Borat’s Back in New Sequel! But will the Comedic Kazakh Cause Problems?
By Zach Roozendaal, Contributor
All the way back in 2007 a journalist from Kazakhstan with a lime green mankini, grey suit with a green striped shirt, beige tie, and thick black head of hair and moustache made his way over to the United States to film a documentary meant to showcase the lifestyles of Americans to help educate the people of his country.
That journalist caused quite a stir with his racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and sexist antics. His name was Borat Sagdiyev, and he has returned for a second outing, despite the fact that times have changed and his antics may be a career ender in multiple ways.
Now, Borat isn’t actually a real person, nor is he from Kazakhstan. He is a persona of British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who first debuted on the British political criticism sketch comedy series “Da Ali G Show”. He was featured in the segment known as “Borat’s Guide to Britain” where he would try and document the lifestyles and culture of those from the UK. Eventually, the character was introduced to American audiences through a revived version of the series for HBO with all new segments of him in the USA. But he got the most attention when he gained a film of his own, titled “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” and it involved him traveling across America while filming a documentary with his ‘producer’, Azamat Bagatov (played brilliantly by comedian Ken Davitian). In the movie, Borat decides to go to America after seeing an episode of Baywatch in his New York hotel room and gets the idea to go to California in an attempt to marry one of the show’s lead actresses, Pamela Anderson.
Multiple issues came with the film, with Borat being used as a tool to try and highlight the ridiculousness of all forms of prejudice, and that it’s fueled by both ignorance and indifference, according to Sacha Baron Cohen. The bumbling, socially awkward, but kind hearted reporter was retired shortly after his theatrical debut. Subsequent lawsuits followed from the comedic depictions of some of the individuals who appeared in the film, including a driving instructor and a few college students, as well as the Romanian village of Glod which was used for all the shots of “Kazakhstan” and whose citizens were featured and labeled as Kazakhs. The use of Glod was due to Cohen being issued a ban from Kazakhstan’s government leaving him unable to film there, although it was later lifted.
Borat’s interactions were seemingly filled with an innocence despite the uncomfortable and awkward nature of his comments in everyday conversations. I’ll be leaving out some of the more R rated comments but some of his most mild ones are praising his hero, “Anti Jew Warrior Melvin Gibsons” (Mel Gibson), the Australian born Hollywood actor and director of “The Passion of the Christ”, and also Sagdiyev saying that he is a big fan of George W Bush and his “Strong father Barbara”, as well as his love of America and stating in most interviews that he needs to use the restroom despite already being on air. Also, if he is interviewed by a woman, Borat asked when the actual interviewer was going to arrive, before proceeding to act surprised that women can do interviews, and saying “In my country we say to let a woman be a journalist is like to let a monkey fly a plane, very dangerous, high five!”. He also frequently brings up his hatred of his deceased ex-wife and half-sister Oksana, with Sagdiyev even describing the following in an exchange with David Letterman:
David: Now you said you were married?
Borat: Yes, but my wife is dead.
David: Oh well I’m sorry to hear that.
Borat: HIGH FIVE!
Borat expresses his love of taking photos in women’s restrooms, having a sister who works in the adult pleasure industry, as well as having a son named Huey Lewis and a daughter-in-law, along with a grandchild whom he hopes to sell to Madonna, and a mentally disabled brother which he refers to with a less politically correct phrase, who had a lobotomy/exorcism to remove a demon from his brain by inserting the tooth of a red haired woman, causing the demon to curse his brother Bilo with brain damage.
In the age of social media, where a single Tweet is all it can take to potentially get someone blacklisted from Hollywood, Cohen said in past interviews that it would be impossible to make a sequel to Borat, and because with the way technology and social media are and how recognizable the character is, trying to go undercover and surprise people the way he did on “Da Ali G Show” and in the movie wouldn’t work. It was widely considered that Cohen’s 2009 film “Bruno” about his gay Austrian fashion model persona of the same name, was intended to be at least a partial sequel to Borat, since both share similar elements of Cohen baiting unsuspecting people into interacting with his strange and offensive persona.
Borat has popped up a few times since then though, with him appearing on an episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in 2015 to promote Cohen’s latest film at the time, “Brother’s Grimsby”, and then again during a 2018 segment to participate in “midterm election tampering” as Cohen was appearing on the show to promote his latest series “Who is America?”
Needless to say, it almost looked as though the character was going to be gone for a while, but almost 2 years after his last appearance, Cohen was spotted back at the end of August with a camera crew following him while in character as Borat, driving around Los Angeles in a yellow pickup truck. Allegedly, a sequel was filmed in secret during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On October 1st though, an official teaser for the film had been uploaded to YouTube and got over 1.4 million views in a span of only 10 hours. The trailer includes a small monologue by Borat Sagdiyev, stating that 14 years ago, he made a movie for his home country, but instead of educating them it just brought great shame to Kazakhstan, but now he has been sent back on a secret mission to make a new film and give an update on American culture and the state of politics and life, and what has changed since his last film.
The biggest issue seemed to be Borat being widely recognizable, as mentioned earlier. They do address this in the movie, and Borat attempts to deal with his fame the only way he feels fit: to disguise himself as an American and try to change his appearance to throw people off so he could avoid recognition. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the Kazakh and his daughter were able to have a blast across the USA with very great success!
The film has been titled “Borat Subsequent Movie film: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” and the film itself is set to be released on October 23rd and will feature Borat quarantining with rednecks, visiting a costume shop, having a fake wedding, learning how to play golf, crashing a speech from Mike Pence, and attempting to auction off his daughter for marriage to Donald Trump’s family, and lots more!
But until then, feel free to watch the original as it was good and, if anything, I hope that this sequel will truly live up to the standards the first film has set.
And now, before I bid you farewell, I’ll leave you all with my final thought. When a person from a foreign land visits another country, cultures may clash but who is wrong in those situations? The visitor for not understanding the customs, or the host for not being more sympathetic of the knowledge gaps and cultural differences?
Well, that’s all. Remember to sanitize or wash your hands when you are in an area with lots of high touch surfaces, wear a mask when required, social distance as much as possible, and stay home if you’re not feeling well because you aren’t doing anyone any favours if you don’t.
Until next time, stay safe out there, ladies and gentlemen. This is Zach Roozendaal, signing off. Goodbye for now!
