I get the joke. I get that when Borat bumbles around America being as offensive and racist as possible that it’s a trick, a device to encourage his interview subjects to reveal their own racism and ignorance.
And it works. It worked in the first Borat film, released in 2006, as Americans were lulled into sharing various anti-Semitic and racist statements by their new anti-Semitic and racist friend. And it works in the second film, just released, as Borat uses his 15-year-old “daughter” to pillory misogyny and the patriarchy in the US, while also finding time for more anti-Semitism and racism, and having Rudy Giuliani fondle.
Borat is a buffoon. He looks ridiculous. He sounds ridiculous. People drop their guard when they’re around him, thinking they’ve found a kindred spirit, little realising the joke is on them.
However, with Sacha Baron Cohen’s characters there’s always more than one joke. With Ali G, the joke was on the unsuspecting interview subjects, but it was also on the white, middle class kids appropriating black culture in the UK at that time – just like Ali G. With Bruno, the joke was on the homophobic interviewees, but it was also a (mostly) good-natured send-up of gay fashionistas – like Bruno.
And so while the character of Borat is used to expose ignorance and racism on the part of the people he interviews, there’s another joke, which is on the people of Kazakhstan, who are also racist, also anti-Semitic, also misogynistic, also ignorant. Right?
Read the article by Ben Groundwater in Traveller.