Borat Supplemental Reportings Retrieved from Floor of Stable Containing Editing Machine review – obsolete
Giving toxic conspiracy theorists the oxygen of publicity is one thing. Giving us the carbon monoxide of their ironic micro-celebrity status is something else. And giving them equal time with Hillary Clinton on camera – and giving them the last word – is less than reassuring.
This week Sacha Baron Cohen releases on Amazon a three-part bonus content special, tied to his recent release Borat Subsequent Moviefilm – entitled Borat Supplemental Reportings Retrieved from Floor of Stable Containing Editing Machine. The first is a pretty ropey 24-minute selection of outtakes from the movie, culminating in an admittedly surreal cod-Disney nightmare-porn animation about Melania Trump’s fairytale encounter with her future husband. The second is Borat’s American Lockdown, a 40minute special expanding the scene in which Borat lives with two creepy conspiracy theorists called Jim and Jerry, who believe that Hillary Clinton drinks the blood of children.
But the third is called Debunking Borat, a series of bite-sized episodes in which rational experts actually speak directly to the awful Jim and Jerry (who have presumably now been told Borat is a fake – or maybe not) and try politely talking them out of their bizarre delusions, using sweet reason. And the climactic episode has Hillary Clinton herself addressing Jim and Jerry on a prerecorded video, calmly assuring them that she does not drink blood, but failing to challenge them or rebuke them, asking merely that people should come together. The final moment has Jim muttering to Jerry: “I still can’t stand her… ” They get the punchline.
It is pretty feeble, being neither funny nor effective in challenging Jim and Jerry’s bizarre beliefs, and without Borat on screen, simply makes Hillary the straight person in some peculiar comedy triple act. Sacha Baron Cohen’s prank on Rudy Giuliani in his film – with Borat’s daughter Tutar (played by Maria Bakalova) apparently about to suffer Giuliani’s hideous sexual attentions – was great because it exposed his seediness, and the seediness in the whole Trump campaign. But Jim and Jerry aren’t really exposed or debunked. In fact, this could have rebunked them. The sniggering “alt-right pundits” – who naturally don’t really believe these things, but love the way they energise the base – are unlikely to be worried. And weirdo believers will simply assume that Jim and Jerry would not have been put on TV if they hadn’t got hold of something.
And the whole thing feels suddenly feels dated anyway. What was a fierce and often funny (and effective) rearguard action against Donald Trump at the end of his presidency now looks like an obsolete and pointless style. Hillary Clinton? Who cares? Now we are in the new era of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, dealing with Covid-19, the climate crisis and the continuing rage over George Floyd’s murder. Parochial gags about MAGA bigots and their fatuous beta-male obsession with Hillary Clinton – jokes which don’t even land on the target — are pretty superfluous.