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Borat - brilliant, bad or boring?

Review of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Directed by Larry Charles, 2006.

Written for the website West by Northwest , December 2006.

This autumn saw Borat burst onto our film screens. Sacha Baron Cohen's spoof about a hapless Kazakhstani journalist crossing America in an ice-cream van to marry Pamela Anderson has proved a huge hit in both America and Britain.

What are we to make of the ludicrous tele-journalist who inadvertently transgresses numerous taboos of liberal America - anti-semitism, homophobia, nakedness, and sexism to name but a handful? Is it a clever satire deftly uncovering American prejudices, self-indulgent adolescent vulgarity, or just a plain laugh that should not be taken too seriously? Borat is an ambiguous film that can be interpreted in all these ways, but is that the most that can be said of it?

Some Kazakh government officials have complained bitterly about Borat over the years, since he made his first appearance alongside Baron Cohen's other notorious spoof, Ali G, 'da voice of youf'. Does Borat really threaten to damage the country's international image?

It must be acknowledged at the start that Borat is a clever film. To pull off the deceptions that Baron Cohen undertakes requires imagination, courage, and some good acting. Of course, the primary aim of companies that produce and distribute mainstream films is to make money, and Borat's producers have cleverly picked both their audiences and targets alike. The groups that Baron-Cohen chooses to make look foolish - such as 'veteran feminists', 'red-necks', Kazakhstanis, and drunken frat-boys - are easy targets and also lack political organisation capable of hitting ticket sales through protests.

One notable taboo that Borat (thankfully) does not risk transgressing is that against mocking Islam. Most Kazakhs are Muslims, and misogyny and anti-semitism in Central Asia are commonly legitimised by appeal to discourses of traditional Islam. Borat, however, leaves that subject well alone, even to the point of explicitly denying that he is Muslim ('I follow the hawk', he says). This was an astute reading of the cultural scene, no doubt informed both by financial considerations and reflection on the recent fates of some Western companies or artists that have attempted to transgress this prohibition.

Borat in America

For me, Borat doesn't generally work as a satire on America. Some scenes are exceptions to this, such as when he hilariously highlights social dysfunction and anomie by attempting to befriend strangers in New York and watching them flee in fear or turn aggressive. Likewise, a rodeo evening scene, where Borat declares to a cheering crowd, 'I support your war of terror', is brilliant, cleverly pushing at the limits of American nationalism. However, the endless concentration on bodily parts (genitals and anuses) and functions (sex and defecation) is simply puerile. More worryingly, audiences are encouraged to laugh at sexist abuse rather than confront it in themselves.

As a researcher, my profession holds that interviewing someone under false pretences should only be done cautiously, rarely, and for some very good reason. Simply to get a laugh, as Borat does, is cheap and at times abusive - and has triggered various complaints from people who appeared in the film and claim they were tricked. For example, the veteran feminists are in a no-win situation when Borat asks them if it is a problem for co-education that women have smaller brains that men. Michael Moore manages to pull it off with his unsettling interview with an ageing Charlton Heston in Bowling For Columbine. Arguably, Baron Cohen did likewise with some of Ali G's covert interviews. Borat, however, fails to work consistently on the level of satire, and the apparent abuse of some participants is ethically disturbing.

Borat in Kazakhstan

So, if its portrayal of the USA is disappointing and even disturbing, how good is Borat's depiction of Kazakhstan?

Central Asia is normally presented in Western film as dangerous. It was a hornet's nest of terrorists in Airforce One, dirty, wild and erotic in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and lawless and dangerous in The World is Not Enough. It has played the similar role of backdrop to danger in a host of lesser-known films and television dramas.

Borat echoes these in painting the region as culturally backwards, but breaks the mould in depicting it as ludicrous. Borat's village, briefly explored at either end of the film, is populated by ridiculous characters doing ridiculous things. The hero himself strives manfully to maintain this reputation in every encounter with Americans.

However, Borat has more in common with these darker films than first meets the eye. Like them, it depends upon the viewer's ignorance about Central Asia. Hollywood-style action films often work by framing scenes with locales that are reasonably familiar to Western viewers (see James Bond in Cuba, London, Istanbul etc) . Like Airforce One and The World is Not Enough, Borat works on exactly the opposite principle, of unfamiliarity.

All of these films rely on people not knowing much about Central Asia. Borat wouldn't be as funny if he claimed to be French, Indian or Chinese, as the stereotyping wouldn't be convincing. Central Asia remains, for most people, not an identifiable place, but a blank space that can easily be filled with the fears, fantasies and prejudices of film-makers and audiences. The producers of Borat show an accurate map of Kazakhstan, but this is a deceptive move, as accuracy generally stops with the cartographic outline. Anti-semitism and sexism is not uncommon in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, but these prejudices are found in many societies in Europe and the Middle East. No wonder that Kazakhstan has complained so vociferously.

From Borat to Murat

In contrast to all these films is the excellent 2002 Kazakh-French production, Murat. It is a compelling and superbly made story of an ordinary Kazakh guy, Murat, trying to survive in post-Soviet societal meltdown, sucked inexorably downwards by a cruel cycle of misfortune and injustice.

Murat presents Kazakhstan as both dangerous and ludicrous, but in very different ways to the Western films. It shows how dangerous Kazakhstan can be for ordinary Kazakhs, as capitalism dismantles a social welfare system that was once the envy of 'third world' populations and even some 'first world' women. It depicts how ludicrous 'globalisation' is for a young man on the brink, pushed to become an unwilling killer by the very processes of globalisation hailed by many as the country's future. Whilst Borat is a tragi-comic character, Murat highlights the genuine tragedy of the immiserisation of a region that only 20 years ago had a higher literacy rate than Western Europe, but where now former nuclear physicists can be found driving taxis.

The academic journal Slavic Review recently generated mirth in the British media by inviting academic articles for a special edition on Borat. It has been said that analysing humour is like dissecting a frog - no one is particularly interested, and it dies instantly. It may be that we earnest scholars have missed the point, and the joke is thus on us. Borat is an ambiguous film that works on a variety of levels, and to pigeon-hole it with either clear approval or disapproval would be simplistic. However, if pushed to choose between forking out money on Borat or Murat, I'd advise spending it on the latter. Better still, save up and visit Kazakhstan itself next summer, and judge for yourself how accurate both characterisations are.