Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat” is not just satire gone too far. It is an outright endorsement of racism, anti-Muslim sentiment and xenophobia. Cloaked in humor, Cohen’s portrayal of Borat is an offensive caricature that preys on harmful stereotypes about Muslims and immigrants, targeting already marginalized communities under the guise of comedy.
Cohen has a disturbing history of relying on explicit, harmful Muslim stereotypes in his previous works, including “Ali G” as an ignorant, hypersexualized figure and “The Dictator,” which traffics in Islamophobic tropes.
While Borat never explicitly claims to be Muslim, Sam Ali of the Newark-Star Ledger declares that Kazakhstan’s majority-Muslim population, combined with Borat’s overt bigotry, misogyny and anti-Semitism is enough to characterize Borat as Muslim in the American imagination.
Cohen knows exactly what he is doing. By mocking Kazakhstan, a nation few in the West are familiar with, he exploits geographic ignorance to craft a character that feels “safe” to ridicule.
This ignorance does not excuse the damage. Borat pushes the narrative that Muslim immigrants are violent, misogynistic and anti-Semitic, unfit to join Western society. It is low-hanging fruit for an audience eager to laugh at these stereotypes and Cohen is always in on the joke.
The truth about Kazakhstan is far removed from Cohen’s bigoted fantasy. During the Holocaust, the country saved thousands of lives by taking in Jewish people from Eastern Europe and other states of the U.S.S.R. Today, it is regarded by Jewish groups as a model for coexistence.
Kazakhstan is also not a helplessly misogynistic nation. Save the Children ranked it higher than the United States in its list of best countries for girls to grow up in.
Responsibility must be held for pushing lies about an entire ethnic group. After the release of the second Borat movie in 2020, the Kazakh community pushed back.
The New Arab reports that the Council for American-Islamic relations joined the Kazakh American Association in sending letters to the Oscars, the Golden Globes and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. They called for the industry to bar Cohen and his film from consideration for awards.
The New Arab maintains that Cohen racially and culturally abuses and mocks the Kazakh cultures, traditions and people for crude laughter and monetary gain. Borat could have come from a fictional nation, yet Cohen chose to exploit an underrepresented, real country, weaponizing his anti-Muslim narrative against Kazakhstan.
Cohen’s history of casual racism extends beyond Borat. For his movie “Brüno,” the production interviewed a man they claimed was a terrorist. Cohen later described this man, Ayman Abu Aita, as a terrorist on David Letterman’s show eight times within three minutes.
In reality, Abu Aita is a Palestinian grocer and peace activist who was lied to by Cohen’s team. Abu Aita was told the interview would focus on his life’s work of peace activism. He sued for defamation, eventually settling for an undisclosed sum.
This is the blueprint of Baron Cohen’s humor: slander Middle Easterners and Muslims, profit from Western stereotypes and then quietly pay off the consequences.
Even Borat’s infamous “Running of the Jew” scene highlights Cohen’s exploitation. Filmed in a remote Romanian village, locals were paid just $3 each and told they were participating in a sympathetic documentary. Instead, they were humiliated in service of Cohen’s inappropriate and unnecessary anti-Semitic parody, while “Borat” raked in over $262 million at the box office.
Cohen isn’t an edgy satirist exposing bigotry. He’s an opportunist who profits from reinforcing it. His characters prey on ignorance and amplify dangerous stereotypes, weaponizing humor against Muslims, immigrants and anyone who doesn’t fit a Western mold.
It’s time to stop making excuses for him and his harmful work. Borat isn’t the joke; the people who consume such content are, for letting this bigotry pass as humor.
