Borat Sagdiyev

Borat Sagdiyev (Kazakh: Борат Сағдиев, Russian: Борат Сагдиев; born February 27, 1972) is a satirical character, created and performed by Sacha Baron Cohen. He is a Kazakh journalist and is the main protagonist of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

Borat's humour derives from his mocking of society through outrageous sociocultural viewpoints, his violation of social taboos and his use of vulgar language and behaviour. Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "The Kazakhstani journalist gave us some of the most incisive cultural commentary ever filmed. That, and a wrestling match between butt-naked men. Something for everyone."^[1]

Origins

The character was first developed for short skits on F2F on Granada Television that Baron Cohen presented in 1996–1997, with the character at this time being known as Alexi.^[2] The character, now known as Christo^[3][4] was then picked up by Paramount Comedy 1 and then subsequently by BBC Two's Comedy Nation. These early versions of Borat were nearly identical in looks and demeanor to the later incarnation, but the character claimed to be from Albania^[5] rather than Kazakhstan.^[6] The character remained dormant while Baron Cohen concentrated on his Ali G persona for Channel 4's The 11 O'Clock Show, but with the subsequent success of Ali G and the creation of Da Ali G Show (also on Channel 4) Baron Cohen revisited his Borat character.

Fictional character biography

Borat claims to have been born on February 27, 1972 in the fictional village of Kuzcek, Kazakh SSR to Asimbala Sagdiyev and Boltok the Rapist (who is also stated to be his paternal grandfather, uncle and former father-in-law until the demise of Oksana);^[7] he says his mother gave birth to him when she was nine years old. She is shown as an extremely short old lady in old film, where he visits his hometown. He has a thirteen-year-old son named Hooeylewis (inspired by Huey Lewis), twelve-year-old twin boys named Biram and Bilak, and seventeen grandchildren. He has a sister, Natalya, whom at different times he has given a high ranking of the "number four prostitute in all of Kazakhstan"; another sister who appears to be a very young teenage girl is shown in the beginning of Borat's Guide to Britain. It is indicated in one interview with a general practitioner than he caught syphilis from a sister. There is also a younger brother, Bilo, who is intellectually disabled and kept in a cage. Bilo was not always intellectually disabled, but rather, Borat has stated that Bilo became disabled during an exorcism when another brother of Borat's tried to release a demon from Bilo through the traditional Kazakh remedy of opening the skull and sticking the tooth of a red-haired woman in the brain.

It is unknown how many times Borat has been married, after first having been betrothed to his half-sister's Plough while in his teens. One of his wives (Ludmilla) is said to have been shot by a hunter when he mistook her for a bear as she plowed the fields. His former wife, Oksana, is reported in the Borat film to have been attacked, "violated", and "broken" by a bear while taking his brother Bilo for a walk in the forest. Borat is not saddened by the tragedy; he thanks the man who brings him this "good news" by giving him a high five and celebrates his new-found freedom by pursuing Pamela Anderson and eventually reunites with and marries Luenell, an American prostitute he met while filming his documentary.

According to various in-character interviews with Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat attended Astana University, where he studied English, journalism and plague research. He created five new plagues which "killed over 5 million goats in Uzbekistan."^[8] Prior to his plague research, Borat worked as an ice maker, gypsy catcher, animal puller (one who produces semen from animals) and computer maintenance engineer (specifically, removing dead birds which had nested in the vents in the computer's casing).^[9] He now works as a professional journalist and announcer on Kazakh television. This job "helps Borat and other Kazakhs express themselves in ways they otherwise would not have been able to do."

Although nominally pagan for most of his life, sometimes remarking that his people "follow the hawk", in the film he attends a Pentecostal church service and later converts his village neighbours to Christianity. Borat greatly admires the political views of Joseph Stalin, and claims that both he and Stalin are strong men with powerful "khram" (genitals). He is strongly against women's rights and was quite aghast upon learning of women's suffrage (stating that government scientist Dr. Yamek says a woman has a "brain the size of squirrel"). He frequently comments that it (woman's suffrage) is like "a monkey driving a car" or "a monkey with a gun". In his spare time, he enjoys playing ping pong, sunbathing while clad in a lime green "mankini", disco dancing, spitting, sitting on comfortable chairs, shooting dogs, and taking pictures of women while they "make a toilet". He also enjoys hunting Jews in his homeland. He is particularly fond of "mouth-party" and "hand-party". Borat also states that he "very much like Korki Buchek" (who is a fictitious musician) and sex, which he likes to call "sexy time".

However, Kathleen Tracy states in her book Sacha Baron Cohen, the Unauthorized Biography: from Cambridge to Kazakhstan that the character Borat was never intended to be entirely consistent, meaning that incongruities in Borat's personal details can be noticed if they are examined closely.

Baron Cohen retired Borat due to widespread recognition, and used Brüno as his 'proper' alter-ego, but this character has also been retired.

Da Ali G Show

In each episode of Da Ali G Show, Borat is shown doing satirical interviews with often unwitting subjects in the United Kingdom and the United States. The segments were shot in low-quality video to maintain the satirical feel of poor quality television (similar to Chanel 9 segments on The Fast Show).

The Borat segments on Da Ali G Show use a rock rendition of a Russian folk tune, "Korobeiniki", as the theme song.

Guide to Britain

Shown as part of a six-part Ali G show originally on Channel 4 (UK) in March 2000.

Five Borat sketches were shown, in the form of "Guides" to "Etiquette", Hunting, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Henley. The "Guides" to "English Gentlemen", "Politics" and "Sport" were also filmed at this time but released at a later date as part of Ali G DVDs. The Cambridge sketch is the only major Borat material from this series not to have made it onto the compilation DVDs.

Guide to USA 1

Shown as part of a six-part Ali G Show originally on HBO (USA) in February 2003. This series was screened and released in the UK as Ali G In The USAiii.

Six Borat sketches were shown in the form of "Guides" to "Dating", "Etiquette", "Acting", "Men", "Baseballs" and "The (Deep) South". A "Guide to Animals" was filmed but released at a later date as part of an Ali G DVD. (Alyssa Greenfill was his co-star.)

Guide to USA 2

Shown as part of a six-part Ali G Show originally on HBO (USA) in July 2004. (Channel 4 was the UK channel where Ali G and Borat originally appeared, and the series for America was a joint HBO/Channel 4 co-production). This series was re-edited for the UK to remove all the Ali G material, becoming two prime-time Borat's Television Programme specials for Channel 4. These specials also embodied the Brüno segments from the series and Borat's "Guide To Hunting", not screened in the US version. The uncut second series as it appeared on HBO was later given a UK courtesy transmission on digital channel E4.

Six Borat sketches were shown in the form of "Guides" to "Wine Tasting", "Politics", "Country Music", "Hobbies", "Buying a House" and "Jobs" (careers), with "Hunting" airing in the UK only.

Films

Ali G Indahouse

Borat had a small role in Baron Cohen's film Ali G Indahouse as a Kazakhstani diplomat, in which he greets Baron Cohen's other character Ali G with a hug and kiss, but is rebuffed and accused of being a homosexual "batty boy", thus calls Ali G a "cocksucker".

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Borat at the San Diego Comic-Con International in 2006.

Subtitled Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, the film Borat is mockumentary comedy. Most of those appearing in the film are not paid performers, but real people whom Borat met on his journey.^[10] The film was distributed by 20th Century Fox, and directed by Larry Charles. It premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival, and was released across Europe on 2 November 2006 and North America on 3 November 2006.

The film follows Borat in his travels across the United States, as he commits cultural solecisms and exposes a few American ones. Over the course of the film, Borat falls in love with Pamela Anderson after watching a rerun of Baywatch, and vows to make her his wife.

The film opened at #1 in the U.S., taking in $26.4 million on a limited release of 837 screens during its first weekend, beating Fahrenheit 9/11 as the biggest opening weekend for a film released in fewer than 1,000 cinemas. Baron Cohen celebrated the release of the film with a host of promotional in-character interviews.^[11] The film expanded its release on the second weekend to 2,566 screens, where it took in an additional $29 million.^[12]

In 2007, Baron Cohen won a Golden Globe for "Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical Or Comedy". With a production budget of $18,000,000 the film has grossed $128,501,044 in the United States of America and another $128,848,505 internationally, for a worldwide gross of $257,349,549 by mid-March 2007.^[13]

Book

In 2007, a book from Baron Cohen was released, titled Touristic Guidings to Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan/Touristic Guidings to Minor Nation of U.S. and A., with humour about both countries in a similar vein to the movie.^[14]

Fate

Sacha Baron Cohen has stated that the character of Borat, alongside his Ali G character, will be retired.^[15] Borat's last appearances were at Night of Too Many Stars: An Overbooked Event for Autism Education 2006 television special and an online public service announcement ahead of the 2008 United States elections.^[16] However, to promote the trailer release of his new film Grimsby, Baron Cohen appeared in character as Borat on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Criticism and controversy

Criticized as unfair smear against Kazakhstan

There have been arguments that the film's portrayal of the people of Kazakhstan is unfair and unjustified.

In August 2004, the Chief Rabbi of Kazakhstan, addressing an international religious conference in Brussels, stated that in 10 years in the country he had never faced anti-Semitism. He praised the Government of Kazakhstan for its treatment of the Jewish community.

On 19 October 2006, the BBC reported that Kazakhstan's Deputy Foreign Minister, Rakhat Aliyev, had invited Cohen to visit Kazakhstan to see how inaccurate his portrayals were. In an interview, Aliyev asserted that:

His trip could yield a lot of discoveries—that women not only travel inside buses but also drive their own cars, that we make wine from grapes, that Jews can freely attend synagogues and so on.^[17]

Denigration of Roma

Borat's movie has been accused of promoting antiziganism. The film has been criticized for several scenes portraying Borat's fictional Kazakhstani village which were actually filmed in the impoverished Roma village of Glod in Romania. USA Today reports that poverty-stricken villagers were offered between $3.30 and $5.50 to bring animals into their houses and other gag scenes for the movie that some people described as humiliating.^[18] The studio contends that participants were paid double the rate recommended by the Romanian film office for extras. Additionally, Baron Cohen personally donated $5,000 to the village, as well as computers and school supplies.^[19]

Two villagers of Glod hired controversial^[20] reparation attorney Ed Fagan to sue the makers of the film for $30 million for human rights abuses. Fagan intended to submit lawsuits in New York and Florida state courts, as well as in Frankfurt, Germany. Fagan said that he hoped to "teach Hollywood a very expensive lesson." The lawsuit was thrown out by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in a hearing in early December 2006 on the ground that the charges were too vague to stand up in court.^[19] Fagan planned to refile, but has since been disbarred.^[20]

Denigration of Jews

The Borat character has been accused of anti-Semitism but Baron Cohen, himself a Jew, has explained that the segments are a "dramatic demonstration of how racism feeds on dumb conformity, as much as rabid bigotry."^[21] "Borat essentially works a tool. By himself pretending to be anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice," Baron Cohen explained to Rolling Stone.^[22] Baron Cohen, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, says he wishes in particular to expose the role of indifference:

When I was in university, there was this major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw, who said, 'The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.' I know it's not very funny being a comedian talking about the Holocaust, but it's an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic.^[22]

(The actual line from Kershaw’s 1983 book Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich was that "the road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with indifference")^[23][24][25]

However, the Anti-Defamation League, a U.S.-based group that “...combat[s] anti-Semitism and bigotry of all kinds”, complained to HBO after Borat performed his country western-style song "In My Country There Is Problem". It called on people to "throw the Jew down the well", warning that "you must be careful of his teeth" and that "you must grab him by his money", and was welcomed with applause and participation from some members of an audience in Tucson, Arizona. The full chorus goes: "Throw the Jew down the well / So my country can be free / You must grab him by his horns / Then we have a big party."^[26][27] Regarding the enthusiastic response to "In My Country There Is Problem", he says, "Did it reveal that they were anti-Semitic? Perhaps. But maybe it just revealed that they were indifferent to anti-Semitism."

In another scene, Borat visits the Serengeti Range ranch in Texas, where the owner of the ranch confides that he believes the Holocaust was a necessity for Germany. He further implies that he would have no moral qualms about running a ranch where people can hunt, in Borat's words, "deer... then Jew."^[28]

An interview with James Broadwater, an evangelical Christian and Republican candidate for the United States' Congress from Mississippi, caused Broadwater to receive some hate emails after an episode of Da Ali G Show aired in which Broadwater stated that all non-Christians (including Jews) will go to Hell. He was told that the interview would be played in foreign countries to teach others about the American political system. Broadwater later posted a letter on his website denouncing Da Ali G Show, explaining that his statement referred to a theological belief that anyone that "accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour will spend eternity in Heaven, while everyone who rejects Him will spend eternity in Hell." Broadwater did not apologise for his comments. Instead, he insisted that "the liberal, anti-God media needs to be brought under the strict control of the FCC, and that as soon as possible."^[29]

In the film, Borat continues his anti-Semitic stance. When he mentions his decision to avoid flying while in America, Borat says that his colleague "insists we not fly in case the Jews repeat their attack of 9/11". Later, he finds himself in a bed and breakfast run by a kindly old Jewish couple. He tries to "escape", and throws money at two cockroaches that have crawled into his room, apparently fearing that the Jewish owners have shapeshifted into the cockroaches. He was amazed that they had managed to look human and states that one "can hardly see their horns". Borat is completely oblivious to his hosts' religious beliefs when he first meets them, despite the immediate evidence: the man wears a kippah and the woman openly displays her paintings of Jewish people all over the house. Borat does not understand until the woman explicitly tells him "I'm Jewish."

The movie has enjoyed particular success in Israel because Israeli filmgoers understand what Borat is really saying when he is supposedly spouting Kazakh: throughout the film, Borat speaks fluent Hebrew.^[30]

Iraq War sarcasm

In January 2005, after convincing the authorities that he was shooting a documentary film, Cohen managed to infuriate a crowd at a rodeo in Salem, Virginia. Even though the crowd first cheered at the beginning of his statements of support for the Iraq war:^[31]

My name a Borat. I come from Kazakhstan. Can I say first, we support your War of Terror! May we show our support to our boys in Iraq! May U.S. and A. kill every single terrorist! May George Bush drink the blood of every single man, woman and child of Iraq! May you destroy their country so that for the next thousand years not even a single lizard will survive in their desert!

He then went on to sing an off-key rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" with the lyrics replaced by those of a fictitious "Kazakh national anthem", beginning with "Kazakhstan is the greatest country in the world / All other countries are run by little girls..."

"If he had been out there a minute longer, I think somebody would have shot him," said one witness. "People were booing him, flipping him off." For his own safety, Cohen was escorted from the venue (much of the event appears in the movie;^[32] A credible news report about the incident, aired on a local television station, is included in the DVD extras).

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Borat Sagdiyev.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Borat Sagdiyev

• boratonline.co.uk Semi-official Borat site since 1999 - contains interviews with Dan Mazer and Sacha Baron Cohen
• Borat at the Internet Movie Database

Articles

• Interview with Dan Mazer about Borat, Producer of Da Ali G Show on 23 April 2003 on boratonline.co.uk
• "The Borat Doctrine" posted 13 September 2004 in The New Yorker
• "'Ali G' Comedian Riles Rodeo Crowd" on 14 January 2005 on CBS News
• "No Joke" by Kenneth Neil Cukier on 28 December 2005 in Foreign Affairs, on what the removal of the Borat site from the .kz domain portends for the administration of the global domain name system
• Borat on Gotuit Video
• And Now for the World According to Borat and Sacha Baron Cohen
• "Borat in Paris" on 9 October 2006
• "Offensive and unfair, Borat's antics leave a nasty aftertaste" by Kazakhstan Ambassador Erlan Idrissov on 4 October 2006 in The Guardian
• "Behind the Schemes", Newsweek, 16 October 2006 (profiling several people who became unwitting Borat punch lines)
• "Borat vs. Kazakhstan", brandchannel, 30 October 2006 (discusses Borat's affect on Westerners' perception of Kazakhstan)
• "Mahir to Borat: I Sue You!", Wired, November 2006 (Q&A with Borat lookalike Mahir Cagri) "Can Borat be Sued by (Mahir Cagri)?", Electronic News Network, November 2006 (evidence Borat was developed before Mahir Cagri's internet fame)
• "We survived Stalin and we can certainly overcome Borat's slurs" by Kazakhstan Ambassador Erlan Idrissov on 4 November 2006 in The Times
• "Borat 2 - A satirical explanation of the Borat movie."