each vignette, executed them amongst the uncertainties of "real-world" America, and assembled a cohesive story is a tribute to the reality aesthetic. The copious deleted scenes included on the DVD reveal an embarrassment of riches that must have been an agony to excise, but the film is at its best (or worst, depending on your taste) when Borat is among the unsuspecting masses, deploying his inane brand of behavior. Despite this, the film tends to grind to a halt whenever the plot is artificially injected into the proceedings, as when Borat discovers Pamela Anderson on the TV in his hotel room. Granted, these entirely staged segments, as when Borat and and Azamat get into a naked brawl that eventually spills into a crowded hotel ballroom, can result in hilarity, but they fundamentally undermine the realism of the story by revealing its scripted spine.

Nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2007 Academy Awards, Borat would seem an unlikely candidate given the film's improvised nature, but, as informed aficionados of the dubiously dubbed "reality TV" genre will attest, such programs are no less authored than any other species of entertainment. Cohen and his collaborators had to devise their scenarios not only to convey a story, but also to arouse the desired responses from their unwitting guest stars. Indeed, one deleted scene set in a grocery store wherein Borat repeatedly inquires of the store's manager about each bag of cheese in the dairy case, yet somehow never riles the employee to serious annoyance, illustrates the difficulty in getting the public to play along. At the core of the story is obviously the Borat character itself, which Cohen has refined to the point that his bizarre behavior can sustain itself in public despite numerous opportunities to break character in the midst of shooting.

The film's apologists would suggest that Cohen's attacks aim for small-minded, deserving targets, such as the aforementioned rodeo owner and later a Southern antique seller whose shop is filled with Confederate memorabilia, but Borat's antics also include several conservatives gathered for a dinner party, a Jewish couple running a boarding house, and a revival full of born-again Christians, none of whom are doing outright harm to anyone in the film's context.

In fact, one could easily make the argument that the filmmakers have targeted anyone they consider socially or intellectually beneath them. In a sense, their choice of targets damns the satiric impact of the work by placing Cohen and company in parity with certain bigots of half a century ago who believed that anyone unlike themselves was inferior and deserved to be persecuted. Except in that case the targets weren't racists, conservatives, or the small-minded (basically, anyone who holds a belief the filmmakers don't), but Jews, African-Americans, women, and homosexuals. Unlike The Daily Show's more fair-minded aim at anyone who crosses their path, Cohen only attacks certain groups and at times even has to bate them to get them to show the behavior he wants.

It's been observed that comedy is tragedy plus distance, and while the sequences presented elicit laughter, you need only imagine your mother on the receiving end of Cohen's humor for a sharp change in perspective. If anything, Cohen's crusade would seem to be against complacency, and in that, his attitudes are unmistakably in favor of expanding the boundaries of discourse be it in regard to comedy or even the human experience. If nothing else, his comedy makes one question, so, in that, the film succeeds on a remarkable scale, but the viewer is forced to wonder whether or not the film's message simply continues the war of intolerance on a new front rather than attempting to redress the wounds on all sides.

- Deleted scenes
- Global P.R. Tour
- Music infomercial

As previously mentioned, the deleted scenes offer up half a dozen further adventures, including a collection of law-enforcement interludes where Cohen and his colleagues remain in character while dealing with police officers. The global P.R. tour collects a number of in-character appearances by Cohen on The Tonight Show (with Martha Stewart) and others illustrating the performer's devotion to maintaining the charade of his character. Rather disappointingly, the DVD is presented entirely in character, robbing Cohen and company of the opportunity to express their own artistic and social perceptions of their work.

No matter one's personal opinion on Cohen's comedic ethics, Borat! certainly expands the scope of comedy by crafting a questionable satire out of a carefully crafted character set among an unsuspecting world of opinionated bystanders while prodding the viewer to consider what he or she's laughing at and why.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Rated R; 86 min.
$29.99

Buy it now

Jason Davis is the DVD Manager for CS Weekly , a contributing editor for Creative Screenwriting Magazine, and has written for Cinescape.com, MSN.com, and created the TV series Studio 13, which ran on Lorne Michaels' Burly TV network. He lives in the small space left over by his ever-expanding library of books, movies, and music.

Borat!: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan courtesy 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

From the Trenches
Working screenwriters discuss in their own words a particular aspect of screenwriting, from the mechanics of writing to the personal and professional impact that writing has had on their lives. > VIEW ARCHIVE

The Art of Craft
Screenwriting experts discuss how to approach various aspects of writing and the writing life. A mini-seminar each week from the people who write the books and teach the classes. > VIEW ARCHIVE

The Big Picture

Features that cover all aspects of screenwriting, from our "Seven Best" lists to analysis of old favorites and new classics. > VIEW ARCHIVE

Expert Witness
A panel of experts assembled to provide the facts about the screenwriting business. Readers will be able have their questions answered by an agent, producer, entertainment attorney, and WGA representative—and without paying that 10% commission. > VIEW ARCHIVE

Son of a Pitch
A weekly tutorial on how to write a script. Each week deals with a different element of creating a script, with the ultimate goal to provide a step-by-step instruction manual for new writers. The guide for this is a writer just diving into screenwriting himself, who asks the pros questions any new screenwriter would have about this brave new world. > VIEW ARCHIVE

Weekend Read
Film, book, web site and technology reviews from a writer’s perspective. How can these items help a writer on his or her journey, or make that journey more enjoyable? > VIEW ARCHIVE

DVD Review of the Day
DVD reviews from a writer’s point of view. What aspects of this script and features of this DVD illuminate the writing, development, and storytelling process? > VIEW ARCHIVE