The Arab Hit Piece Disguised As A Comedy Movie

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]The movie Borat pops up on my streaming feed and I get so excited. When the movie came out, I thought it was the funniest thing ever. So, I hit play and in minutes something feels off. I start reading up online and all the critics are saying that this movie is smart satire. It holds up a mirror to people's prejudices. But when I'm watching it, I don't see any of that. As a Kuwaiti, as an Arab, I'm going to show you why Borat isn't satire. It isn't smart and it's not funny. It's anti-Arab propaganda disguised as a comedy movie. The movie starts by showing us scenes of what looks like an impoverished town. We're introduced to the main character, Borat, played by actor Sasha Baron Cohen. Who is Sasha Baron Cohen? A British Israeli actor and well-known Zionist. He is an observant Jew who belonged to a Zionist Jewish youth group while in high school in England. Upon graduation, he spent a year working and studying on the kibuts in northern Israel, and has since returned for several visits. He's made speeches for the Anti-Defamation League, a well-known pro-Israel Zionist organization. Looking at this character, he's obviously coded as Arab. He is the other, the uncivilized, ignorant, backwards Arab or any foreigner who isn't a quote unquote civilized white westerner. The first thing he says after he introduces himself is, >> "I like you. I like sex."

[00:01:25]>> That's orientalism 101. It frames the people of the Middle East as overly sexual. That and all the other orientalist stereotypes like violence and backwardness are going to be pushed by this movie hundreds of times. So, buckle up for this ride. He says that this is his country of Kazakhstan.

[00:01:43]Obviously, when you're looking at it, it doesn't look anything like Kazakhstan, the locations or the people, because it isn't. These scenes were filmed in Romania. Sasha Baron Cohen lied to the people of the town, saying he was there to film a documentary about gypsy and Roma people. The town's people didn't speak good English, and they had no idea what was going on. Sasha is speaking Yiddish the entire time, which he claims is part of the gag, but it's obvious that it's so people don't understand what he's saying, and it's really important that he's doing that given what the subtitles are writing. After this movie came out, and the people of the town realized they were exploited and used as props. Two people attempted to sue Sasha for lying to them and misrepresenting their people, but the case was thrown out of court. One of Borat's main things is using shock humor. And he says that this is Urkin, the town rapist. Why would it be funny to call an innocent bystander a rapist?

[00:02:36]Where's the joke? Let me explain this principle in comedy called punching down. Punching down means to make fun of marginalized people or groups who have less power, privilege, or social status than the person making the joke. Racist, sexist, gay, rape, abbleist, and agist statements are all examples of punching down. It's cruel and cowardly. How much of this movie do you think is going to be punching down jokes? Borat shows us what he claims is the town kindergarten, even though it's clearly the backyard of house and the children are of all ages.

[00:03:08]The kids are playing with toy guns. But look at the bottom left of the frame where there's a bag of the toy guns. The producers planted the guns and coerced the children to play with them. They manipulated children to spread the lie that Muslims train their children to be violent. He introduces a woman, makes out with her, then says it's his sister.

[00:03:28]Then he says that she's the number four prostitute in the whole country.

[00:03:32]Remember, she has no idea what he's saying, and that's what makes this sick.

[00:03:36]Borat talks about his hobbies, one of which is funny because he's wearing a skimpy outfit. Another type of shock humor. But then another hobby of his is taking pictures of women while they're on the toilet without their knowledge.

[00:03:48]Why would anybody laugh at this? It's trying to say, "Arabs don't respect women. We can do whatever we want with them, even invade their privacy on the toilet. Sickening. Then we get an infamous scene in the movie, the running of the Jews. It is a completely madeup event to depict that anti-semitism is so normalized in Arab countries that we have events like this. Zionists made this up to try to make us look extra evil. While he's showing us the madeup event, Bora is paring negative stereotypes about Jews, like them being moneyhungry, having large noses, and apparently they lay eggs. Oh. Oh, I see.

[00:04:30]It's to set up that we want to kill Jews before they're even born. It's saying that we think Jews are so evil even before they're born, even before their existence. He wants people to think that this is how Arabs think. Boraz says his country has three problems. Economic, social, and Jew. According to the national coalition supporting Soviet jewelry, anti-semitism is not prevalent in Kazakhstan, and rare incidents are reported in the press. Contrary to incorrect perceptions in popular culture caused by the country's portrayal in the 2006 film Bora as a hot bed of anti-semitism, listing Jew right next to economic and social problems in a country is making it out to be a huge thing when it isn't and it's disgusting.

[00:05:16]It's another narrative pushing fabricated Jewish hate. Bora travels to America and we see him on a subway in New York City. There's two things I want to talk about here. Firstly, he's going up to strangers, shaking people's hands, and going in for a cheek to cheek greeting where you make a kissing sound.

[00:05:34]This is a common greeting in Arabia, but not to strangers. You only do cheekto-cheek handshake greetings with close friends, family members, or as a sign of respect to your known tribes people. He is purposefully doing this type of greeting because he knows Americans don't do it. He knows they'll be uncomfortable. But also, Arabs don't do it either to strangers. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, correct me in the comments, but I don't think anyone does this to strangers. Of course, you're going to get weird reactions if you do this. Not as far as the one guy who threatens borat, but to make this out like we normally do this is just wrong.

[00:06:13]But remember the whole point. He wants to make us look bad. Secondly, he opens a suitcase with a chicken in it and it gets out and starts running around everywhere. He yells in broken English and Yiddish at confused passengers. And for some reason, that's a joke. But think about what's really happening here. Here's this foreign man, dark-haired, mustached, speaking a gibberish language, causing public disruption, scaring people, and not understanding boundaries. To an American audience, especially a post 911, this isn't funny foreigner energy. It's terrorist adjacent. The chicken thing is slapstick. Sure, but it's doing something deeper. It frames the Muslim coded man as dangerous, irrational, and uncivilized in public space. It plays into that exact image that Western media has been pushing. He can't be trusted.

[00:07:03]He doesn't belong. This is all fear-mongering. Borat's going to pay for a hotel and the manager tells him the price and he tries to haggle the price down, spinning in his hand and going in for a handshake. This is reinforcing an orientalist trope that Arabs haggle over everything and it's just disgusting. But he wants people to think that we're disgusting. They get in an elevator and this makes me laugh. Okay. He confuses the elevator for his room and starts unpacking. It's a silly little comedy moment that's trying to say, "Hey, look, Arabs are stupid." Which is then amplified when he goes into the bathroom of his hotel room and he goes to wash his face by using the toilet water. Like we don't know the difference between a sink and a toilet. Then we see Borak going to the bathroom in public on a sidewalk. Okay, it's funny because he's doing it at the Trump International Hotel in Tower. But what isn't funny is him trying to make Arabs out to be so dirty that we go to the bathroom in any public green shrub. He goes to greet people on the street and it has the same issues as when he was doing it on the subway. But let me teach you how this is all super manipulative. This is how they get these shots. Borat greets thousands of people over hours, days, or even weeks. 999 people greet him without incident. But then there's this one big explosive overreaction by one person.

[00:08:21]That's what they clip and put into the movie. It tricks you into thinking, "Wow, this is how all Americans act when an Arab goes to greet them." And remember, we don't do the kiss thing to strangers, so it's all a lie anyway. We just do a handshake. The one guy running away cartoonishly is legitimately funny because his overreaction is so over the top. This exact man sued Borat claiming his image was used in the film illegally and that he suffered public ridicule, degradation, and humiliation as a result, but the case was thrown out.

[00:08:55]Borak calls a woman and says, "Very nice. How much?" This is pushing the idea that Arabs are misogynistic dogs who objectify women. Now, we get to one of the things Bora is famous for, interviews. And the whole thing is a sherrod. He interviews people but lies to them, telling them that he's from a foreign country wanting to do a documentary to learn about American customs, government, or life. In this instance, he's meeting with a humor coach. Sasha's idea of a joke is plain dumb, saying he'll do a joke, but then he says it isn't a joke, and it's all based on having sex with his mother-in-law. He makes another shock humor joke, including harmful stereotypes about intellectually disabled people, ending with a rape joke. The humor coach high-fives him only because Bora is laughing and goes for the high five. He doesn't think this way. He doesn't think the joke is funny.

[00:09:45]He was just being nice and immediately tells him, "Americans won't find this funny, nor would anyone else on the planet." Borat's watching TV in his hotel room when he sees the actress Pamela Anderson and instantly falls in love. He gets blonde fever. He's sexually objectifying her and says she doesn't look like any Kazak woman he's ever known. Boraz says it's illegal for more than five women to be in the same place except for in a brothel or a grave. Yeah, it would be funny if we weren't doing an Arab minstrel show right now. This is saying Arabs think that women are for sex and nothing else.

[00:10:19]Their lives have no value if they're not for sex, so they might as well be dead.

[00:10:23]We get a new interview scene, this time with women who are part of the feminist group Veteran Feminists of America. When one of them says feminism is the view that women should be equal to men, Borat laughs. He asks if women should be educated even though they have smaller brains, pushing a narrative that Arabs think men are superior to women. He tells one of them to give him a smile and calls her a baby. Both of which are misogynistic and derogatory. And she rightfully calls him out and says that what he's saying is demeaning. Then he calls her an old man. Why? I don't even know. Just to be mean. After telling them he's looking for Pamela Anderson, he calls one of the women a pussycat and tells her to smile, a repeat of what he just did to the other woman. They say they're done with the interview and leave. That's all we see in the movie.

[00:11:07]But the Guardian interviewed one of the women, Grace Welch, and she says that it didn't end there. The producer was pleading, "Please come back. We're almost finished." But when he referred to Conda Rice as the chocolate lady, that was it. Borat saw it was going to break up and that we were walking out.

[00:11:25]So he said, "Why don't we dance? In my country, we dance. Why don't you lift your shirts up and do the wild thing? We just ripped off our mics." Take a moment to realize how deranged, problematic, and deceptive this is. He's masquerading as a foreigner and purposefully saying horrendous things to make Arabs and Muslims look worse than dirt. It's so hurtful on so many levels. Borak convinces Azamat to go to California for Pamela Anderson, but not without throwing in a little line about how the Jews did 9/11, which is trying to say that Arabs think Jews are the ones who perpetrated that horrible, horrible act.

[00:12:05]Bora wants to learn how to drive in America. So, there's a scene with a driving instructor. He says he's driven before, but then on purpose drives bad because an idiot would think this is funny. And he wants Arabs to look bad like he's saying that they can't drive.

[00:12:19]He makes a dumb joke about seeing a woman wanting to follow her and have sex with her. When the instructor tells him a woman can choose who to have sex with, Bora acts surprised and laughs. The instructor says there needs to be consent, smiles, and says, "How about that?" Now, you could see this as one guy finding consent funny, but you could also see it as he's smiling because Bora is laughing. So, he's trying to make it understandable to him because, you know, he's in brown face faking being a foreigner. This driving instructor sued Sasha Baron Cohen because he was lied to. They told him the film was a documentary about integration of foreign people into the American way of life and that if he had known the film's true nature, he would have never participated. The court case was dismissed. Borat goes to buy a car and asks a salesperson for a car that will attract women. The salesman funnily says that'll be a Corvette or a Hummer. Bora asks about how fast he needs to go to guarantee killing a gypsy. And the guy hilariously says, "Going 35 miles per hour." Okay, him responding like that is funny. Borat makes a disgusting joke saying when his wife was young, she was wonderful. But three years later, when she turned 15, her voice got deep and he comments on her private parts being old, asking how does he know this isn't going to happen to the car. It's absolutely shocking and disgusting, but it's all to push this narrative that Arabs marry girls. The guy uh hilariously responds, "They've got a warranty." Bora and Ozma buy an ice cream truck and drive to Washington DC. Fun fact, I lived in Washington DC for 6 years. Borat literally says he's interviewing a politician who is a genuine chocolate face. No makeup. It's straight up racism. Is there supposed to be a joke?

[00:14:05]Who is this for? Actual racists? No, it's for the audience so they can think Arabs are racists. Bora does an interview at a local news station and the entire time he puts on this theater that he doesn't know how the filming works. The idea is to make Arabs look as stupid as possible because he's a news reporter himself. He would know how the studio environment would work, cameras and microphones. But no, he just wants to make us look as dumb as possible. The news station quickly realizes this is fake. And while they're trying to cut the segment, he tells the reporter that he can come to Kazakhstan and use his sister because that's what women are for, right? To be used. Then we get another famous scene, the rodeo. He's talking to a cowboy and the cowboy starts spewing hateful stereotypes about Muslims, saying if he sees a Muslim, he's wondering what kind of bomb they have strapped to them. We finally get a single instance of letting people speak their own prejudices out loud, which is what so many people who love this movie lie about, saying Borat does this for the whole movie, and that's why it's smart. Here's just one instance. Does Borat posing as a Muslim coded foreigner refute or respond to any of this? Nope.

[00:15:21]That would actually be in character for Borat to refute that. But of course, he doesn't refute it. doesn't say anything because he's trying to spread those same negative stereotypes. The cowboy says not to kiss him because basically that's what gay people do. Then Borat says that in his country they take gays to jail and finish them. The cowboy says that's what he's trying to get done here. Then Borat high-fives him. Revolting. So revoling. This is an example of letting people spew their hatred, right? But understand that Bora is the one who's adding to it, lying to him, saying Muslims take gay people to jail and kill them. He's not being clever and letting people unfold their hatred. He's an active participant and he's adding to the negative stereotypes. He's feeding the hatred to the person and lying to reinforce the ideas that he has about Muslims. Borak gets in front of the audience and starts speaking to them on a microphone. I want you to remember that this movie was filmed during the invasion of Iraq. It was still happening. He says, "May George Bush drink the blood of every single man, woman, and child of Iraq." This is Sasha Baron Cohen, the Zionist, breaking character in this moment so he can share his own personal vile, disgusting thoughts about the people of Iraq and about all Arabs. It cuts to a man saying, "Yeah, but this is a trick." In video editing, they added the clapping sounds to make it seem like the people are cheerful and agreeing with Borat, but they aren't. How do I know? They cut back to Borat right after he just said that phrase. And look at the audience in the back. Nobody is clapping. No one.

[00:17:07]Sasha Baron Cohen literally cut to a separate time when people were clapping and added it to this scene and added sound effects of people clapping to make it look like the Americans are agreeing with him.

[00:17:20]>> Child of Iraq, you >> This isn't holding up a mirror to prejudice at all. This is manufacturing it. He's spewing awful, awful anti-Arab statements. And he's making Americans look horrible. Do you understand? Then he says, "May you destroy their country so that for the next thousand years, not even a single lizard will survive in their desert." Listen, I want to take a second to tell you the most insane thing about all this and something about Sasha Baron Cohen is going to blow your mind.

[00:17:54]The people who have personally caused the most physical violence to Sasha Baron Cohen is not Arabs or Muslims.

[00:18:02]It's Yeshiva Jews. After Borat, Sasha made a movie called Bruno, where he plays a caricature of a gay Austrian fashion designer to spread homophobia.

[00:18:12]You know, that's Sasha's whole idea of comedy. While he was filming the movie, he hired CIA agent John Kiraau to consult logistics and safety for scenes in the Middle East. Sasha Baron Cohen was playing the character Bruno and he dressed flamboyantly and went to the Western Wall in Jerusalem and this happens. He said as soon as he got there, he saw this nearby group of yeshiva students with a rab a rabbi and the rabbi spat on him and called him a dirty. And he said next thing he knew these yeshiva students are just whailing on him and they beat the [ __ ] out of him to the point where it it was the only time in the filming of of the movie that he broke character and he said, "No, no, it's a joke. It's for a movie. I'm Sasha Baron Cohen. It's just a joke. It's a joke." They were whailing on him. They blackened both of his eyes and he had to stop filming for 2 weeks. Do you think they kept this moment in the Bruno movie? Nope. They cut it out because he didn't want to make his people look bad.

[00:19:15]Now, just imagine if the same exact thing happened with Arabs. Do you think Sasha Baron Cohen would have cut it out of the movie? Of course not. Because his entire life's mission is to demonize Arabs and Muslims. He literally walked around the Palestinian side of Jerusalem in his flamboyant outfits and nobody cared. No one verbally assaulted him. No one physically touched him at all. They all let him be. So are Arabs the violent ones, Sasha? We could just as easily stereotype the Jewish people for being homophobic and violent based on this event. But no, we're not going to do that. It was an isolated incident done by a small number of horrible people.

[00:19:57]That doesn't mean that all yeshiva Jews or all Jews are homophobic and violent.

[00:20:02]We're not going to stoop down to Sasha Baron Cohen's level of racism, Islamophobia, or discrimination. All human beings and Arabs are better than that. Even though Sasha Baron Cohen doesn't think that. By the way, I'm going to link the whole podcast clip below because there's a time where Sasha Baron Cohen tried to do a gotcha moment to Arabs and they didn't even react to his stupidity and they couldn't even put it in the movie. It's linked in the description. Borat sings a fake Kazakhstan anthem and the people boom to the point where he has to run out of the event. Borat's talking to people in front of an apartment building. He says that one of them looks like Michael Jackson. Beat it. And I literally don't get it. Then he says, "I like you peoples." And asks them how to talk. I don't understand what the point of this scene is at all. Oh. Oh, okay. Okay. Now I get it. It was all a setup so Borat can be racist. what he's trying to show in the scene. If he dresses like and talks like those people, then the people at the hotel will throw him out. No, Sasha, they're not throwing you out because you're pretending to act black.

[00:21:08]They're throwing you out because you say the n-word, >> bang, bang, skid, skid, [ __ ] >> Call him a racial slur.

[00:21:15]>> What's up with that vanilla face?

[00:21:17]>> And say, "We're looking for somewhere to post up our black asses for the night."

[00:21:21]>> This is so stupid and painful to watch.

[00:21:23]The guys outside the apartment building literally say, "Don't pull your underwear up like that." But Bora still does it. This whole scene feels like an excuse for Sasha to push his own prejudiced views and an excuse to say the n-word.

[00:21:39]>> Bang bang ski, [ __ ] >> It's sickening. Bora stops at a bread and breakfast. The owners are Jewish and he asks why they have a picture of a Jewish person up on the wall. Then they add in scary noises while cutting to other pictures like it's a nightmare that Muslims are talking to and seeing Jews people. Arabs and Jews lived together harmoniously for centuries literally literal centuries before the creation of the Zionist country of Israel in 1948. Zionists came in and imperialistically stole the land of the people, ethnically cleansed the Arabs and claimed Israel only for themselves.

[00:22:19]Because of this, sadly, there was a wave of anti-Jewish actions in Arab countries that is awful, but it was all in response to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. The Q couple makes sandwiches, but Bora is apprehensive to eat it and they put scary sounding music like the Jewish couple poisoned the sandwich. He takes a bite, but when one of them turns around, he spits it out.

[00:22:42]It's just mean. I want you to understand Sasha chose a bed and breakfast owned by Jewish people just to push these harmful narratives. Borat puts the camera on at night and starts spewing so many anti-semitic stereotypes saying Jews are shape shifters and one of them has taken the form of a little old woman where you can barely see her horns. He says these rats are clever. The producers plant two cockroaches and they claim it's the Jews who transformed into them. To get them to go away, he throws money at them.

[00:23:14]Another anti-semitic stereotype that Jews only care about money. Reminder, this is a Zionist in brownface coded as an Arab pushing that we all think and act like this about Jews. They run out and get into the ice cream truck. Then Azimot says, "Let's go back to New York.

[00:23:33]At least there's no Jews there. Okay, that's funny because New York City is well known for having a high Jewish population. Wow, an actual joke in this movie. Bora visits a gun shop and asks the owner, "What's the best gun to defend from a Jew?" And he responds completely normally. His response is funny. Bora goes to an etiquette coach and is at a dinner table. A guy says he's retired and Sasha can't help himself to make a joke about misharing the guy saying the rword.

[00:24:01]>> Retired. You are a dad.

[00:24:04]>> In what way is this funny? He keeps asking why is the guy with an intellectual disability sitting at the same table with them? Because you know in Arabia we don't see people with intellectual disabilities as real people, right? Bora inappropriately compliments a woman saying she has an erotic physique. Then says that in his country they would go crazy for two of the women but not the other one. Then they use an editing trick of showing a close-up of the guy's face because that's his wife. he didn't necessarily do at that moment, but they use that editing cut to try to make you think that's how he reacted. Make no mistake, this is all to make Arabs look like backwards, overly sexual pigs who objectify women, and to play up that Arabs don't have any etiquette at all, that we're so backwards that we don't even know how to act normally in a dining room table area, or even how to correctly use the bathroom. Okay, this reminds me of something that has actually happened to me. While I was studying at the American University of Kuwait, myself and two others earned a summer internship at Dartmouth College.

[00:25:12]A week before the trip, I kid you not, they made us take an etiquette class with an etiquette expert. People, I told the committee that I've been to America over 10 times and was previously studying in America at Clemson University. The two others that were going with me on the internship, they had been to America several times. The fact that they thought we were backwards people who didn't know how to act around Americans because we're Arabs was offensive. They were teaching us how to properly greet people, how to sit down at tables, and how to use utensils, the correct way to ask questions, and how to be polite. We all just went along with it because of the awesome opportunity.

[00:25:50]The people at the dining table are so kind, and they even say that Bora is a delightful man. Bora goes to use the bathroom and comes downstairs with his extrements in a plastic bag because haha it's so funny. Arabs don't know how to use the bathroom. The lady is so extremely nice. Like I would not be this polite at this point. She goes upstairs with him and teaches him how to do things correctly. But of course Borat thinks it's so funny to play stupid.

[00:26:16]Then Borat goes to the front door because he invites a sex worker to the house. And that's when the hosts realize this is all a ruse. They get upset and say that they're going to call the police on Borat, so he runs out. Next scene is at an antique shop and he starts acting like a slapstick klutz, breaking things on purpose, but making it look like an accident. Maybe, maybe this would be funny, except it's all at the expense of the owner. They're not in on the joke. It's mean-spirited. The next scene, I can't show it on YouTube, but I'll explain some of it and give you my thoughts. Borat catches Azimat touching himself to a magazine of Pamela Anderson and this upsets Borat. Guys, I'm destroying this movie. But I got to say, this whole scene is funny. The fact that Sasha and the other actor are completely naked, fighting, then running through the hotel without any clothes on is funny, and it's really brave. This one guy in the corner of the elevator standing there pretending nothing's happening while they run into the elevator naked is hilarious. After the fight, Azima leaves, but Bora still wants to go to California for Pamela Anderson. He ends up hitchhiking with a group of college students. And this is another infamous scene. The college students are clearly being taken advantage of and being lied to, like everyone else in this movie, and they sue Sasha Baron Cohen over this scene, but the case was dismissed. The students talk about women being slaves and how minorities in America have the upper hand like Jews. So here we have an actual example of Americans saying anti-Semitic thoughts, not Muslims or Arabs like what Sasha Baron Cohen is trying to portray with the character Borat. Americans. This one moment completely undermines the whole goal of the movie to make Arabs and Muslims look bad. He's leaving the trailer and one of the college students says, "Bora is better than a woman. Don't ever let a woman make you who you are." This is obviously misogynistic, but I want you to consider something. It's wrong, but they're just saying things to make Borat feel better about realizing Pamela Anderson has been with another man. This event is one of the few examples of letting people show their messed up thoughts to Borat because they think he's a foreigner. If this whole movie was this, which a lot of critics pretend to say it is, I would find it at least eyeopening. But that's not what this movie is. Ora is burning his Pamela Anderson magazine. He doesn't want her anymore. Why? Because she's been with another man. This is pushing the pervasive cultural stereotype that women are only desirable to Arabs if they are virgins. It's fabricated cultural misogyny. Or at walks into a Pentecostal church during service. He's deceiving them and making a mockery of their practices and traditions. He gets to California and meets back up with Azima to find Pamela Anderson. Bora can't help but laugh when he hears Pamela Anderson is appearing at a group meetup against cruelty to animals. You know, cuz animals don't deserve humane behavior.

[00:29:18]Then he acts surprised to hear that a woman has written a book because he wants Westerners to think Arabs think of women as illiterate objects. He shows up to a Pamela Anderson book signing with the plan to marry her in what he calls the Kazak style. Before we watch the next scenes, you have to know that this is all faked. Pamela Anderson was 100% in on the joke and she was a paid actor for this movie. Sasha Baron Cohen can get away with exploiting strangers, but when it comes to actual actors, he has to play by the rules. Bora asks her to marry him. She says no. Then he tries forcing her into a sack. The idea here is to make the world think that this is what Arabs do. We throw women into sacks against their will while they're screaming. and that's how we marry them.

[00:30:05]It's so revolting. Thankfully, a bunch of really amazing people go to the aid of Pamela. All of them run out to the parking lot and the paid security actors pretend to apprehend Borat. We see Bora on a bus and he's realizing his trip was a failure and he wants to go back to the fictional Kazakhstan. He talks to the camera and says there had been improvements. They don't have the running of the Jew anymore because now they're Christians. Then it cuts to a Jewish guy on a cross and one of the villagers is stabbing him with a cardboard pitchfork. It's stupidly offensive and dumb, but I get that you can see this as a comedic moment because it's a switcheroo. The whole town and Borat wave to the camera and the movie ends. Borat isn't satire. It's not funny and it's not harmless. Sasha Baron Cohen is using a comedy movie as a mask to dress up as a caricature of Arabs for the sole purpose of making us look as horrible as possible. Were used as a punching bag to reinforce negative stereotypes that only Americans and Zionists would laugh at. Not because it's funny, but because it reinforces their disgusting beliefs about the Arab people. For an hour and a half, he's punching down, mocking entire groups of people, inventing grotesque stereotypes and getting away with it because he calls this comedy. It hides behind an excuse that he's holding up a mirror.

[00:31:30]But most of the time, there's no mirror, just exaggeration, deception, and humiliation. It is over-the-top orientalism. Sasha purposefully acts homophobic, racist, misogynistic, and overly sexual to push the idea that Arabs and all foreigners are like this.

[00:31:47]Anyone who isn't part of the Western world is a backwards animal. They are clearly communicating they are the right ones. They are the civilized ones. It's supremacy. The people in this movie were lied to and exploited. They became props in a joke they never agreed to be part of. and the audience, they're manipulated into laughing at things they probably wouldn't accept if they were presented honestly. This is the real problem. Not just what's on screen, but what it trains people to accept. Once you normalize this, once you laugh along with it, it becomes easier to dehumanize, easier to stereotype, easier to see entire groups of people as less than human. And that's what Borat is. A hit piece on Arabs and Muslims written and played by an Israeli Zionist. It is cruelty hiding behind the word comedy.

[00:32:37]Think about this for yourself and for your future. Think about what you laugh at, reward, and are willing to tolerate.

[00:32:44]Cuz I'm not going to fall for it. I hope you reject the easy stereotype. Reject the cheap laugh at someone else's expense. Reject the idea that cruelty is clever. We are better than this. We can choose understanding over ignorance. We can choose honesty over manipulation.

[00:33:00]And we can choose to see each other as people, not punchlines. People, I beg you, please be better than Sasha Baron Cohen, the lying, racist, orientalist, propagandist, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, anti-Chazak, brownhathating, Zionist supremacist. Yes.