Sacha Baron Cohen: Don't get the punchline? You might be it.

We’ve often seen—or in my case, binged— silly prank or comedy videos on Youtube or any other media platform. Although their methods—and at times, morality— may vary, every prankster attempts to fulfill one objective: to poke fun at someone that has placed themselves in an awkward situation through either the manipulation of external factors or their own volition. However funny they may be, pranks and practical jokes are often regarded as having no greater purpose other than crude entertainment. However, one comedian and prankster appears to have found a way to give pranks a greater meaning by using them to critique the extensive political divisions (on both sides of the aisle) in the United States and Western Europe through an amalgam of satire and crude humor, that comedian is none other than Sacha Baron Cohen.

The English-born son of Jewish immigrants, Baron Cohen touts that his Jewish upbringing was what got him into comedic acting in the first place, as it was his enrollment into the Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School that first let him experiment with verbal comedy on his classmates. His close friend (and future writing partner and producer) Mat Mazer described the environment being “a factory of comedy.” He adds, “It [was] just cocky young Jews. And because we were all too weak to fight each other, we compensated with verbal jousts. Sacha was always the gregarious one in a room.”

Baron Cohen also states that many household names in comedy such as Monty Python and Peter Sellers—famous for portraying a wide variety of characters through the use of accents and guises (more on how this is relevant later)— played a major role in helping develop his interest in comedic acting from a young age. Baron Cohen later went on to graduate from Cambridge University with a major in History, choosing to write a thesis on the American Civil Rights Movement. He acted throughout his tenure at Cambridge and gave himself 5 years to land a role as a comedian following his graduation, and was initially unsuccessful at his endeavors to do so. He was dangerously near this self-imposed five-year limitation when he had an idea to adopt the role of a “chav,” someone who imitates black British Hip Hop and British Jamaican culture, and interview skateboarding teenagers, the theme—and Baron Cohen’s unique getup and roleplaying—stuck. A clip of his interaction landed him a role as a comedian and the personality of Ali G was born.

Ali G was Baron Cohen’s way of creating the style of comedic acting that he would come to be known for later on in his career. He preferred to work through the medium of offering interviews to celebrities and politicians. His main method was to enter the interview area in character as Ali G, carrying equipment and appearing to be a crew member. He would arrive with a suited man, whom the interviewee would believe was the interviewer. Baron Cohen, as Ali G, would sit down and begin conducting the interview by asking the interviewee some preliminary questions. The interviewee, however, would remain under the impression that the smartly-dressed director would be conducting the interview until short notice prior to or even after cameras rolling. Cohen would purposely ask politically incorrect questions, both as a way to make the interviewee uncomfortable, making the interview comical to watch, but also to watch how the interviewee would react, in some cases, the interviewee, still under the impression that what they were about to say wasn’t being recorded, would agree with Baron Cohen’s often blindingly offensive views, publicly humiliating themselves in the process. This added a new twist on the entire comedic nature of the show, not only was the interviewee being made fun of by the host (as one would expect on a comedic talk-show) but they were also making fun of themselves by exposing their shallow mindset for the audience to see. 

After gaining notoriety as Ali G, Baron Cohen felt that the character had become too big of a television personality and that everyone knew who he was, proving detrimental to his strategy of having an interviewee believe his “fake preliminary interview,” which was really the actual interview. Believing that he could go to new heights with another persona, he decided to renew a character that he had shelved prior to hosting Da Ali G Show. This character was none other than Borat Sagdiyev, a Kazakh reporter whose sense of humor derives from his mocking of society through outrageous socio-cultural viewpoints, his violation of social taboos, and use of vulgar language and behavior.

Baron Cohen’s character of Borat had his star debut in the 2006 film Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, referred to as Borat for short. The film is a mockumentary which includes interviews with various  Americans that poke fun at American culture, as well as sexism, racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and jingoism. The interviews are conducted in Baron Cohen’s quintessential style, with him interacting with unsuspecting Americans in the character of the culturally-illiterate Borat. The interactions make for hilarious situations and often get out of hand, Baron Cohen recalls having the police called after him 72 times throughout the film’s production. The interactions also showcase the almost alarming discriminatory mindset of some of the individuals that Baron Cohen interviews, which is especially prevalent when Borat talks about his false anti-semitic beliefs (Baron Cohen is indeed himself a Jew). The documentary works as a way to mock the societal ignorance of discrimination thinking that has embedded itself within American culture in some areas of the country in a comedic manner. Baron Cohen won an academy award for his performance as Borat in 2006, and has gone on to play even more eccentric roles such as Admiral General Aladeen, warlord and dictator for the Fictional Middle-Eastern country of Wadiya (mocking American foreign policy decisions in the area); and Bruno Gehard, a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion show presenter who often lures his unwitting subjects into making provocative statements and engaging in embarrassing behavior.

Baron Cohen’s creative attributes are no stranger to the Geneplore model we have discussed at length in this class. Watching popular comedians as a child would have led to the creation of creative ideas in the mind of the young Baron Cohen. His classmates, who actively propagated an environment of comedic verbal debate allowed Baron Cohen to explore and develop his unique style of comedy. Finally, Baron Cohen’s own personal constraints of getting a job as a comic within five years of graduating from university would grant him greater motivation behind becoming a comedian, lest he be forced to find another form of employment that he may have not preferred. I believe that Baron Cohen is a mid-C creative, as his unique approach to comedy hasn’t completely altered the field, but it definitely has impacted more people than just himself.

Baron Cohen’s role as Borat granted him widespread fame across much of the entertainment world, so much so that he announced that he would be retiring the character in late 2007. However, in 2020 it was revealed that Borat will be returning to the big screen in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Baron Cohen is expected to make a mockery of American culture once again, this time focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential election. If you’re looking to laugh a little bit this week, I’ve attached a few clips showing some of Borat 1’s funniest moments as well as a clip of Baron Cohen in character as Borat going around asking people about his candidate of choice, Donald Trump.

Some of Borat 1’s Funniest Moments:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WggbJDMD-QM&ab_channel=dswdg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a61TOmwczBk&ab_channel=swapme

Borat Tampers with the 2018 Midterm Elections:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5xLNypFrV4&t=254s&ab_channel=JimmyKimmelLive

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jun/07/sacha-baron-cohen-bruno-profile

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2006/sep/10/comedy

https://web.archive.org/web/20070102225250/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/sacha_baron_cohen_the_real_borat_finally_speaks/page/2