Borat Satire Exposes American Society

Since its release on Amazon Prime last month, Borat Subsequent Movie Film has both humored and shocked the Campolindo community.

The entertaining movie follows Borat Sagdiyev, a “Kazakh journalist” played by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, and his “daughter” Tutar, played by Maria Bakalova.

The film is a mockumentary, which the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines as “a facetious or satirical work presented in the style of a documentary.”

Since it is a mockumentary, the entire film is satirical: it is full of humor, irony and exaggeration. Throughout the film Cohen and Bakalova are in costume and acting in character. However, almost all of the interactions that the 2 of them have with the other people in the movie are unscripted. The film takes place in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and the months leading up to the presidential election.

Sophomore John Dong, who watched the film, said, “[The movie] was obviously humorous, with all its dank accents and costumes…Cohen’s character was basically an over the top stereotype…a lot of the interactions with the American characters were unscripted and legitimate.”

A large part of the mockumentary focuses on exposing and revealing ignorance and hatred in modern American society. By acting as an ignorant man himself, Cohen is able to, through real interactions with people, reveal to us what certain American people think about topics such as Donald Trump, COVID-19, and more.

1 particular scene that stood out to viewers was when both Cohen and Backalova attended a Trump rally disguised as their characters. This moment revealed the true nature of those Americans in attendance that a lot of us never see.

For example, the film documented rally-goers screaming, “Inject Obama with the Wuhan flu.”

The movie, particularly this scene, put both lead actors in some compromising situations. During this scene, Cohen was almost shot by attendees of the rally.

Sophomore Ava Jacuzzi was particularly intrigued by this part in the film. “I thought it was very interesting that during the Trump rally some of the people figured out who [he] really was and they all had guns and could have shot him. Very scary to think that people would do that.”

The movie was released right before the 2020 election, and because of this, a lot of the scenes were incredibly relevant and politically focused.

Another scene that shocked viewers was the interaction that Maria Backalova had with Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, as well as the former Mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani.

Bakalova meets Giuliani at a hotel acting as an aspiring journalist. After the fake interview ends, she then leads him to a hotel bedroom, rigged with hidden cameras. Giuliani ends up lying down on the bed and then reaches into his pants in front of her. Thankfully, Cohen rushes into the room and stops things from escalating and getting out of hand.

This scene was incredibly compromising for the attorney and exposed Giuliani’s perverted nature. Sophomore Kaya Lu said, “The end of the movie and the scenes with Giuliani were super shocking and revealing.”

What started as a raunchy comedic mockumentary ended up exposing a lot of the negative aspects in American culture and even a famous political figure. Dong said, “Borat 2 had a more relevant message this time, and has more focus on the apathy a lot of people have these days when it comes to current topics. It also made fun of the of people who are unapologetically racist, and painfully ignorant.”