Borat 2 Review: A Controversial Comedy You Must Watch
graphic by bailey kretschmer
It’s very rare that a movie makes us audibly laugh multiple times per minute while choking on our popcorn. Actually, that almost never happens. But, “Borat 2” was that movie. It came at a time when every American was on the edge of their seats. The election was on everyone’s minds, COVID-19 cases were spiking (and still are), need we say more? But, America was able to sit down, watch “Borat,” and have a laugh. The protagonist, Borat, genuinely doesn’t believe women have rights, yet he exposes so many truths about the fucked up country America is.
If you haven’t seen the first “Borat” (which, by the way, is a very necessary watch), then here’s a bit of background. The movie, released in 2006, is centered around Borat Sagdiyev. He’s a reporter from Kazakhstan who has been sent to what he calls, “the US and A,” to make a documentary on what makes America a great nation (ironic, we know). He ends up wildly offending probably every person he crosses paths with.
In “Borat 2,” our protagonist is being punished by Kazakhstan because his documentary made his country look bad. To escape execution, he promises to go back to America and make Kazakhstan look good. He finds out he has a 15-year-old daughter (?? like okay), who ends up hiding in a box meant for cargo on the boat ride to America. Borat then comes up with the brilliant idea to sell her to President Donald Trump for his sexual pleasures. Without outright saying it, Sacha Baron Cohen, the creator of the movies, made a jab at the allegations that Trump is involved in the Jeffrey Epstein pedophile scandals.
We learn that Borat owns a manual on the place of women in society (spoiler alert: according to the manual, there’s not really one). Women can’t drive, can’t exactly talk for themselves, and have to sleep in cages while a man sleeps comfortably in a bed. It’s so ridiculous that it’s funny. One of our favorite scenes is when Tutar (Borat’s daughter)—who, by the way, was renamed “Sandra Jessica Parker Sagdiyev” at one point in the movie—is shopping for dresses to seduce Trump. Borat says to the retail employee, “Where can I find the no means yes dresses?” Wow. We aspire to have the insane sense of humor and talent that the writers of “Borat” have. Like, please sign us up.
Later in the movie, the COVID-19 pandemic hits, and Borat quarantines with two raging Trump supporters. Here’s a quote from that little get-together: “What is more dangerous? This virus or the Democrat?,” to which the men respond, “the Democrat.” Or, when they all attended a Trump rally with no masks and Borat sang to the crowd, “Obama, what we gonna do? Inject him with the Wuhan flu.”
The silver lining of “Borat,” though, is that by the end of the movie, Tutar has discovered that women can be anything they want to be in America. She realizes this when Borat spends all of his money trying to get her a boob and nose job in an attempt to seduce Rudy Giuliani after Trump didn’t work out. Tutar has a babysitter that teaches her to love herself, and a series of events leads her to run away and become a female reporter. This is the character development we needed.
Well, all in all, Borat 2 provided the much needed hour and a half break we needed before Trump blows our country up in flames because he’s mad about the results of the election <3333.