‘Borat’ uses humor to point out our own shortcomings

I can imagine the No. 1 movie in the country will be quite shocking to the uninitiated. After all, the film contains dialogue and scenes of blatant racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and other outrageous affronts to modern sensibilities. Nonetheless, it is also the funniest film of the year and marks the ascension of its star to the forefront of the entertainment world.

For those who have been living under a rock the last couple of weeks, I am speaking of “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” also being referred to simply as “Borat.” Sacha Baron Cohen stars as Borat Sagdiyev, a hapless television reporter from Kazakhstan, sent to the United States to film a documentary accompanied by his manager Azamat (Ken Davitian).

Borat is familiar to fans of Cohen’s HBO series, “Da Ali G Show.” Borat is one of the characters on the series that also showcases the namesake Ali G, a clueless rapper with an interview show, and Bruno, a fey German male supermodel. Cohen has made a career of confronting unsuspecting individuals from all walks of life with their own prejudices and peculiarities. How he does it is his art.

Borat is disarmingly earnest and Kazakhstan is so foreign to most Americans that his cultural ignorance is taken at face value. In this guise, he is able to elicit the most outrageous but seemingly truthful comments and actions from those he meets. At one point, he asks a Hummer salesman how fast he would have to drive into a gypsy to possibly kill one. Thirty-five miles per hour should be sufficient he is told. Borat then asks if the Hummer will sustain any damage in this collision, and the salesman assures him it will not unless the body clears the hood and cracks the windshield.

What makes Cohen’s alter ego so convincing is his complete commitment to the role. Cohen has seemingly not broken character for months. Every public appearance has been as Borat, and Sacha Baron Cohen has apparently ceased to exist. He is reminiscent of Andy Kaufman in this regard. Cohen’s characters, however, have an element of likability missing in Kaufman’s work, which eventually pushed him to the fringe of comedy. Cohen is able to extract unconscious comic performances from others as they either reveal their inner demons.

Ultimately, Cohen is able to fool those he encounters due mostly to our collective ignorance of other countries and cultures. Never mind that Kazakhstan is the ninth-largest country in the world in land mass, with huge deposits of petroleum and natural gas and a literacy rate over 98%. We buy his act because he is the “other” and outside our usual experience. While “Borat” is a hysterically funny movie and deserves its success, perhaps it will cause us to question our cultural isolation.