Borat: Social Failings of America for Make Money for Sacha Baron Cohen

After seeing Borat on the Daily Show last week, I was not tempted to plonk down cash money to see the movie. But then I started reading about the law suits and that Russia is planning to ban it. And we were a little bored and needed to get out tonight. So ya got us Borat/Sacha -- ya got $14.90, anyhow. So what can you say about this Borat? It was hilarious, but most of the time it was uncomfortably hilarious -- and all too often it was like watching an Abu Gharaib prison video. Desipite the title, Borat has very little to say about American culture: New Yorkers don't like strangers kissing them on the subway. Southerners like their prayer palaces. Texans like rodeos. Everyone knows who Pamela is and apparently, anyone, can be on TV if they really want to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With out challenging it, Barat gives us a bland, escapist America that is at once hedonistic and inward looking and he reflects a full spectrum of racism, sexism, homophobia and ignorance that is intended (one imagines) to mirror the American psyche.

But Borat is pushing more than American buttons. Apparently Kazakhstan may sue the makers of the movie because of its negative portrayal of that country. Russia may ban it completely. Meanwhile a Turkish web star claims to to be the inspiration for Borat's character and wants recognition and cash. To bring the surreality of this film full circle, several American frat boys who make racist and sexist comments in the movie are now suing to have their scenes cut. It's only a movie boys -- we've already forgotten you.

So what is Borat really trying to tell us? At first glance the movie is very unkind to the good people of Kazakhstan, but the racial humor is so over the top that no one can take it seriously. On the other hand, Borat barely scratches the surface as satire of American "Cultural Learning" and it challenges nothing about the over-protected, over-medicated, self-indulgent, hyper-consuming society in which we live. Except for this: in the middle of a fancy dinner party Borat excuses himself to use the washroom and then returns dangling a plastic bag containing his own feces. Earlier in the movie he defecates in a public garden in Manhattan. What's really going on here? Bother literally and figuratively it would seem that Borat is shitting on America -- and audiences are eating it up. So don't sweat the small stuff Kazakhstan -- you got off easy.

Of course nothing about this movie is really that easy. Borat does make it back home after all and he brings part of America home with him: a new iPod and a new wife. So we end the movie with a flourish of cultural globalization and a cute product placement for Apple?

Please can me help make a learning about your movie, Borat? I have feeling it is not getting me.