The “Borat” Sequel Returns to a Divided America and Struggles to Adapt

“Borat” was, to say the least, very much a product of its time. The 2006 satirical shockumentary aimed to mock the rampant xenophobia and cultural taboos that dominated the post-9/11 American landscape. Its titular protagonist, an oafish and anti-Semitic journalist from Kazakhstan, played by Jewish writer-actor Sacha Baron Cohen, traversed the most prejudiced and populous pockets of the United States with the hope of capturing the so-called “American way of life.”

While the film was frequently funny, occasionally sharp, and a successful cinematic social experiment (it earned over $200 million worldwide and an Oscar nomination), it failed to incisively condemn the very people and ideologies it targeted. “Borat” certainly exposed the regressive social attitudes sowed deep in our nation’s fabric, but truly effective satire goes beyond revealing intolerance and indifference through cringe comedy and provocative gross-out gags. Satire is supposed to help us reassess our own biases and commit to changing ourselves for the better, which “Borat” arguably did not seem to achieve. At the time, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) expressed concern that some audiences may have missed the irony baked into the film’s irreverent DNA.

Fourteen years following “Borat”’s release, the United States has made notable—albeit imperfect social progress—but bigotry has remained consistent. It’s been stoked and normalized tenfold under Donald Trump’s administration. Following Trump’s election in 2016, there has been a large uptick in hate crimes in the United States, and although there’s no direct correlation that Trump’s racist rhetoric led to this surge, it has clearly validated a widespread bigoted sentiment (just look at Charlottesville in 2017). Meanwhile, Baron Cohen has become a much more outspoken activist, using his celebrity status and partnering with the ADL to call out social media giants like Mark Zuckerberg for enabling the spread of harmful propaganda and hate online. However, he hasn’t completely retired his incendiary antics. The comedian reprised his role as Borat in “Borat Subsequent MovieFilm: Delivery Of Prodigious Bribe To American Regime For Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan,” a sequel to the 2006 film that both revives its predecessor’s subversive edge and slightly tweaks its humor to fit a 2020 mold, often leading to mixed results.

Shot in secret at the beginning of this year, “Borat Subsequent MovieFilm” catches us up to speed on the Kazakh reporter. After Borat became a recognizable fixture in pop culture, Kazakhstan punished the hapless foreigner to a life of hard labor for bringing shame and humiliation to his country. But he’s offered a chance at redemption when he’s told to deliver an unusual bribe to the U.S. government in order to rectify Kazakhstan’s reputation. As Borat sets off to America, determined to make things right, his homely 15-year-old daughter Tutar (Maria Bakalova) unexpectedly joins him, and the two don a series of amusing disguises during their quest to avoid rabid Borat fans. Together, they infiltrate the Conservative Political Action Conference, a Southern debutante ball, and an anti-mask rally, providing equally awkward and guffaw-inducing bits that highlight the utter absurdity that can be found in those spaces.

Although it retains the original’s episodic structure and unscripted, “real-world” scenarios, the “Borat” follow-up is already a significant comedic and narrative improvement. Borat and Tutar’s misadventures in trying to reach the U.S. leadership make for a more cohesive and surprisingly heartfelt story. Their hysterical attempts to stir commotion and embarrassment among everyone they encounter—from phone salesmen to pro-life pastors to Mike Pence—are matched by a crisis of character, in which they both confront the dangerous lies they’ve been fed for years about minorities. Tutar, in particular, wrestles with the autonomy afforded to women in America, having been told by Borat that women can’t drive or own businesses. But thanks to the help of a woman who briefly babysits her, Tutar awakens to the possibilities of her independence and challenges the submission imposed upon her by her father. This experience of cognitive dissonance not only generates some of the film’s most comically inspired scenes, but also reflects a progressive shift in Baron Cohen’s gotcha comedy: even the most backward of people are capable of change (with the right support, of course).

That being said, “Borat Subsequent MovieFilm” doesn’t always hit the mark when calling attention to pervasive misunderstandings around marginalized groups, especially Jews. About an hour into the film, Borat learns from Facebook that the Holocaust never happened, a pretty unsubtle reference to Baron Cohen ridiculing Zuckerberg’s complicity with his website’s misinformation. (Facebook recently announced a ban on Holocaust denial content on its site.) Borat then ventures to a synagogue to wait for “the next mass shooting,” since he can’t buy a gun to off himself, and dresses up as “a typical Jew,” wearing a stereotypical get-up consisting of a plastic 8-inch nose, devil wings, payos, and a sack full of money. It’s an initially shocking moment that evokes the opening of the first “Borat,” which featured a Kazakh festival where grotesquely anti-Semitic puppets chase villagers down the street. Here, however, Baron Cohen’s distressing prank is quickly diffused when he approaches two Jewish women sitting in the synagogue.

“Borat Subsequent MovieFilm” doesn’t always hit the mark when calling attention to pervasive misunderstandings around marginalized groups, especially Jews.

Rather than respond with anger or panic by Borat’s costume, the two women appear undisturbed and nonchalant by his presence. One of the women, a Holocaust survivor named Judith Dim Evans, makes an effort to welcome Borat and hugs him to show that she means no harm. After some more chatting, the three eat soup together. It’s a nice, oddly heartwarming moment, but one that undercuts the satire and instead panders a bit to the audience. This is made all the more complicated by the apparent fact that Baron Cohen broke character and stopped filming when he entered the synagogue in order to reduce Evans’s concern about the anti-Semitic comments that Borat was making.

As uncharacteristic as breaking character was, it represents the limits of satire in the era of Trump, in that our reality has become increasingly so dangerous (witness, for instance, the rising incidents of anti-Semitic violence) that Cohen couldn’t advance some of the very damaging ideas he was commenting on. At the same time, Baron Cohen’s identity as a devout Jew does make this moment more complex. His background allows him to critically engage with the monstrous iconography that has historically oppressed the Jewish community. Although his intentions to provoke make sense in this context, the ultimate outcome leaves something to be desired.

With this in mind, Baron Cohen’s approach becomes a bit of a paradox: How can he expose negative cultural stereotypes, most prominently anti-Semitic ones, by embodying them without inherently reinforcing them? Moreover, how convincing is the satire if the audience is already in on the joke? Who’s watching this thinking that the Holocaust didn’t exist? It’s likely that Baron Cohen’s real-life commitment to combat the division brought on by the Trump administration speaks to this ambivalence. His genuine earnestness in healing the heavy wounds of our polarized society directly conflicts with the characters he inhabits in “Borat” and the intentionally misguided worldviews they espouse. This method of prodding by way of performance is definitely funny and intriguing in execution, but it’s not particularly thought-provoking or galvanizing in effect. Even if that’s the point—to elicit laughter but not contemplation—why make it now and why push to release it directly before the election?

How convincing is the satire if the audience is already in on the joke?

This problem extends to the film’s climax, where Tutar, now an emerging journalist, “interviews” top Trump adviser and former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani. The scene has already caused controversy—Giuliani appears to undo his pants in a hotel bedroom in front of Tutar, while still believing her to be 15 years old—but the incident doesn’t generate anything profound beyond disgust. Seeing him in this exposed capacity won’t have much of an impact on those who aren’t already against him and everything he stands for. And it won’t convince anyone who does support him or Pence or Trump to reconsider their views. If the past four years have proven anything, it’s that corrupt people in power will tell on themselves regularly, and their followers won’t care otherwise.

For what it’s worth, though, “Borat Subsequent MovieFilm” is still worth the watch, if only to see the insanity that is America in 2020 through the eyes of Borat. A good chunk of the film takes place during the early days of the pandemic and witnessing how Borat and Co. managed to construct an entire story around it, all while keeping the production hush-hush, is a remarkable achievement in and of itself. But where 2006’s “Borat” felt radical in its button-pushing, groundbreaking vulgarity, this sequel falters in engendering any major, long-lasting insight. It may not have the same level of massive cultural influence, but fourteen years from now, perhaps it might be looked back on as a definitive capsule of our quasi-apocalyptic time.