Sacha Baron Cohen Defends His Big Racist Borat Film

Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan is shaping up to be the biggest comedy movie of the year, maybe ever, but there are still all kinds of gypsies and rednecks who are angry at Borat's shtick.

And with every new person who goes to see the Borat movie, the movie gets just a little bit more controversial. Up until now, the only way in which Borat creator Sacha Baron Cohen has defended Borat has been to dress up as Borat himself and read a bunch of racial slurs off an autocue. But now the mask has cracked, and Sacha Baron Cohen has defended the criticism of racism that Borat has received by dressing up as his most outlandish character yet - a po-faced clever Jew who once presented a children's TV show with Natasha Kaplinsky off the news and wasn't that good in Talladega Nights.

For what's essentially a slightly racist version of Louis Theroux that features more amputees with rubber dildo-fists for arms, the Borat movie has become a cultural phenomenon of immense proportions, especially at the box office. This should be the time to enjoy the Borat movie, before hundreds of idiot students kick any sense of enjoyment out of it by turning up to Christmas balls dressed as supermarket own-brand Borats and laughing at themselves for being so very clever, but instead Borat creator Sacha Baron Cohen has faced all kinds of criticism.

The most obvious form of criticism came in the form of a drunk man's fist - earlier this week Sacha Baron Cohen was punched to the ground by a man in a bar who didn't see the funny side of Borat asking if he could have sex with his clothes - but other criticism has come from the furious population of the Romanian village where the 'Kazakhstan' scenes of Borat were filmed, and Borat's old enemy the Kazakhstan government who, in the past, have tried to sue Sacha Baron Cohen, killed Borat's .kz-registered website and complained to George Bush about him.

And, with Borat controversy at fever pitch, Sacha Baron Cohen has decided to give an interview as himself to Rolling Stone so he can defend the Borat movie against criticism who don't understand why it's funny. Sacha Baron Cohen said:

"The joke is not on Kazakhstan. I think the joke is on people who can believe that the Kazakhstan that I describe can exist… Borat works essentially as a tool. By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice, whether it's anti-Semitism or an acceptance of anti-Semitism. I think part of the movie shows the absurdity of holding any form of racial prejudice, whether it's hatred of African-Americans or of Jews." 

At least Sacha Baron Cohen doesn't need to worry about people coming up to him and punching him in the face when he's being himself; after a second or two of listening to a speech about 'essentially' this and 'prejudice' that, any would-be assailant would be knocked into a deep coma.

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Cohen Defends 'Racist' Borat Film - BBC