Cohen's success stems in part from the fact that he never lets on what his
movie is really "about." Unlike Michael Moore - who, just for the record,
isn't a fraction as talented as Cohen - Cohen never made himself available
to interviewers when promoting the movie. He always appeared as Borat, which
made it impossible to ask Cohen what he really thinks of America, what the
"message" of the film is or how realistic his "reality" film is. This was a
brilliant marketing ploy, and the TV press eagerly played themselves for
suckers. Imagine if, say, Cookie Monster started spewing racial epithets on
"Sesame Street" and, in response to the controversy, the producers allowed
Cookie Monster to do all the talking at the press conference.
Similarly, Cohen refuses to divulge his "methods" - an easy trick when Cohen
himself rarely appears at his own interviews - so audiences and critics are
free to believe that "Borat" is far more real than it really is. Some of the
scenes in the movie are transparently staged. Others must be highly
pre-produced. All of it is heavily edited for effect. Yet, some people,
including European critics, delight in how "Borat" reveals the bigoted
underside of the "real" America.
This is nonsense on stilts. Cohen undoubtedly shot thousands of hours of
footage, and he picked the funniest bits, not the most representative ones.
Even so, as Christopher Hitchens noted recently in Slate, most of the
Americans - save for some cranky feminists - are polite to a fault with
Borat. One Southern lady takes her guest to the bathroom to explain how to
use the toilet and toilet paper - only after Borat has brought a plastic bag
full of what those tools are intended to deal with. Do we really believe the
French would be even more accommodating?
Meanwhile, Borat's more conservative defenders hail the film's allegedly
implicit critique of political correctness. But this is a hard case to make
when Borat's victims are almost all demons in the politically correct
pantheon (Christians, rednecks, et al.). Borat never visits, say, Muslims
who might sincerely return Borat's high-fives for Jew hatred.
In short, "Borat" isn't as revolutionary or "transgressive" as its fans
claim. It's just a funny movie. And that should be enough.