In one episode of The Simpsons, Krusty the Clown discovers that he isn’t really Jewish, and bemoans his fate thus: “I thought I was a self-hating Jew, but it turns out I’m just a plain old anti-Semite!”
There is a possibility that Sacha Baron Cohen, the comedian who impersonates not only Ali G but Borat Sagdiyev, central figure of the new movie Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, is going to be accused of being a self-hating Jew. Much of the humour in Borat is anti-Semitic, which is to say a vicious parody of unthinkingly vicious anti-Semitism. It’s hard to think that anyone will mistake it for genuine anti-Semitism, but such things are always possible. At least he says nothing about Israel — that would really get him into trouble.
Borat popped up in the Ali G TV series, and some of the episodes in the movie replay gags first aired there. Borat is a Kazakhstani TV reporter, and the basic idea is similar to that of Ali G’s hilariously dumb interviews with various people, where the humour is based on the fact that the interviewee usually does not realise that Ali G or Borat (or Cohen’s other creation, the campy “Austrian” Bruno) is not who he appears to be, and that his questions are artfully constructed to be as stupid and embarrassing as possible.
That more interviewees (like the consultants on humour and etiquette) don’t see what’s going on, and that they’re being fooled and made fools of, is not perhaps terribly surprising, especially in a middle-America that takes itself rather seriously. It is hard, though, to imagine that all the episodes in the Borat movie were entirely unexpected by their subjects — in which case they are very artfully set up to blend with the rest. Then again, many of Borat’s victims are clearly unaware of what’s happening to them, seeing him as a genuine Kazakhstani trying earnestly to acquire some “cultural learnings” from the United States.
In that, despite such violently anti-Semitic gags as the “running of the Jew” in Borat’s home town, the satire is, in fact, directly primarily at Americans. It is they who come off worst in their encounters with Borat as he travels across the continent to report on the US, at first, and then, later, in a quest for love. The utterances of some drunken American youths who give Borat a lift expose their mindless sexism without Borat having to do much at all. And the hilarious scene at a rodeo in which Borat sings the praises of George W Bush’s “war of terror” concludes with an event that could not have been set up — it is a perfect accident.
Kazakhstan, of course, has a right to be offended at Borat’s depiction of his home country, which seems the most gratuitously offensive — but it’s also very funny. In fact, the whole of Borat, in all its glorious offensiveness, is very very funny. Some of it makes you cringe in sympathy with his victims, and sometimes just at his ludicrous behaviour, but its satire and, often, simply its inspired silliness hit the funny bone again and again.
Cohen proves with flair that he can do serious satire, as in making anti-Semitism so utterly preposterous — in this he is more successful than any number of earnest campaigners. Moreover, he can do gross-out comedy better than the rest. The scene in which Borat and his producer, Azamat (Ken Davitian), burst into mutual naked physical abuse makes the likes of the Farrelly brothers look amateurish. For my money, Cohen’s Borat is a more successful creation than his Ali G; and, if he keeps getting better, I look forward to the movie based on Funkyzeit mit Bruno. That is, if Borat, which is sitting atop the US box office as we speak, doesn’t run away with his career altogether.