In order to gather information about American customs for his homeland of Kazakhstan, television reporter Borat Sagdiyev (Cohen) travels to the “U.S. and A.” to make a documentary. Accompanied by his producer Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian), Borat finds himself in New York, where he takes to the streets, meeting unsuspecting passersby, much to their discomfort. After a long day of pestering average folks, Borat unwinds in front of the hotel TV where he spots the woman of his dreams: Pamela Anderson. Determined to make the former Baywatch beauty his wife, Borat convinces Azamat to take their show on the road and the two head to California in a beat up ice cream truck, meeting and offending real people along the way.
With the exception of Borat, Azamat, Luenell the prostitute (a woman Borat meets along the way played by comedian Luenell Campbell) and Pamela Anderson herself, none of the film’s participants were actors, nor were they aware that they were being filmed for a major motion picture. Despite signing release forms, several of the participants have filed complaints against the producers and a few have taken their grievances to court. Still, the film managed to hold the top spot at the box office for three consecutive weeks, raking in over $230 million worldwide amidst mountains of controversy and cries of foul play by the movie’s unwitting stars. Two of those stars, a pair of frat boys from South Carolina, sought an injunction to prevent the film’s DVD release, claiming defamation and fraud, among other charges. A judge denied their request and on March 6th Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was released on DVD.
The Borat DVD contains a handful of bonus features, far less than I would have liked, but all are amusing and well worth watching. Eight deleted scenes, adding up to roughly 30 minutes of footage, are the big highlight. Here, the Kazakh television personality gets an “uplifting” massage, prays at a Civil War reenactment, takes a stroll down the cheese aisle at a supermarket and gets pulled over by the police and the Secret Service. The disc’s one featurette is a look at some of the public appearances Borat/Cohen made while promoting the film, including his unforgettable encounter with Martha Stewart on The Tonight Show. A hidden-in-plain-sight Easter egg can be found if one chooses the Hebrew language option, which leads you to a rather hilarious “Jew in proximity” warning screen, a play on the title character’s rampant anti-Semitism. While that about does it for supplements, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the DVD packaging, which is made to look like a foreign bootleg, complete with faded colors and all-Cyrillic (Russian alphabet) text. Even the disc itself, which is a mock DVD-R by “Demorez” with “Borat” scrawled across the title line in Sharpie, is in on the act.
Much of the controversy surrounding Borat has to do with racism, particularly Borat’s extreme hatred of all things Jewish, ironic since Cohen himself is a devout Jew. The reality is that Borat isn’t about the character’s anti-Semitism, antifeminism, homophobia or xenophobia. It’s really about shining the light on the participant’s, and by extension our own, buried preconceived notions and stereotypes. While this particular film focuses on the ignorance and indifference of his American subjects, Cohen has, in the past, done a similar exposé in England on his series Da Ali G Show with similar results. The point is Borat is an equal opportunity offender. If one goes into the film with a heightened level of sensitivity, they are bound to be disappointed. Personally, I found the film hilarious and eye-opening. Honestly, it was a little scary to see these normal people let their guards down enough to expose their ugly prejudices. That side of humanity is hard to look at head on. But, despite the winces and the head-shaking, jaw-dropping awe of Cohen’s results, Borat is a highly entertaining film that may not please everyone but will undoubtedly cause a dialogue.
Because of the film’s immeasurable success in the US and abroad, it is highly unlikely that we will ever see Borat Sagdiyev dupe anyone again. Cohen himself has stated that it would be too difficult to get people to talk openly to Borat now that everyone knows his game. The Borat DVD release will give people a chance to see a little more from this outrageous character before Cohen shelves him. That alone is well worth the cost of a rental.
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