Borat: A Depressing Commentary on “the U.S. of A.”

Now, don’t get me wrong… I laughed like a FOOL during this movie. It’s one of most clever films that tries to pass itself off as slapstick (of which, it totally isn’t).

On one level, it’s one of the funniest films out there… It’s silly… it’s gut-busting… and it’s hilarious.

But on the larger level, it’s a very cutting film… and it exposes a very problematic and (sadly) fundamental part of the US: the highly hypocritical and exasperatingly racist part of society, mostly high society.

Read why after the jump

There were quite a few times when my jaw dropped with a resounding thud… realizing that many of these people didn’t know that they were being “revealed”… realizing that how these folks were acting wasn’t part of a script, but a pretty accurate depiction of their true colors. Granted, some were paid $400 to be part of the film (they had no clue it was satiric and for this major of a production), but for the most part, the truth of who they are showed through.

Many people mistakenly think that Sacha Baron Cohen is demeaning and ridiculing Kazakhstan, but the truth is, as decrepid and financially destitute the faux representation of that country was, they were honest and very open… He points out a rapist with the same aplomb as he points out the local carpenter/abortionist.

Meanwhile, in the “U.S. of A.”, the elite hosts of a well-to-do dinner sprout horror as he invites his “friend” (a black woman) to dinner. Granted, she’s dressed like the prostitute that she really is, but it’s horrifying to watch them curtail dinner to shoo them out like criminals.

Borat’s behind-the-scenes conversation with a rodeo manager is equally as distressing.

I could tell, as I walked out of the theatre, that I was probably the only one who thought this way of the film… teenagers and early 20somethings hi-fiving each other with big smiles and grins, talking about how awesome that one scene was when blahblahblah… and perhaps, I’m the only one who is reading this far into a film that’s pure, unrelenting comedy… but when we, as Americans, are exposed as raw and as naked as Cohen has revealed, I’m almost ashamed to stand next to my fellow Americans.

And that, my friends, is why I think Sacha Baron Cohen is a genius… His razor-sharp satire completely flies over the heads of most theatre goers, while the rest of us are provoked into deeper thought into the sad social mores of a country that’s run by an imbecile.

Ok, so that was a downer.

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