Weekly meditations from your humble messenger
Borat
for UN Ambassador
(Borat..., 11/20/06)
By Nicholas Nicastro
Here's
one way to avoid the coming political trainwreck over the confirmation
of Ambassador John Bolton to the UN: America should send Borat instead.
Sure, Borat Sagdiyev is a visceral
misogynist, an anti-Semite, and a boor. That puts him right in the mainstream
of views on women's rights, Jews, and intellectuals in most of the developing
world. On the plus side, Borat happens to be less abrasive than John
Bolton. He also has the more natural-looking moustache.
For those who may have spent the
last month living under a rock—or in the real Kazakhstan—please
to explain. Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat: Cultural Learnings of America
for Make Benefit the Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan has been the
#1 box office hit since its release, and his phenomenon shows no sign
of easing. Not that the movie Borat represents anything new. The faux-naif
foreign journalist, who (along with Ali G and Bruno, the gay fashionista)
is one of Cohen's alter-egos on his cable comedy series Da Ali G Show,
has been traveling America for years, mangling the language and proprieties
of his hosts. The classic moments are frequently re-run on HBO: Borat
gets hip to American dating rituals ("If you cheat on me, I crush
you"); Borat on the campaign trail with a Congressional candidate
("My friend will be strong, like Stalin"); Borat on stage
at a Tucson honky-tonk bar, belting out the popular Kazakh folk tune
"Throw the Jew Down the Well."
Cohen (who is, incidentally, Jewish)
has become something of the Greta Garbo of modern slob comedy, refusing
ever to appear out of character. There's also something disturbing,
something like the bright gleam of monomania, in the way he insists
on growing out a real moustache for Borat, or real chin-pubes before
donning the track suit to play gangsta wannabe Ali G.
What makes his work constantly fascinating,
though, is the way his creations become fun-house mirrors to what are
ultimately the far more bizarre public figures he "interviews".
Only someone with a very low opinion of foreigners could take Borat
for anything but a put-on, yet a surprising number of Americans are
arrogant enough to take him at face value. It is to the eternal credit
of Pat Buchanan and Boutros Boutros-Ghali that they rolled with Ali
G's moronic questions ("Was it smart to invade Iraq over BLTs?")
with patience and humor.
But did Borat really need to be
a movie? Clever as Cohen's scenario occasionally is, having Borat travel
across the country to find his lady-love—Pamela Anderson—has
a definite whiff of the contrived, like another sequel to Dumb and
Dumber. Anyone familiar with the HBO version knows that Cohen's
genius is essentially baroque: he takes every joke too far, beyond funny,
beyond uncomfortable, to a place that feels unexplored in its weirdness.
You'd think a movie would give him ample scope to go even farther. Yet
the encounters with real America in Borat feel all too short—it's
as if someone was afraid to expect too much of a popcorn audience. At
its best, such as Borat's tour of his native village, the film is hilarious.
At its worst, it comes off like yet another Saturday Night Live
sketch overextended to feature length.
At least Borat won't overstay his
welcome with a sequel. Cohen's characters can only function in obscurity-he
had to move from Britain to the US after Ali G got so famous he couldn't
find unsuspecting subjects for his gag interviews. The success of the
Borat movie will likewise cannibalize any chance for more "cultural
learnings." Those hungering for more should check out the classic
Borat on HBO. The rest of us can only hope to see him filling Bolton's
seat at the Security Council soon.
©2006 Nicholas Nicastro
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