Essay Day - "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan: Documentary Not?"

It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for ‘Essay Day’ here at Fade to Lack. As explained here, I have written a large number of essays during my time at the University of Colorado as a student in film studies, and I thought it time to share the best of those with my readers, so throughout the summer, I’ll be posting a new essay every Wednesday, all focused on film in one form or another, but often incorporating other research and fields of study.

This week’s selection may be familiar to some of you, as this essay has previously appeared on the website, and was published in my 2013 book, Fade to Lack (this version is the text of the original essay as submitted for grading – revisions were made for the book version). Written for a class on Documentary film, the assignment here was to research a topic and form an argument related to documentary filmmaking, so I decided to prove a thesis that I had long held (and had been increasingly strengthened over the course of this class): that Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan should be considered a real documentary. Sort of. The essay is roughly 75% satire, but nobody ever seems to catch that, so perhaps I did something wrong. Either way, I like this essay a lot. It was a fun one to write, and the big minute-by-minute breakdown of the movie at the end will likely be used by a therapist someday to diagnose me as obsessive compulsive if I ever have a nervous breakdown.

Read “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan: Documentary Not?” after the jump...

Is Larry Charles’ 2007 film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan a documentary?

This is a question nobody has ever asked themselves. No film critic ever began their review of the film with a discussion of the movie’s documentary merits; no viewer watched the film believing Borat Sagdiyev was a real Kazakh journalist; the studio didn’t advertise it as a harrowing expose on American life from the glorious nation of Kazakhstan; it didn’t tour the festival circuit as most documentaries would, and it wasn’t submitted to the Academy Awards in the Documentary category; it was advertised as a comedy, viewers enjoyed it as a comedy, and the closest critics and scholars came to discussing it as a documentary was when they broke out the term “mockumentary.”  Questioning whether or not Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan can be considered a documentary has simply never been a topic of discussion.

Yet to the majority of the people one sees on screen in the finished film, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was a real documentary.  There were only three professional “actors” cast in the film to play fictional characters (“Borat … ”).  The rest of the individuals one sees on-screen are real people who were told they would be appearing in an actual documentary film from Kazakhstan; Cohen interviewed or interacted with them as Borat Sagidyev, they believed he was a real Kazakh journalist, and they all filled out legal documentation releasing their image for use in an upcoming documentary feature (Marchese, “What’s real in ‘Borat?’”).  No matter how the finished product looks or how audiences may perceive it, these people were participating in a documentary. 

The filmmakers – people actually in on the joke – almost exclusively employed documentary filmmaking aesthetics, shooting with handheld cameras and other portable rigs, utilizing security footage and news broadcasts, performing nearly all of the scripted or ‘staged’ scenes in public with a group of ignorant onlookers, and collecting over 400 hours of raw documentary footage chronicling real-life occurences in the process (Strauss, “The Man With the Moustache”)? 

With all this in mind, why don’t more viewers question whether or not Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan can be classified as a documentary (Strauss, “The Man With the Moustache”)?

In the film, comedian Sacha Baron Cohen stars as Borat Sagidyev, a fictional TV journalist from the nation of Kazakhstan sent to America to learn lessons that might help his struggling country.  Alongside his trusty producer, Azamat Bagatov (played by Ken Davitian), Borat travels across the nation, interviewing public officials, social groups, learning cultural lessons, and interacting with everyday Americans; he also falls in love with Pamela Anderson after watching an episode of Baywatch, and becomes determined to make her his wife. 

These ridiculous and blatantly fictional aspects of the film are most likely what force most viewers to forego seeing Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan as a documentary right off the bat.  It is, indeed, a silly film; no argument could be made to the contrary. 

Yet it is also undeniable that the film does document a large series of unscripted and unplanned actions, meaning it has, at the very least, surface elements of documentary filmmaking (Strauss, “The Man With the Moustache”).  Can these elements qualify the film as a real documentary, though?  The word ‘documentary’ can be broken down into two separate parts: the word ‘document’ and the suffix ‘-ary.’  According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the verb ‘document’ means “to provide with factual or substantial support for statements made or a hypothesis proposed,” and the suffix ‘-ary’ means “thing belonging to or connected with.”  So a documentary, in its purest linguistic form, is ‘a thing belonging to or connected with the act of providing factual or substantial support for statements made or a hypothesis proposed.’  Thus, if it can be said that the makers of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan had a hypothesis, and if it can be substantiated that they provided factual support for this hypothesis, it would not be inaccurate, under this broad definition, to call Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan a documentary. 

What, then, was the hypothesis Cohen and Charles set out to prove?  The answer lies in the title character himself.  Borat Sagidyev displays incredible levels of bigotry.  He is a racist, a misogynist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, displays cartoonish amounts of anti-Jewish sentiment, and to top it all off, has a total lack of manners and civility.  These traits are the film’s hypothesis: Borat is meant to be both an amalgamation of everything Americans believe about foreigners and a combination of negative qualities embodied by Americans.  And as Borat travels from place to place, his encounters with others provides evidence that Americans do indeed believe foreigners act this way, and that Americans themselves are often just as ignorant as Borat himself. 

When a group of high-class socialites don’t question Borat’s nature for a second, simply accepting that people from Kazakhstan act this way, the hypothesis is proven. When Borat is cheered on by the entirety of a massive rodeo crowd for declaring “May George Bush drink the blood of every man, woman, and child in Iraq,” the hypothesis is proven.  When Borat tells a car salesman that he “want(s) to have a car that attract a woman with shave down below,” and the man hastily replies “corvette,” the hypothesis is proven. When a Pentecostal preacher tells Borat, without any coaxing, that “we’re a Christian nation now,” the hypothesis is proven. When a group of drunken frat boys spew misogynist hate speech for minutes on end while discussing women with Borat, the hypothesis is proven. When Borat tells the rodeo owner that they hang homosexuals in Kazakhstan, and the man replies “that’s what we’re trying to get done here too,” the hypothesis is proven.  When an actual American news station believes Borat is a real Kazakh journalist and conducts an interview with him live on air, the hypothesis is most definitely proven. 

Time and time again, Cohen’s performance and Charles’ documentary direction allow the viewer to see a side of American life and cultural attitudes that we would rather not admit exist in our country.  But they most certainly do, and we know this because it has been captured and immortalized on film.  Bill Nichols says that documentary films “…typically seek to engage the viewer in some aspect of the world in which we live (99).”  Is this not Cohen and Charles’ goal?  To make us aware of flaws in society we may not usually notice?  Whatever one’s thoughts on the film, there is absolutely no denying that the film’s documents of real life do engage the viewer in certain aspects of our world. 

For some, of course, this will not be enough to label Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan a documentary.  It does indeed have substantial fictitious elements; the subject of the film’s title is a character performed by an actor, there are scripted scenes here and there, and the documentary footage is strung together by a manufactured narrative.  Yet if one is going to disavow Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan of any documentary classification for these reasons, one would have to strip many ‘real’ documentaries of the same title. 

Bill Nichols, in the same paragraph as the line quoted above, goes on to say that “many documentaries make frequent use of poetic and narrative storytelling techniques as well as rhetorical ones (99).”  It may not always be as blatant as it is in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, but many of the most notable documentaries ever made manufacture a narrative and include scripted or staged sequences.  Errol Morris’ The Thin Blue Line and James Marsh’s Man on Wire employ actors and use sets in dramatic recreations of scenes described by subjects; Luc Jacquet’s March of the Penguins uses narration to turn the annual penguin mating ritual into a clear three-act story; Dziga Vertov’s highly influential Man with a Movie Camera features many staged sequences; and Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North is completely comprised of actors performing dramatizations of perceived historical traditions. 

All of these films, and many, many more, practice copious amount of ‘manipulation,’ yet we call all of them ‘documentaries’ without hesitation.  That is because, as Patricia Aufderheide explains, “…there is no way to make a film without manipulating the information.  Selection of topic, editing, mixing sound are all manipulations … the problem of deciding how much to manipulate is as old as the form (16).”  Clearly, we cannot hold documentaries to a shining, perfect standard, because our conception of the ‘flawless,’ ‘factual,’ ‘unbiased’ documentary is clearly unattainable.  Scholars, critics, and viewers accept this when judging the medium, and this is why we still allow ourselves to call films like The Thin Blue Line and Nanook of the North documentaries.  Is it possible that we refuse to accept Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan as a documentary because, for whatever reason, we hold it to a higher standard than those other films?  If we were to judge it under the same criteria, using the same definitions, does it not comes across as a documentary?  Aufderheide ultimately defines a documentary film as a movie that “…tells a story about real life, with claims to truthfulness (16).”  By documenting various aspects of American life and presenting itself as a real non-fiction film, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan fulfills this definition.  Doesn’t that make it, on some level, a documentary?

The most obvious hurdle in classifying Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan as such is the title character.  He is, undeniably, a fictional creation played by an actor with legendary, awe-inspiring levels of commitment.  Yet the focus of the film, at least in its documentary portions, is not on Borat, but on us: not just the people on screen, but also the audience.  When Borat engages in gleeful anti-Semitic tirades, cracks jokes about rape, or describes gross acts of pedophilia, the thematic focus of the scene is not on Cohen’s performance, but on the viewer’s reaction: if we laugh at these moments, as we usually do, then we, like the bigoted people Borat encounters, are proving Cohen’s hypothesis about Americans.

Cohen elaborated on the thematic motivation behind the character in an interview with Rolling Stone:

The joke is not on Kazakhstan. I think the joke is on people who can believe that the Kazakhstan that I describe can exist – who believe that there’s a country where homosexuals wear blue hats and the women live in cages and they drink fermented horse urine and the age of consent has been raised to nine years old … 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 … Borat essentially works 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.”

Borat may be fake, but the reactions he gets out of others, both on-screen and off, are entirely real and undeniably meaningful.  If Cohen can use the character to uncover ignorance and hatred in others, or if he can get the viewer to laugh at Borat just for being different, then he has proven a point, and an astute viewer will have learned something about out culture and, perhaps, one’s own attitude. 

It must be remembered that Cohen is far from the first filmmaker to use this technique of assuming a role to get a desired reaction out of others.  Michael Moore, one of the most infamous, acclaimed, and controversial documentary filmmakers of all time clearly assumes a persona in each of his films: that of a blue-collar, middle-class everyman ignorant of politics and other issues who uses his camera in a journalistic desire to learn.  We know, for a fact, that this is not who Michael Moore is in real life: he has to be knowledgeable if he knows where to go for interviews or which rhetorical devices and strategies to favor; he isn’t part of the middle-class; and he isn’t a blue-collar worker, nor has he ever been.  In many ways, the Michael Moore seen in films like Roger & Me, Farenheit 9/11, and Bowling for Columbines is just as much a carefully thought-out and precisely performed character as Borat Sagidyev, and people react the way they do to him because of this performance.  Moore remains a ‘documentarian’ because he uses his real name and looks the same on and off screen, while Cohen is labeled an ‘actor’ because he assumes a new name, accent, and moustache.  In reality, their strategies are awfully similar. 

It can be said at this point that Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan contains substantial documentary elements – primarily in its production methods and thematic intent – but does the film itself, as a whole, hold up to the scrutiny of documentary scholarly study?  To find an answer, I performed an experiment to discern what percentage of the film can clearly, verifiably be considered documentary.  While viewing the movie, I analyzed each scene (or, sometimes, individual moments) using a series of criteria: intent, focus (narrative or reality), aesthetics, presence of scripted material, and presence of hired actors (to confirm the last two, I used an article by David Marchese and Willa Paskin –  “What’s real in Borat?” – that broke down where actors or a script was used).  If a stretch of the film had the intent to document, a focus on portraying reality, employed documentary aesthetics, and lacked scripted material and hired actors (other than Cohen, who is in every scene), then I marked that amount of time as being ‘documentary’ in nature.  If a portion of the film failed to meet these criteria, it was not marked as being ‘documentary.’  For instance, any scene with Cohen performing alone as Borat, or alone with Davitian’s character, was immediately dismissed.  Many scenes provide grey areas in this classification, obviously, and for these, I always erred on the conservative side of things, making sure the sequence fulfilled all the requirements in one way or another. 

The goal was to create a second-by-second analysis of the film, the conclusions of which would be difficult to argue from an objective scholarly standpoint.  The results, along with all of my reasoning and analysis, were collected in a table (Figure 1.1 at the end of the essay), durations of each section were recorded, and finally, I calculated how much of the film’s run-time (sans credits) can reasonably be classified as documentary.  In total, approximately 43 minutes and 20 seconds of the film is comprised of documentary footage, while 36 minutes and 45 seconds are ‘fictional’ material.  That means that approximately 54.108% of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan can reasonably be considered a documentary film, with 45.982% percent of the film in doubt. 

Does over half of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan being documentary in nature prove that the film is a documentary?  No.  Even if the number were substantially higher, other questions would still come into play, such as the clear comedic tone present in all scenes (though rejecting the film on these grounds would mean rejecting many other documentaries that are humorous in nature).  But these findings, combined with the aesthetics of the entire film and Cohen’s thematic intent, do add credence to the idea that we can, at the very least, examine Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan as a documentary exercise. 

Aufderheide describes the crucial paradox of the documentary medium as such: “Documentaries are about real life; they are not real life. They are not even windows onto real life. They are portraits of real life, using real life as their raw material, constructed by artists and technicians who make myriad decisions about what story to tell to whom, and for what purpose (16).”  This too is the paradox at the heart of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.  It is a film obsessed with the real world we all inhabit, but it does not chronicle a real life.  It uses real people and manipulates genuine scenarios to craft a larger fictional narrative about how a man unfamiliar with our culture reacts and is reacted to. 

The brilliance of the film is that it feels an awful lot like ‘real life’ all the same, just like a ‘genuine’ documentary does.  Why would we call it anything else? 

Figure 1.1

Begin	End	Duration	Description	Doc?
0:00:00	0:06:45	0:06:45	The pre-credits material in Borat’s fictional hometown in Kazakhstan; primarily narrative focused, though the villagers are real citizens, not actors. Still, the function here is not to document, but to tell story	No
0:06:45	0:08:53	0:02:08	Borat arrives in New York airport; real documentary footage of his actions here, and on the train, and in the hotel, all focusing on the reactions of those around him; clearly documentary in intention and function	Yes
0:08:53	0:09:19	0:00:26	Borat alone in his room, cracking jokes – narrative/staged	No
0:09:19	0:10:30	0:01:11	Borat in a New York street, performing antics in public, shot as documentary footage, again focusing on reactions of real people; compiled with montage editing	Yes
0:10:30	0:11:17	0:00:47	Borat and his producer Azmat in the hotel, preparing for the day; narrative/staged material	No
0:11:17	0:14:13	0:02:56	Borat meets with a humor coach; this is real documentary footage, as the coach was not in on the joke, and documents the actual session; can be argued Cohen manipulated the scene through performance	Yes
0:14:13	0:14:30	0:00:17	Borat has a hotel staff member (not an actor) help him with TV; again, documenting real interactions	Yes
0:14:30	0:16:10	0:01:40	Borat watches TV and discovers Pamela Anderson on Baywatch; this is staged/narrative footage	No
0:16:10	0:17:00	0:00:50	Borat meets with a real Feminist group and throws false “facts” about women at them, offending them; shot as doc	Yes
0:17:00	0:17:10	0:00:10	Brief interlude where Borat narrates about Pamela Anderson	No
0:17:10	0:17:40	0:00:30	Feminist meeting continues, with Borat asking about Pamela and Baywatch; arguably narrative, but still using real people, not actors, and shot as documentary	Yes
0:17:40	0:17:50	0:00:10	Borat returns to his hotel; staged/narrative	No
0:17:50	0:18:42	0:00:52	A messenger from the hotel visits Borat with a letter, and Borat has him read it; the letter explains that Borat’s wife is dead. This is a narrative scene, but the messenger is not an actor, and was surprised by the material.  A grey area, as it is somewhat falsified, but ultimately has enough documentary elements to qualify	Yes
0:18:42	0:19:30	0:00:48	Borat and Azmat argue in a coffee shop; this is a purely narrative scene, but it was performed in public and you can see the reactions of real people; still, does not qualify	No
0:19:30	0:23:52	0:04:22	Borat takes driver’s education; the sequence exclusively uses documentary aesthetics to get footage from inside the car (and outside), and it is focused on documenting the instructor’s reactions to Borat (who was not an actor). Borat then buys a car from a used salesman, again not an actor, continuing the documentary nature of the scene	Yes
0:23:52	0:24:30	0:00:38	A montage of Borat and Azmat driving in their new car; some documentary footage, but the focus is on narrative	No
0:24:30	0:25:00	0:00:30	Borat interviews a US Senator; shot as documentary footage	Yes
0:25:00	0:25:10	0:00:10	Borat drives; narrative/staged	No
0:25:10	0:26:20	0:01:10	Borat participates in a real gay pride parade, and then interviews a Congressman about homosexuality; plays into narrative, and Cohen is manipulating those around him, but the reactions and information still comes from real events	Yes
0:26:20	0:26:50	0:00:30	Borat and Azmat continue their road trip	No
0:26:50	0:29:45	0:02:55	Borat appears on a local news station; this is unquestionably documentary footage, as the scene is mostly comprised of the real news broadcast; this made headlines before the film was released, because the woman responsible for booking ‘Borat’ was fired for allowing Cohen on the program	Yes
0:29:45	0:30:00	0:00:15	More driving with Borat and Azmat	No
0:30:00	0:33:47	0:03:47	The rodeo scene: another purely, inarguably documentary sequence. Borat attends and co-hosts a rodeo, and we see behind-the-scenes footage with the owner, and Borat’s speech to the crowd (who knew nothing about the movie) which caused a riot	Yes
0:33:47	0:34:12	0:00:30	More driving with Borat and Azmat	No
0:34:12	0:35:10	0:00:58	Borat visits a garage sale he believes is hosted by gypsies; a grey area again for its narrative material, but as it mostly focuses on reactions, there is enough reality to qualify	Yes
0:35:10	0:36:00	0:00:50	Borat finds a Baywatch magazine at the garage sale; still filmed as documentary, but narrative focused	No
0:36:00	0:37:22	0:01:22	Borat approaches a group of African-American teenagers, and they teach him some urban slang and fashion	Yes
0:37:22	0:37:29	0:00:07	Driving	No
0:37:29	0:38:00	0:00:31	Borat enters a hotel with sagged pants and talking “jive,” and is ordered to leave on threat of arrest; all real, not staged	Yes
0:38:00	0:39:00	0:01:00	The bread-and-breakfast sequence, in which Borat and Azmat visit a Jewish establishment.  Primarily a narrative sequence, but the owners were not in on the joke, and this first minute is primarily documentary, so it qualifies	Yes
0:39:00	0:41:40	0:02:40	Rest of bed/breakfast sequence; still some material with the non-actors, but mostly narrative focusing on Borat and Azmat’s fear of Jewish people, all played for laughs	No
0:41:40	0:42:35	0:00:55	Borat buys a gun to defend himself in a piece of documentary footage focusing on his interactions with the owner of the gun shop; then speaks to owners of an animal compound to look for an animal that can defend him	Yes
0:42:35	0:43:50	0:01:15	Borat buys a bear; there is a montage formed of some documentary footage, but mostly staged (such as a shot of Borat and the bear swimming in a pool)	No
0:43:50	0:50:00	0:06:10	A long sequence where Borat attends a dinner party and learns from an etiquette coach; all documentary footage focusing on how others react to Borat in this situation; they had no idea what he was going to do, and ultimately kick him out when he brings a prostitute over (the prostitute is played by an actress, but is not the focus of the scene)	Yes
0:50:00	0:52:54	0:02:54	Borat and the prostitute go out on a date; the place they go is real, but since both characters are played by actors, this is not truly documentary footage; next, Borat reads the Baywatch magazine and narrates; finally, there is more driving; this section is primarily narrative	No
0:52:54	0:54:45	0:01:51	Borat visits an antique shop, and we focus on how the owner reacts as Borat smashes many objects and then tries to pay for them; he is eventually asked to leave	Yes
0:54:45	0:57:20	0:02:35	Borat and Azmat argue while they drive; then we reach the infamous “naked wrestling match” in the hotel.  Though it is entirely improvised, both characters are actors, so we cannot call it documentary yet	No
0:57:20	0:58:20	0:01:00	Borat and Azmat’s naked fight extends into public: first an elevator and then a large public dinner event in the hotel ballroom; the sight of two naked fighting men came as a shock to all involved, and the actors were arrested; there is enough reality on display to be called documentary	Yes
0:58:20	1:01:20	0:03:00	Borat explains to the camera how Azmat abandoned him, and then continues to California until his car breaks down; all narrative/staged material	No
1:01:20	1:05:20	0:04:00	Borat hitchhikes with a group of college kids in an RV; we know this material was not staged, because the students later sued; we see them making sexist and racist statements with and without Borat’s prodding; there is some narrative material as Borat prompts them to watch the Pamela Anderson sex tape and Borat becomes sad (learning Pamela was with another man), but their reactions are still real, not scripted	Yes
1:05:20	1:06:55	0:01:35	Borat makes a fire and burns his Pamela material, then sets his chicken free; falls asleep in front of a building	No
1:06:55	1:11:00	0:04:05	Borat attends a ‘holy-roller’ Christian church meeting; it is all real footage of a real Church, with a very large crowd, and focuses on exposing disturbing religious beliefs (mostly without Borat’s prompting). There is some narrative focus, as Borat decides to go back to Pamela, but the action is still driven by others unassociated with the production	Yes
1:11:00	1:13:58	0:02:58	Borat travels on a bus to California, then walks around in Hollywood until he finds Azmat in front of the Mann’s Chinese theatre; this material is scripted and staged, albeit in public where onlookers didn’t know what was happening; still, it has a primarily narrative focus, so it is not doc; Borat and Azmat then return to their hotel and decide to find Pamela at an upcoming book signing	No
1:13:58	1:16:45	0:02:47	The hardest scene to peg: Borat confronts Pamela Anderson at a book signing, tries to get her to marry him, assaults her, chases her, and is arrested.  It is all shot as a documentary and was performed in real-time, with Cohen waiting in line as Borat; onlookers didn’t know it was a film; but Anderson was a participant in the routine, and it is suspected the police officers were actors as well; tough call, but the narrative focus cements this as fiction	No
1:16:45	1:19:00	0:03:15	The final scene, a montage with narration as Borat contemplates his journey, ultimately decides to marry the prostitute from earlier, and returns home to Kazakhstan.  No documentary possibilities	No

Figure 1.2

Bibliography

“-ary.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Merriam-Webster Inc., n.d. Web. 17 April 2012.

Aufderheide, Patricia. Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford

    University Press, 2007. Print

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Dir.

    Larry Charles. Perf. Sacha Baron Cohen and Ken Davitian. 20^th Century Fox, 2006. Film. 

“Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” IMDb.

    Amazon.com, Inc., n.d. Web. 17 April 2012.

Carrol, Larry. “Was Pamela Anderson in on the joke? A ‘Borat’ investigation.” MTV News.

    Viacom International Inc., 6 Nov. 2006. Web. 17 April 2012.

“Document.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Merriam-Webster Inc., n.d. Web. 17 April 2012.

Marchese, David and Paskin, Willa. “What’s real in ‘Borat?’” Salon. Salon Media Group, Inc.,

    10 Nov. 2006. Web. 17 April 2012.

Nichols, Bill. Engaging Cinema: An Introduction to Film Studies. New York: W. W. Norton &

    Company, 2010. Print.

Strauss, Neil. “The Man Behind the Moustache.” Rolling Stone. Wenner Media LLC, 14 Nov.

    2006. Web. 17 April 2012.

Read All 'Essay Day' Entries Here:

#1 – Heart of the Tramp: Charlie Chaplin’s Ethic of Dignity

#2 – Absolute Contingencies: The Double Life of Veronique, Under the Skin, Proteus, and the Wonder of Internalizing Art

#3 - Louis Malle’s Damage, Lars von Trier’s Melancholia, and the Circularity of Transgressive Energy

#4 – Fire Trails on Silver Nights: Representing Wonder and Balance in Three Works by Luis Buñuel, Bruce Springsteen & Steven Millhauser

#5 – Bond on Bond: Quantum of Solace and the Elusive Case of the Bondian Ideal

Jonathan R. Lack has been writing film and television criticism for ten years, for publications such as The Denver Post’s ‘YourHub’ and the entertainment website We Got This Covered, and is the host of The Weekly Stuff Podcast with Jonathan Lack and Sean Chapman. His first book – Fade to Lack: A Critic’s Journey Through the World of Modern Film – is now available in Paperback and on Kindle.  Follow him on Twitter @JonathanLack.