Cultural Learnings

Sascha Baron Cohen should be sending flowers and chocolates to the state of Kazakhstan and the Anti-Defamation League, both of which have recently expressed concerns with Cohen's portrayal of the exaggeratedly and hilariously bigoted Kazakh Borat (and whose website promoting the forthcoming Borat movie brings me back to the days of the Mahir phenomenon).

Lest American investors and tourists get the wrong idea about Kazakhstan (though I'd be hard-pressed to show you even one American who has any ideas about the place), the nation's foreign ministry spokesman and embassy in Washington have condemned Cohen for propagating the idea that Kazakhstan is a backwards wasteland paradise for homophobes, misogynists, and anti-Semites. Of course, the government's complaints have resulted in the kind of free P.R. opportunities that entertainers like Cohen can only dream of; he promptly took advantage of the situation, engaging the critics in his "homeland" by replying to the Kazakh charges in character.

In its carefully-worded statement, the ADL did not argue for censorship or denounce Cohen for Borat's anti-Jewish songs (the most famous of which can be found here) and rants. It did, however, employ one of my favorite warnings against artistic and comedic freedom: in the words of one source's report on the statement, the organization "fear[ed] the humor to be dangerously too sophisticated for some." While the ADL moderates its warning by explaining that the organization is fully aware of the satirical nature of Cohen's comedy, it is clearly trying to distance itself from Cohen's approach to fighting prejudice.

The ADL's concerns stem from a fundamental misrecognition of the source of humor in Cohen's Borat sketches. There's nothing intrinsically hilarious about Borat's rendition of "Throw the Jew Down the Well" - taken out of context, few would fail to find the lyrics disturbing. But Borat's show is not about what Borat says or does, but about what his presence does to the unwitting folks around him.

That's why the Kazakh government should also give Borat a break. I'm not saying that Borat's frequent malapropisms and outlandish proclamations about Kazakh culture aren't funny. But they're not the point. If the pleasure in watching Cohen's Borat sketches turned on ridiculing a fictionalized Eastern European culture, that trick would have gotten old very fast.

Though Borat is ostensibly representing Kazakhstan, all of Cohen's Da Ali G Show sketches are purely about America and how the Americans who he encounters react to him. The pleasure in viewing lies in watching how Borat's mere presence alters and challenges the space of the politically correct American culture that he inhabits.

When Borat finds himself among bigots, he quickly disarms them, carrying them out of the P.C. American culture that punishes those who fail to keep their prejudices veiled and into the fictional Kazakhstan where, Borat assures them, the most un-P.C. of fantasies are lived out. Borat's presence provides a safe space for these people to crawl out of the woodwork and say what's on their minds. This stuff can be sad and disturbing and uncomfortable to watch. But it's almost always funny to watch people play along with Borat, to realize that Cohen has suddenly yet subtly shifted from outrageous to straight man as his subjects one-up him with the real-life absurdity of their beliefs. Rarely has an entertainer (improvising, no less!) showcased such striking comedic prowess in the service of such biting social criticism. In a P.C. world where there are fewer and fewer places for people to publicly state that Hitler had the right idea, Cohen puts the bigots in the spotlight exposes just how dimly they shine.

When Borat encounters the opposite type of Americans - the P.C. type that is eager to teach him American etiquette or to give him acting lessons - we are invited to observe the absurdities on the flip side of our culture. Most people who come up against Borat's rampant misogyny, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and the like stammer and sidestep his blatant offensiveness. Relying on his subjects' unyielding respect of and deference to cultural difference, he shows us Americans who politely downplay or skitter past Borat's blithe disregard for the equality of women, Jews, queers, etc. Here part of the fun is in watching Cohen challenge the limits of multiculturalism and political correctness, to see just how far he can take his act with well-meaning folks who will tolerate in a Kazakh what they would never abide by in one of their own.

Like Ali G, Cohen's streetwise rapper-cum-talk show host, and Bruno, his hopelessly stereotypical gay Berliner who skewers the world of fashion and the homophobic machismo on display during spring break in Daytona Beach, Borat is here to bring attention to the most absurd of contradictions in American politics and culture. With all due respect to the state of Kazakhstan and the ADL, Borat is dangerous to nobody but the Americans whom he visits. He's no eastern European half-wit. He's just a British Jew holding a mirror up to our culture.