As Many Misses as Hits

Rating: 5/10 (2 April 2007)

For all the talk of 'Borat' being something new and dangerous, it's really just the latest addition to a long British tradition of bigot-comedy. I don't know if it started with 'Till Death Us Do Part' in the 1960s, but Warren Mitchell's Alf Garnett is one of the earliest examples of middle-class white liberals presenting working-class bigots as objects of comic derision. 'Rising Damp' continued the tradition well in to the 1970s. When done well, such comedies revealed racism and anti-Semitism to be the truly ridiculous things that they are, and during a time of rampant institutionalized racism in Britain, such comedies were genuinely daring. Of course, when done badly, they crossed the line, and became racist themselves. Sitcoms like 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum' and 'Duty Free' made little attempt to critique their protagonist's bigotry; inviting their audiences, instead, to laugh at a parade of racial stereotypes.
'Borat' falls somewhere in the middle of these two traditions. Alf Garnett was funny and offensive and ultimately revealed to be the sad and lonely bigot that he was. He was a brilliant comic creation because he was real. Borat, by comparison, is like something out of a fairy tale. He is pure fantasy. While we are clearly expected to laugh at the character's bigotry, he is so extreme and outrageous in his beliefs that all connection with reality is lost, which calls into question his ability to make us question contemporary racial attitudes when he himself is so far removed from them. But more often than not, we are invited to laugh not at Borat's bigotry, but at the reactions such bigotry provoke. So what exactly are we supposed to be laughing at  an ignorant man from a developing post-Soviet country or the American trying to treat him with some degree of respect?
The overwhelming number of Americans that Borat encounters behave with an almost unbelievable degree of restraint and show a genuine desire to accommodate Borat and his wildly offensive manners. Rather than come away from 'Borat' thinking Americans are all crazy, I was immensely impressed with their desire to appear open, accepting and non-judgmental. As for the often talked about scenes with the gun and car salesman, and the shock that many critics displayed at their apparent accepting of Borat's bigotry, all I can say is that these critics have never worked retail. If salesmen, whether in a car lot, a gun store, a bookshop, or a restaurant, refused to serve every customer that was weird and offensive, they'd never make a sale! You nod, you smile, you make the sale and get the nut out of the store. I saw no evidence of racism and anti-Semitism, just a desire to be professional while working. In fact the only two genuinely offensive people that Borat encounters are a half-crazy nutjob that seems to manage a rodeo, and a bunch of drunken frat boys. Discovering that these people are bigots is hardly a surprise, so what's the point?
Let's forget whether or not Baron Cohen is attempting to say anything about contemporary attitudes to race, religion and class. Is the movie funny? Well yes it is, in parts. Personally, I just don't find relatively decent people being made to feel uncomfortable all that funny. It's one thing when Ali G does it to cynical and self-serving politicians, but when it's aimed at regular people, especially when they're going out of their way to be nice, it just doesn't amuse me. When Borat descends into pure surreal fantasy, however, it is very funny indeed. I laughed out loud at the 'Running of the Jew' and the scene in the B&B, both of which, not coincidentally, focus on the idiocy of anti-Semitism rather than the cheap exploitation of a casual passerby. Such scenes, even though they are completely reminiscent of stuff that Monty Python was doing thirty years ago, reveal a genuine creative talent that is sorely lacking in much of the film.
Borat, and the fantasy Kazakhstan that he calls home, is a brilliant comic creation and endlessly fascinating. I could have happily watched an entire movie about Borat in his home country, and my favorite parts of the movie and the DVD are those instances when we are able to do just that  the low-fi title credits, the 'South Park'-style Kazak National Anthem, the bizarre 'Baywatch' clone. But such scenes are few and far between, skipped over in favor of the ritual humiliation of innocent civilians - a pastime that I've just never found all that funny.