LA Times Valley Edition | Glendale News Press | November 18, 2006

FROM THE MARGINS

Borat for City Council… Not!

By PATRICK AZADIAN

I had promised myself not to see the movie "Borat!" but I’d had a hard
day, and there’s no better cure for life’s complications than a
mindless movie.

Secretly, I was also curious to see how the Armenian male population of
Glendale would react to the movie. Would they laugh out loud with Borat
(Sasha Baron Cohen), or would they be laughing at him? Would they think
the joke was really on them? What kind of reception would Borat’s
sidekick, the Armenian-speaking Azamat (Kenneth Davitian), receive from
the audience? I was intrigued.

"Borat!" didn’t turn out to be so mindless. The movie actually had a
quasi-noble message, delivered in an unconventional manner.

The formula for the delivery of the message was somewhat twisted,
however. Reverse psychology is probably a good way to describe it.

The movie’s initial objective was to build up Borat as a despicable
character. Once that was achieved, then follow-up with the attribution
of evil ideas to the same character. Hopefully, by the end of the
movie, the audience would be ready to reject evil.

The first step in making Borat undesirable was to pick him an
undesirable birthplace. In today’s political climate, it does not take
a social scientist to know where that location would be.

The destination is the Middle East, of course. Borat is supposed to be
from Kazakhstan. Never mind that this post-Soviet state is not in the
Middle East (it is in Central Asia); the movie relies on the ignorance
of the audience. Any country name ending with "stan" (signifying
territory or state in Persian) is perceived to be in the Middle East.
Kazakhstan turns out to be the perfect choice, considering it is one of
the most secular states in the region, with a relatively tame
population. Borat probably saves his neck from a religious death
sentence by picking on Kazakhstan (as opposed to Pakistan or
Afghanistan). Details don’t matter in "Borat!" the character is from
‘Middle-Eastan.’

Once the birthplace is set, the movie quickly reveals Borat’s other
enviable qualities. In addition to his lack of hygiene, heavy accent,
ridiculous outfits and homosexual tendencies, Borat treats his wife
like an ox. He also has a very unique relationship with his degenerate
sister. In its completed form, Borat is a despicable caricature that
loves big-bosomed blond American woman (he is a more menacing version
of the ‘Czechoslovakian Brothers’ from the show Saturday Night Live
back in the days of Dan Akroyd and Steve Martin). Last but not least,
Borat possesses dark hair and a thick mustache. As a Southern rodeo
cowboy observes in the movie: "Borat, shave that mustache, you look
like a terrorist."

So the stage is set for noble messages, delivered in a twisted fashion.
This particular loser is anti-Semitic, thinks women are inferior to
men, hates homosexuals and gypsies and believes physically and mentally
challenged individuals have no place in society.

By hating Borat, the audience is supposed to embrace the fight against
these evil ideas.

Nevertheless, Borat can be from anywhere. =46rom the western tip of
Portugal to the highlands of Afghanistan, and from the southern shores
of Sicily to the suburbs of Paris, the world is full of men with
Borat’s physical characteristics. In the process of making a cool
bundle and pretending to advance noble ideas, "Borat" manages to
insult, oh… about 300 million people (I am just counting the sum of
the population of countries whose names ends with ‘stan.’ I left out
Hindustan, otherwise the fatality count would go up by another
billion).

In a questionable attempt to fight evil, "Borat!" successfully manages
to demonize people by bestowing symbolic horns and tails upon them.
Dehumanizing a whole group of people is not a new concept; it clears
the conscience when someone decides to bomb them into oblivion.

And here in the streets of Glendale, dark-haired men in dark mustaches
and grey suits can be thankful to "Borat" for his contribution to
stereotyping them as Neanderthals. My guess is many of them will never
know the joke was really on them. And that’s good; ignorance can be
bliss.

A decade or two from now, when and if there is peace in the Middle East
and our troops have already come home, we’ll view this movie in a
different light.

Meanwhile, I invite Borat to marry a blond American woman, get his
American citizenship and run for City Council. And maybe Azamat can run
for the School Board… Not!