When Borat Sagdiyev, Kazakhstan’s sixth best journalist and one of the many alteregos of British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, led the unsuspecting American patrons of a Country West Club to sing along to Throw the Jew Down the Well on screen in 2006, it was time to revisit the boundaries of comedy, and realize that we actually live in a very controlled environment when it comes to humor.
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was a mockumentary, a collection of pranks spread over a journey from New York to California. Borat and his producer traveled throughout the “U.S. and A,” to make a documentary on America or to find Pamela Anderson and make her Borat’s wife, whichever story you chose to follow.
The initial reaction to Cohen’s comedy was simple strain, before deciding whether to laugh or not. You had to laugh, because the pranks were funny, and the timing was spot on. And when you let yourself go, and started to feel comfortable laughing at all the misogynistic, anti-Semitic, homophobic and racist jokes, there was an unexpected sense of liberation. You could be a woman, Jewish or gay. It didn’t matter. In the hands of a masterful comedian who played on people’s ignorance and prejudice, political correctness crumbled into pieces.
Click here for full article (Hürriyet Daily News)
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