Ugliness Borat once mocked is no longer hidden
QAnon and far-right conspiracy theories, blatant misogyny, and rampant anti-Semitism. These are some of the themes exposed in “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” the sequel to Sacha Baron Cohen’s wildly successful 2006 film “Borat” that earned him a Golden Globe for his titular role as an imbecilic but overconfident reporter from Kazakhstan.
The 14 years between the two Borat films also peel back the layers on another journey undertaken in North America. And that is the societal movement from post-racial pretensions to full-on racism, or seen another way, the distance from denial to backlash.
We’ve made quick work of moving from the previous decade’s woolly headed denials of societal oppressions to open espousals of white male supremacy in our midst. Along the way we discredited efforts to raise awareness of these issues as too sensitive, too politically correct, too academic, too angry, too inappropriate, too violent — anything but actually engaging with what was being said.
I have a hazy recollection of “Borat” in 2006, but I remember finding it uncomfortable and very funny.
In that first film, Cohen goes to the land of the free and home of the brave and pokes holes in the friendly American veneer to expose the disdain underneath.
For instance, he goes to a rodeo and is greeted with cheers. There he excites the crowd with remarks such as “We support your war of terror” and “May George Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child of Iraq,” to even more cheers. But when he sings a fake Kazakhstan national anthem roughly to the tune of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” sprinkling it with words such as “Kazakhstan is the greatest country in the world, all other countries is the home of the gays” — he is greeted with boos.
Fourteen years later, the question is what to do at a time when narrow-mindedness is no longer hidden, no longer needs to be prodded out? When academics are arguing the merits of colonialism, when eugenics are seen as not that bad, when men shun accountability for violence on women, when authors trample on trans rights?
Too often, when people say “equality” those threatened by it think “take over.” Movements toward progress are met with backlash. Americans have been severely punished for daring to dream with a twoterm Black president after mostly white Americans voted in an openly racist president. This, in a time where calling someone racist comes with worse consequences than actually being one.
As digital media amplified the voices of those on the margins, it also led to a coalescing of power. Incels, for instance, united by a misguided entitlement to women’s bodies and attention and a false grievance against rejection, responded with real world violence.
In schools, on the one hand, there has been a push by equity-minded educators to decolonize the curriculum and efforts to un-erase Black history.
Last week, a leaked draft of a proposed Calgary curriculum shows recommendations to erase references to “equity” and residential schools for the youngest children and refocus on Eurocentric, Christian views. Indigenous children were never too young to be taken to school, but non-Indigenous kids are too young to learn about it.
The very nature of white extremist organizations is changing even since they burst to the forefront of global consciousness four years ago with a vile rally in Charlottesville, Va., with anti-Semitism on open display.
Far-right neo-fascist groups such as the Canadian export Proud Boys explicitly shunned the label white supremacist. The newer, younger Patriot Front has no such compunction. BuzzFeed news reported this week that its members openly talk about “the categorical rejection of the notion of equality. The categorical rejection of universal democracy.”
So where’s a gotcha satirical film to go when the hidden ugliness is now on the surface? It darkens the humour. When Borat wants to die but can’t afford a gun, he decides to go to a synagogue and wait “for the next mass shooting.”
In another scene, he buys a cake and asks a kindly looking white woman to write a few words. “Jews will not replace us.” With smileys. She doesn’t flinch. The movie is rife with everyday people unblinkingly accepting heinous situations — even portrayals of incest or trafficking of a minor.
It’s tempting to make excuses for these people. They’re not evil. They are ambushed. They don’t know how to push back. They can’t afford to say no.
But, no. Everyday people are able to refuse to decorate cakes for gay couples, demean racialized people, and donate in support of a man whose entire shtick is based on degrading “the other,” whether as s--holes or rapists or criminals or mere pussies, all in the name of “economic insecurity.”
Faux free-speech rights types often claim sunlight is the best disinfectant. They usually use that claim to justify airing hateful views against the marginalized with the pretence that such views expose themselves as backward, can be debated out of existence and lead to greater understanding.
The new Borat film shows that far from seeing themselves as backward, haters are finding community in their distorted sense of self-victimization and being led to ever greater power.