[ad_1]
It’s been a great week for actor Sacha Baron Cohen, who received the Golden Globe and the SAG Award for his role as Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev in the Amazon sequel “Borat” and his turn from Abbie Hoffman, the activist and comedian Cohen played on Netflix. “The Chicago Trial 7.” Both films also garnered additional nominations in their category and for other cast members, with a total of 11 nods all together.
Naturally, the funnyman took advantage of this moment in the sun to troll Rudy Giuliani, American mayor and unexpected thief of “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”.
“I’m so honored – and in case we don’t win, I promise to hire Rudy Giuliani to challenge the results,” he said in a statement issued in response to the Globe nominations.
Baron Cohen also recognized the real star of the “Borat” sequel (sorry, Rudy), in addition to the man behind “Chicago 7.”
“These nominations are a tribute to the talented creative teams who have directed and supported both films from the beginning to this time. I especially want to congratulate ‘Chicago 7’ visionary Aaron Sorkin and ‘Borat’ Tutar, the ‘amazing Maria Bakalova, “he continued. “These two films are different, but they share a common theme – sometimes we have to protest injustice with our own farce.”
This last line is revealing of how Baron Cohen’s career resulted in a confluence of cinematic resistance. On the surface, the roles he played seem vastly different: a prankster who has no qualms about stepping out of a luxury hotel in hot pink lingerie, and the actual protester and founder of the Youth International Party. And while the films show Baron Cohen’s lineup as a comedian and dramatic actor, they are unified by the use of humor as a means to actively subvert and challenge corruption.
As such, it should come as no surprise that both films were released in 2020 and that Baron Cohen is now receiving his due. In a year marked, in the midst of a global pandemic, by political bickering and savage conspiracy theories that ultimately resulted in an attempted insurgency on the U.S. Capitol, he advocated for the use or the embodiment of absurdism to attack what is ridiculously wrong in our society.
That concept is part of what inspired the actor to take his iconic gray suit out of the closet and resurrect the character of Borat in 2020’s ‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’, in which his cartoonish Kazakh reporter travels to America with his daughter. teenage Tutar (Maria Bakalova) on a bizarre mission. As Baron Cohen told the New York Times in October, he saw a huge change in American society from the first time he went to shoot “Borat” 15 years ago until the moment he did. the following.
“In 2005 you needed a character like Borat, misogynist, racist, anti-Semite to get people to reveal their inner prejudices,” he said. “Now these inner prejudices are evident. Racists are proud to be racists.” “When the president is’ an open racist, an open fascist,” he added, “it allows the rest of society to change its dialogue too.
“My aim here was not to expose racism and anti-Semitism,” he said of the sequel. “The point is to make people laugh, but we are exposing the dangerous slide into authoritarianism.”
Over the next 90 minutes, Baron Cohen’s Borat sneaks into CPAC disguised as Trump, crouches with some QAnon conspiracy theorists, and brings us the now infamous “shirt tuck” incident.
In a scene near the end of the film, Bakalova as Tutar goes undercover as a far-right journalist who wins an interview with Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani, supposedly to discuss the administration’s response to the COVID-19. However, things change as Tutar strongly flirts with Guiliani, repeatedly touching his knee.
Eventually, Tutar invites Giuliani into the hotel room, in which hidden cameras capture Giuliani asking for his number, patting him on the back, then lying on the bed and resting his hand on his pants. Borat bursts into the room at this point to interrupt him.
As Salon reported in October, Giuliani argued through several interviews that the scene was a “doctored” footage.
“Borat’s video is a complete fabrication. I was tucking my shirt in after removing the recording equipment,” Giuliani wrote in a tweet Oct 21. “At no time before, during or after the interview was I ever inappropriate. If Sacha Baron Cohen suggests otherwise, he is a stone cold liar.
Baron Cohen replied: “If he considers it appropriate, then Heaven knows what he intends to do with other women in hotel rooms with a glass of whiskey in hand. ” As reported by Salon’s Roger Sollenberger, Giulliani had classified the scene as a “political hit” “in retaliation for his recent defamations of Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.”
While not quite so salacious, Baron Cohen’s role in “The Chicago Trial 7” serves a similar function thanks to the beliefs and actual actions of Abbie Hoffman. In an interview for the January report of “Variety,” he explained how he had always been attracted to Hoffman because he understood the power of humor to attract supporters to the peace movement.
“He knew that by becoming a stand-up, he would have a bigger impact on the crowd, and his goal was to influence people, to get people to take huge risks to fight the war in Vietnam.” , explains Baron Cohen. “He used humor to inspire his followers, and he realized that absurdity was a way to undermine institutions he thought were corrupt.”
As Baron Cohen continues to inspire with his outrageous and outspoken ways, one can’t help but hope that he wins at least one award for “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”, if only to hear the name of Giuliani in the acceptance speech. Now this would be a great justice.
Here’s a full list of Golden Globe nominations and a full list of Screen Actor Guild Awards nominees.
[ad_2]
Source link