At Tablet Magazine, Liel Leibovitz pens a brief fantasy of a Borat movie that would take on lefty class pieties before wondering why he doesn’t.
Let us, then, begin by asking a simple question: What story would an astute satirist, wishing nothing more than telling truth to power, tell about the ways America has changed in the last 15 years? He might, for example, observe that from 2007 to 2016, say, the median net worth of the richest one-fifth of Americans increased by a whopping 13%, while the net worth of families in the lower income brackets plummeted by 20%, with the middle class taking the hardest hit and losing as much as 40% of its wealth.
Leibovitz answers the question, and it’s a worthwhile answer, but there’s a simpler answer.
Sacha Baron Cohen is a member of that class. His target audience is a member of that class. His job, and let’s assume that it comes naturally, is to cater to the preoccupations and obsessions of his own class.
That’s a brief description of what the entertainment industry, advertising, and most of the culture industry does now.
Borat 2 was bought and released by Amazon. What else really needs to be said about it? It shares a kinship with the Washington Post and it’s a way for the company that’s destroying the American working class and middle class to show of its smug contempt for it.
Sacha Baron Cohen’s only real joke is contempt. He’s the perfect tool and vehicle for the class prejudices of the oligarchy. Why expect him to be anything else?
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