i want you to hit me as hard as you can...
Yes his name Borat, the Kazakh reporter and star of a movie that would go on to be not only the
highest grossing mockumentary of all time but arguably one of the funniest movies of the 21st
century. Oh it would also be one of the most lawsuit-prone releases in movie history. From
drunken frat boys to hillbilly rodeos, from bags of feces to the Kazakh government, Borat certainly
made an impression. Pack up your best chicken and find out what the [ __ ] happened to this movie!
Borat Sagdiyev, who began as a Moldovan nitwit named Alexi Crickler in the mid 90's before
evolving into the Kazakh journalist, got his first major exposure as a recurring character
on Sasha Baron Cohen's breakout satire Da Ali G Show. With his frizzy hair, thick mustache
and awkward thumbs, up he is immediately recognizable decked out in his only suit
asking wildly irrational and naive questions, offending just about everyone he interviews,
and yet still suckering them into a childlike high five.
A cinematic expansion of Da Ali G Show titled Ali G Indahouse was a moderate box office success in
2002 and had a cult following. Just a few years later Baron Cohen thought it was the right time to
bring his character Borat to the big screen. This fake documentary would carry the full preposterous
title Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
The movie would find Borat venturing from his village to U S and A to make a documentary
about the culture. It's there that he first experiences the sexy lifeguard melodrama Baywatch,
immediately falling in love with CJ Parker herself Pamela Anderson, who he romantically describes:
she had golden hairs, teeth as white as pearls and the [ __ ] of a seven-year-old. On his quest
he would immerse himself in various scenarios, laying bare the racism, arrogance and hypocrisy
that cripples a part of American society. For this whole plan to work, the individuals in
the know would have to be extremely limited or else the facade would be exposed. The hired cast
included Ken Davitian as Borat's producer Azamat, comedian Luenell as Borat's prostitute date,
and Pamela Anderson proving a good sport by playing herself. Directing Sasha's in disguise
antics would be Larry Charles, a Seinfeld alum and frequent Curb Your Enthusiasm director, although
that wasn't how it started. Todd Phillips, then known for Old School and later the Hangover movies
and Joker, actually shot on the movie for 11 days before everyone determined that the collaboration
wasn't working. Azamat wasn't even part of the movie at that point. And then Baron Cohen broke
his foot playing basketball delaying production for another two months. It was during that time
that Larry Charles got involved and helped form the movie that ultimately stormed the box office.
Production began in January 2005 with the opening scenes shot in Romania standing in for Kazakhstan.
So all of those background actors and the language in the opening scene are Romanian - there isn't
any Kazakh in the movie, with Borat mixing Hebrew and Polish, an early and subtle dig
at the majority of the audience who wouldn't know the difference and just assume it's Kazakh. This
played through on-screen text as well, with the filmmakers consulting the cyrillic alphabet - the
Russian variation, even though there is a Kazakh one. They even sometimes reversed lettering or
gave it a nonsensical structure. To keep up the image that a goofy Kazakh reporter was filming
a real documentary, the production shot much of Borat in the south, far from a target demographic
for the eventual movie. They also kept a lawyer on standby, consulting before each scene was
shot to see just how deep the legal waters were. Judging by all of what was to come, they might be
one of the most underpaid lawyers in the world. It wasn't odd for the production to provoke both the
interviewees and authorities, despite taking legal precautions such as having everyone sign releases.
Producer Jay Roach called Baron Cohen "an incredible improviser but also a diligent
preparer." He carried a dictionary to consult which was actually filled with potential jokes,
and he fully committed to the part, living in the hair and mustache for the full year of filming.
And that suit, which was never changed because the filmmakers thought Borat should have a certain air
about him. As executive producer Monica Levinson said, you could smell him from a mile away.
While not strictly method, Baron Cohen remained in character as much as possible in order to retain
his accent and to help ensure the crew wouldn't slip up. This could have its own problems,
as when two of the team got arrested in New York after a Borat misunderstanding over a hotel bill,
while Baron Cohen was safely transported over state lines to New Jersey. Executive producer
Dan Mazur said everything had to be in two vans so we could escape anywhere in 30 seconds.
Unsurprisingly the infamous naked fight scene also had its challenges but not necessarily
for the reason you might think. Working around public nudity rules was one thing but on the
first attempt filming the scene at a Dallas engineering lecture, the attendees looked up
at the nude fracas and then just went back to what they were doing - not exactly the desired effect,
which was finally captured at a San Diego mortgage convention.
By the time production wrapped the crew had shot over 400 hours of footage. With a running time of
84 minutes that puts the shooting ratio around a nearly unprecedented 285 to 1. For comparison
the footage filmed versus used for Apocalypse Now runs around 95 to 1. Borat premiered at the
Toronto International Film Festival, sort of - before you could say Jagshemash, the projector
broke in front of the 1000 moviegoers in attendance. Baron Cohen, who had arrived in
character pulled on a wagon by a flock of peasant women, went on stage to apologize on behalf of
Kazakhstan while Michael Moore helped fix the projector. This would be the least troublesome
part of the Borat saga. As fury grew over the movie after its official release, Baron Cohen,
again in character as Borat, encouraged anybody and everybody to sue the actor Sasha Baron Cohen.
Many actually took him up on this - the string of complaints and accusations was knotted with
wrongdoings and hypocrisies, with shaming and lawsuits coming from both those featured
in the movie and numerous rights organizations. Various groups immediately jumped on the movie,
chiefly the Anti-Defamation League, the European Center for Anti-ziganism Research, and the Veteran
Feminists of America. The Anti-Defamation League considered Borat an anti-semitic work,
likely because of the "running of the Jews," or perhaps the implication that Jews were responsible
for 9/11, or maybe the sequence where Borat is convinced that the Jewish owners of a bed and
breakfast are shapeshifters trying to kill him. Of course Sasha Baron Cohen himself is Jewish,
and he's been pushing these buttons since Da Ali G Show in which Borat performed a little ditty
called "in my country there is a problem," also known as "throw the Jew down the well."
The European Center for Anti-ziganism Research, which serves to protect the rights and image of
Romanian citizens often referred to as gypsies, stated that the character was inciting violence
against the group. Villages of Romania's Glod, where a portion of the movie was shot,
didn't care for the way it was portrayed - even though it's standing in for Kazakhstan.
The primary lawsuit that came out of this wanted 38 million dollars but it was thrown out for being
too vague. The Veteran Feminists of America, whose participants were paid a whopping $200,
had a member who wanted Borat deported - whether to Kazakhstan, Romania or New Jersey remains
unclear. Nothing came of this attempt either. The indignation went all the way to the Kazakhstan
government, with the foreign ministry wanting to sue for the perceived derogatory depiction
of the country, with officials insisting the movie was degrading Kazakh's ethnic identity.
The government even took it into borderline conspiracy theory territory officially stating "we
do not rule out that Mr Cohen is serving someone's political order designed to present Kazakhstan and
its people in a derogatory way." Baron Cohen thought the country was missing the point,
saying "I think the joke is on people who can believe that the Kazakhstan that i describe can
exist, who believe that there's a country where homosexuals wear blue hats and the women live
in cages and drink fermented horse urine and the age of consent is nine years old." For the record,
Kazakhstan's legal age of consent is 16, the minimum in most US states. Borat's website was
even taken down by their government. The topic was so hot that Kazakhstan's prime minister
reportedly broached it in a meeting with then-US president George W Bush. The censorship incident
later led to Borat being deemed a victim of human rights violations by the US state department.
Kazakhstan even reportedly launched a media campaign to repair the country's image post-Borat.
And then there were the on-screen personalities, for lack of a better term, with many of these
cases further displaying the very issues the movie intended to expose. Let's start with the
Virginia rodeo, which featured a raucous crowd cheering some rather unsettling sentiments.
The rodeo producer later said he felt duped, stating "I've made the big time but not in
the way i want it." Dan Mazur said that day was especially dangerous because around 3000 people
wanted to kill them afterwards, unlike the mere four or five people of a typical shooting day.
The etiquette sequence in which Borat brings a bag of his own feces back to the dinner
table - bad etiquette by the way - was naturally a prime target for post-release complaints.
The etiquette expert stated "you have no way of knowing that you have been tricked
into being part of a childish prank with an R rating attached." She thought fraud should be
investigated but it turns out she hadn't read the consent form she signed. She elaborated further,
calling it "the most horrifying pornographic scene imaginable to me." I wonder if she saw what Rudy
Giuliani tried to pull in Borat 2. The University of Southern Carolina frat boys who spent a night
riding around in an RV with Borat blasting racist commentary claimed they were tricked into signing
releases after being intoxicated. They tried to sue the studio for humiliation, mental anguish and
emotional and physical distress. Thanks for trying to ruin the reputation of drunken frat bros Borat!
Anyway, the case was denied. Sasha Baron Cohen also received documents that began with legal
action and turned into fan letters. He recalled: "some of the letters i get are quite unusual,
like the one where the lawyer informed me I'm about to be sued for one hundred thousand dollars
and at the end says PS, love the movie, can you sign a poster for my son?" Other participants
in the movie that felt misled or sought damages included the driving instructor, who was under
the impression the film was a documentary about foreigners adapting to the American culture.
Also in the subway scene with Borat's unrestrained suitcase chicken, a commuter wanted two and
a quarter million dollars for his likeness to be used. Unsurprisingly that suit was dropped. Even a
man in a throwaway scene claimed he later suffered public ridicule, degradation and humiliation.
Kid Rock, at the time married to Borat's object of desire Pamela Anderson, had a more extreme
response. After the couple saw a screening at the home of Universal's then-president, Anderson
divorced from the ostensible musician. Baron Cohen said that he had texted Anderson to ask how her
husband had liked the movie, and her response was "he's getting divorced." Allegedly Kid Rock
flipped out at the screening, calling Anderson a [ __ ] and berating her for appearing in the movie.
Wait, that's the movie he got upset over? That divorce or marriage wasn't all that Anderson
endured - Baron Cohen said that he accidentally chipped her jawbone shooting the performative
struggle. But adding insult to injury, the kidnapping scene needed to be shot twice
because on the first take he successfully captured his prize and nobody moved to help her at all.
So much for dedicated fans. And even after all that, there was still more notoriety. Borat
would be banned in most Arab countries - that's nearly two dozen - with the movie being labeled
vile, gross and extremely ridiculous by Dubai's ministry of information. They considered chopping
it down to remove all offensive material but it would only be 30 minutes. When Borat was finally
released in November 2006 it was a pop culture phenomenon. The movie opened at number one at
the box office pulling in 26.5 million dollars before eventually grossing 262 million worldwide.
With an 18 million dollar budget it ended up being one of the most profitable movies of the year.
Critics mostly adored the satire, calling it inventive, uncompromising and spleen-bursting
funny. Borat even garnered an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay,
in addition to a Golden Globe nod for best motion picture comedy or musical. At the same ceremony
Sasha Baron Cohen won best actor in a comedy or musical. As a result of this success, Baron Cohen
had built enough clout to bring another character from Da Ali G Show to the big screen, this time
gay Austrian fashion reporter Bruno. While Bruno had its own share of lawsuits and did well enough
commercially, it didn't have quite the impact of Borat. In 2020 Sasha Baron Cohen brought back his
famous Kazakh character and his sly and still very relevant exposure of prejudices, although
his second movie went straight to streaming due to the global pandemic. The sequel was titled Borat:
Subsequent Movie Film Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious
Nation of Kazakhstan. Like its predecessor the movie earned another Oscar nod for best adopted
screenplay. As for the first Borat, several years after its release the Kazakh government
acknowledged a boost in tourism, saying the movie "managed to spark an immense interest of the whole
world in Kazakhstan, something our authorities could not do during the years of independence."
Ten times the normal amount of people applied for visas to visit the country, and they even
made Borat's catchphrase "very nice" their new travel slogan. Very nice, Borat Sagdiyev,
very nice indeed. Thank you for watching, if you like what you see please subscribe to our Joblo
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