Now, I can’t honestly say that “Borat” was the worst movie ever because, well, I didn’t get through the entire movie. By the 40th intolerable minute of it, I walked out.
Let me say up front – I am no prude. And while I am sensitive to racism and sexism in pop culture, I am not so sensitive that I can’t enjoy it. I enjoyed the South Park movie and laughed very, very hard through many of the songs. I thought ‘Team America: World Police’ was funny, including the final monologue. I think Eminem is talented.
But Borat? Borat, and all the other characters done by the same actor, is garbage. Ali G is straightforward blackface. Borat, on the other hand, is Kazakhface. There seems to be a lot of buzz in the media about the brilliance of Borat. This actor, Cohen, exposes the hypocrisy, the racism, the antisemitism, in America. I don’t buy it. The main target of Cohen’s mockery is his own character. It’s clear in the structure and setup of every joke. It’s not exposing US racism to have the Kazakh bring a bag of shit to the dinner table. Or to show the Kazakh washing his clothes in a pond in Central Park. Or to show the two Kazakhs wrestling naked over a long period of time, ending up in sexual positions. It’s basic scatological humor, cliche, no cleverness or wit or talent at all that I could see.
The other thing was that it just wasn’t funny.
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