Front Burner - Borat walks through the 2020 looking-glass

Episode Date: October 27, 2020

Sacha Baron Cohen's new satire, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, uses the same kind of pranks and antics as his first Borat film to tackle sexism, anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories and politics. But a lot has changed in the world since the original movie came out in 2006. And thanks to social media and the current U.S. political climate, the satire in this new movie hits very differently. Alissa Wilkinson, a film critic and culture reporter for Vox, joins us to talk about the mirror the new movie holds up to U.S. society.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. I really feel like Melania right now.

Well, you're doing very well. You've got to look pretty. Sorry to interrupt, may I? Some problem. I think we cancel interview. Even if you haven't seen Sacha Baron Cohen's new satire, Borat's subsequent movie film, chances are you've probably heard of this scene.

I will try my best, but because I'm super excited and nervous. Well, you relax. I'll relax. You want me to ask you questions? I'll relax you, okay? Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and Donald Trump's personal lawyer, is shown putting his hand down his pants in a hotel room with Borat's daughter, who's posing as a TV journalist. Put down your crumb. She's 15. She's too old for you. She's my daughter. Please take me instead. This is the same kind of prank Baron Cohen pulled with his first Borat movie back in 2006. In 2020, though, the film hits differently. The racism, In 2020, though, the film hits differently.

The racism, sexism, and conspiracy theories that Baron Cohen takes aim at, well, these ideas aren't necessarily lurking under the surface so much anymore. Thanks to social media and the political climate, some of them are very much out in the open. Today, I'm speaking with Alyssa Wilkinson, a film critic and culture reporter for Vox, about all of this, and if you haven't watched the movie yet, you might want to pause here and come back because there are lots of spoilers ahead. This is Frontburner. Hi, Alyssa. Thank you so much for joining me today. It's great to be here. So I want to start by talking not about Borat, but about who you have argued is the real star of the film, Borat's teenage daughter Tutar.

And she's played by 24-year-old Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova, very successfully, I would say. And Tutar goes through some pretty big transformations in the movie. Can you tell us about her character arc, which is pretty much the plot of the movie? Sure. So, you know, part of the idea of the movie is that Borat, after making kind of a fool of Kazakhstan in the first movie, has been sentenced to a work camp for the last 14 years. And he returns home because he's being asked to go to America and bring a present to the new administration to kind of, you know, restore the position of Kazakhstan

in the United States' eyes. And so he goes back to his home, he sees his sons, and then he discovers that he has a daughter who's 15, and she's been living kind of like in the stable out back of his house. And so when we first meet her, she is very ratty and dirty and kind of feral. And he proclaims that she is the oldest unmarried woman in Kazakhstan at 15. And so she's, you know, she's like quite a character. She begs him to bring her with him to the U.S.

He says no. And when he arrives with the monkey that he intends to give to Mike Pence, he discovers that she stowed away with the monkey and ate the monkey. And now she's with him. And he sort of has this brainstorm that, oh, perhaps she could be the gift that he could give to Pence, to Curry favor. And, you know, there are many things that you have to do to make kind of a gutter rat look better if you're going to, you know, present her to what he terms the vice premier, the vice president. And so they go to a kind of through a makeover scene, which is always my favorite part of a movie is when there's a makeover scene.

So I got real excited. And of course, what they do is bring her to a hairdresser. They bring her to a gown store that's owned by a very nice woman. He brings her to a woman who kind of explains to her how you get a sugar daddy. What is sugar baby? So pretty much a sugar baby is a younger girl like you and I, and we're dating someone who's older. Yes.

And how old do you like them? That's the question. Nearly dead. Yes, this is Macy Chanel, an Instagram influencer. As a woman, you never want to be a person who is aggressive. You want to be more submissive. Oh, we have to be kind of weak. And then they do end up at a plastic surgeon looking to, you know, change her physique, perhaps, so that she might more appeal to Pence, which, of course, sitting there is just very funny on several levels.

What I would suggest is that maybe we'd play some breast implants. And what do you mean on breast? The breast. Oh, titty. Titty? Titty. Titty? Titty. Titty. Or breast. So all of these things happen with T'Chara. She kind of goes through this physical transformation. And when she gets to the end of it, I was like, why does she look so familiar? And then I realized it's very much this template that I think you see if you turn on the TV, particularly to Fox News, which is that sort of this noted similarity, basically based around Roger Ailes's favorite way for a woman to look. Right. And I want to get to that in a minute.

But first, I want to talk to you about something that was really interesting to me, because in this arc, so much of it has to do with her embracing feminism. And I thought it was really interesting how early in the movie you hear Borat painting this outrageous picture of how women are repressed in his fictional Kazakhstan. They live in cages. They can't drive or own businesses. And people think their brains don't work. And Borat is using, as you mentioned, his daughter as a bribe. But then as she goes through this makeover in the US, the plastic surgeon with the Instagram influencer, at one point they go to a debutante ball and

someone makes a joke that maybe she's worth $500, much to the embarrassment of his daughter. worth $500, much to the embarrassment of his daughter. You see all these scenes where women are also being repressed and degraded. In the US, they are like chattel in a way. Yeah, that's right. And it's a very subtle critique. I think it's probably even easy to miss if you're just kind of there for the jokes. But it's very much a film about how the cages that we put women in in the US, or, you know, possibly we could say in North America are very much, you know, in a lot of ways like this fictional country. Restrictions that are put on us, the way we're supposed to look, the way we're supposed to act, the way we're supposed to flatter people in order to rise up in the world, all of those things. They're all evidence. And Tutar goes through this kind of transformation in which she discovers that women can read. And they can drive cars. They can drive cars. There's a very funny

scene where she's completely losing her mind with fear because this woman who's been kind of looking after her for a day while Borat's off doing something else is driving and she's like, you can't drive. Women can't drive. You can't drive. It's impossible for a woman to drive. No, no, no, no. You are a man dressed like a woman. No. Help me. Women can choose who they want to marry. Women can do all these kinds of things. And, you know, obviously this is all a stunt, but it does make this point that there's all these kinds of things. And, you know, obviously, this is all a stunt. But it does make this point that there's all these things that we can do that are freedoms that we have. And at the same time, there's all these things that we still can't do, or we're still expected to do differently. Right? You know, they talk about everything from our position in society

to reproductive rights to all of these kinds of things. Right. There is this incredible scene where Tutar tells a room full of conservative women that they should all go and sexually pleasure themselves and stop listening to men. She's sort of discovered this. It is. It's amazing. She's discovered that. One of my favorite scenes in the whole movie. Yes. So come with me. Come with me. Let's run away from our daddies. And we're so glad you're here. Thank you. Someone call her an Uber. So now I want to get back to this Fox News look that you

alluded to earlier. So as you point out, Tutar physically transforms. She comes to emulate this very specific look, platinum blonde hair, big curls, skin tight dresses, high heels. And what do you think the movie was trying to say by giving her that aesthetic? Well, this is where the kind of meta world that the Borat movies exist in comes into play, because a lot of what she's able to do with her new look is get access to people who she certainly wouldn't have been able to before, but who most of us don't get access to. So, you know, that's where the Rudy Giuliani scene comes in. She actually gains access to him because he sees her, you know, he thinks something about her. And he also makes assumptions about who she

is. And of course, she's a journalist, and she's this beautiful woman. And she keeps laughing at his jokes and saying that he's so impressive and such a, you know, such an incredible inspiration to her. Never been in front of the camera. I've always been behind the camera. But today, something with this. I think you're going to look pretty good. We'll see. You're going to look pretty good. It's because of you. Well, thank you. And watching this on one level, you're just like, this is a very funny joke that is being played on a powerful man. On the other hand, you know, one thing that we talk about a lot is is someone like Rudy Giuliani an easy mark for foreign powers. And this sort of proves that, yes, probably, because, you know, someone like this could get him in a room in a hotel so easily who's completely a farce. Right. And, you know, Giuliani has since denied he was doing anything wrong.

He says he was just tucking in his shirt there. Right. And, you know, it's not in the movie, but as part of the marketing campaign, the Twitter account for the movie has been releasing different videos that sort of didn't make it into the film. And one of them that came out, actually, they got into the White House. They tagged along with an OAN journalist into the White House. There's a video of Tutar shaking hands with Donald Trump Jr. at an event. So the ability to get into circles of power is apparently not that hard. And so much of why it works is because she's adopted this persona and she's adopted this look and it's familiar and it's safe. And OAN, just for our listeners, is like a right wing American news outlet, right? Yeah, that's right. It's very far to the right. And they've recently gotten a seat in the press corps at the White House.

recently gotten a seat in the press corps at the White House. Yeah, this look that you're talking about, you know, we see it too on surrogates like Kellyanne Conway, Ivanka Trump, but you point to one example, the Canadian, she's actually Canadian, far-right YouTuber Lauren Southern. Even serious political debate has just been substituted for partisan sneering and mockery, argumentum ad cringe, if you will, where we seem to have taken the position that if something can be mocked, that it can't possibly be right. And tell me a little bit more about that comparison that you're drawing there. Yeah, so I had been thinking about Lauren Southern because another film came out called White Noise just two days before and I had been watching it and it's a documentary about some

alt-right figures in the US, one of whom is Lauren Southern, who's not to kind of put up with the boys club that is the alt-right, has been able to gain a lot of attention that way and has been able to kind of propel herself up the ladder by using that look. And, you know, that's just a fact of life for women. But I think that because there's a particular look that's so ingrained in a particular facet of conservatism, that it's actually been very effective for people who are looking to kind of climb the ladder. And you see that in the movie, too. As you mentioned, she gets all this access. But at the same time, throughout the movie, she's constantly being harassed or ogled by men usually older men in the dragon's den a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection watch new episodes of dragon's den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in

part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Cups. I want to talk to you a little bit about 2006 Borat versus 2020 Borat.

In this movie and in the first Borat, Baron Cohen is satirizing anti-Semitism and racism. And how has the world changed around that kind of humor today versus back in 2006, do you think? This is such an interesting thing to think about, or I guess it would be more interesting if it wasn't so scary. But you know, if you watch the original Borat, that I watched it the day before I watched the new one, the whole time, all I could think is how on earth would he pull this off in 2020. And then I watched it and I saw And the challenge is that what he does is somewhere between kind of clowning and satire. So those two things are kind of together. And I think the satirical elements in the first film are probably stronger than they are in the second film. But it's not really his fault.

It's the fact that satire is taking someone's foibles or their kind of their ridiculousness and exposing it. And I've been thinking a lot about that because I think the trouble today is that all of those sort of foolish things that people believe and they say and they think they're on display all the time. And so to expose them is impossible. Like what how is it can it be exposed when I can just turn on the news or like float over to Facebook and see it everywhere? And so it also has the effect of like, who is this movie for? And I do feel like this movie's audience might be a little more narrow now than it would have been in 2006, because it is so much tied to the politics of the time and to what do you believe and how that makes you vote. And, you know, clearly they're targeting a certain political persuasion.

So we end up in a situation where we have satire, but I'm not sure that it can expose anything to someone because we all know that conspiracy theorists are out there because they probably are in our family. And we all know that, you know, certain ways of treating women are out there because we've seen it on debate stages. And so all of that makes this film a much more challenging film to figure out where it fits in the landscape today. where it fits in the landscape today. You know, it strikes me there were a couple of scenes in the movie when you compare the 2000s. I also just watched the one from 2006 too.

And there are moments in the 2006 movie where he's sort of goading people, like he'll talk about George Bush drinking the blood of Iraqis and maybe people will cheer. But in this movie, he spends some time with two men who have widely bought into the QAnon conspiracy theory, which is essentially the idea that Donald Trump is waging a secret fight against an international pedophile network that includes leaders of the Democratic Party.

And these two guys just believe, just say outright that Hillary Clinton drinks the blood of children. This said Clinton, they make this play? Yes, yes. Nice. Clintons are very evil. Extremely evil. Supposedly they torture these kids. It gets their adrenaline flowing in their body. And there's another scene where he literally walks into a bakery shop and asks the employee to write, Jews will not replace us on a cake. And this isn't like made up. This is not coming from Sacha Baron Cohen's head. This is actually something that happened. People said this in the streets of Charlottesville. Right, right.

Or when they talked to Giuliani in that scene in the hotel room, he just flat out says that the coronavirus was manufactured in a lab by China. And they deliberately spread it all around the world. I don't think anybody was eating bats. Yeah. Did you ever have a bat? Oh, no. I don't think I was eating bats. Yeah. Did you ever have a bat? Oh, no. I don't think I'll ever eat a bat.

If you eat a bat with me, I'll eat a bat with you. Okay, I will eat a bat with you. I mean, it's a very, like, conspiracy-minded way to think about what's going on in the world today. But I think that, you know, that's the thing. Like, people feel very upfront about things that they didn't used to maybe say out loud in front of a stranger. But even more so, I think, because of social media, people are more exposed to those ideas and those beliefs. If you think about 2006, that's like a year after Facebook launched. And it's still prior to a time when people

outside of college campuses were able to easily have access to Facebook. And so in a sense, we're kind of seeing the Borat pre-Facebook and the Borat post-Facebook and seeing how the world changed almost in a time capsule in those 14 years. Right. At one point in the movie, he actually really zeroes in on Facebook. I found a new book which only tells the truth. It's called Facebook. Like our nation's proudest moment, the Holocaust never happened. How dare you say that? Look. And I know this is something that Sacha Baron Cohen has actually also been quite angry about, the role of social media. Last year, he gave this speech at an Anti-defamation

league summit. Bigotry and vile conspiracy theories that threaten our democracy and to some degree, our planet. This can't possibly be what the creators of the internet had in mind. I believe that it's time for a fundamental rethink of social media and how it spreads hate, fundamental rethink of social media and how it spreads hate, conspiracies, and lies. So this is something that he's very much in. Alyssa, you alluded to this earlier, the idea that satire, if done well, reveals hidden truths, right? Buried truths. But at some point, there might come a point where things are so overt that it no longer serves its purpose. Do you think that we're at this that point with this movie or no? So I don't think we're there yet. And the reason I don't

think we're there yet is that I'm a person who's online a lot. For my job, I have to keep up with the news. And because I write about film, I actually get a lot of emails that are pretty wild conspiracy theories about Hollywood. And so I hear some of this stuff, and I kind of know what's going on. But I will talk sometimes to people who I consider to be pretty politically plugged in. But maybe their job doesn't require and they don't know what I'm talking about. Like they've never heard of QAnon. And so I think some of this stuff still has currency right now, especially with those new and emerging ways of, you know, being part of the political landscape. I think it's less effective to say, isn't Donald Trump ridiculous? And so I think the movie actually quite smartly sort of avoids

Trump being a character in it, and goes for some of his cronies. But, you know, we all know that that's the big problem for comedians the last four years is figuring out, is there anything we can do that is going to top what the guy himself is going to do, you know, just of his own volition. And so in that way, I think, you know, if we need to keep talking about him over the next however long um we need to find new ways of being satirical about it and maybe find new targets um or new ways of thinking about what actually is at root here and what's actually the problem is it this guy and his clownishness or is it something deeper okay alissa wilkinson thank you so much for this conversation it was

really interesting and andkinson, thank you so much for this conversation. It was really interesting and fun. Thank you. Thank you. So before we go today, an update on another news story. A conservative motion to study the Liberals' COVID-19 response passed in the House of Commons on Monday with the support of all opposition parties. The motion is calling on federal departments to hand over information related to Canada's pandemic preparedness, vaccine and rapid testing plans, and public health protocols. The Liberals objected, arguing that the motion would take away valuable resources from the ongoing response to the second wave. But the motion passed 176 to 152. That's all for now. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner and talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.