Very Nice? Sacha Baron Cohen Reprises Borat Role on U.S. Talk Show

Borat is back. Briefly, at least. Actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who played the fictional journalist from Kazakhstan for laughs in films in 2006 and 2020, resurrected the character in an appearance last week on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Fallon asked Baron Cohen, who had donned a thick, fake mustache, what Borat would say to Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. The results were, well, vintage Borat. Borat´s cringeworthy, often unscripted encounters and scatological brand of humor are either keen satire, or just tasteless and offensive, or perhaps some blend of the two, depending on the perspective. The Borat character is a crude misogynist who talks about “sexy time” with bears in his homeland. But his escapades in the United States are arguably an attempt to lampoon American life or society in general as much as to portray a country in Central Asia, repository of ancient civilizations, as a land of backward buffoons. Borat producers have said they were not trying to convey the actual conduct or beliefs of people in Kazakhstan, where the government took offense when the first movie came out. Later, some people in Kazakhstan warmed to Borat and recognized the public relations boost and even increased tourist numbers linked to Baron Cohen’s outrageous character in a boxy suit. His catchphrase “Very nice!” was the hook in a promotional video for Kazakhstan. In 2006, Erlan Idrissov, who was then Kazakhstan’s ambassador to Britain, expressed unease about Borat´s boorish persona in the successful first movie at a time when, according to the envoy, Kazakhstan was starting to emerge as an economic and political “pace-setter” in the region. “But, sadly, it is still the case that few people in Britain or America know anything about Kazakhstan or can even locate it on a map. They are in no position to judge whether Borat or his movie is remotely credible or fair. Baron Cohen exploits this ignorance to the full,” Idrissov wrote in The Guardian. In 2020, there was less fuss about the second Borat movie in Kazakhstan, whose international stature had grown over the years. “Kazakhstan has grown up, Borat hasn't,” read a headline in Emerging Europe, a regional policy and management group.