Borat is back and he’s taking Washington. In the new trailer for Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm, the Kazakhstanian journalist returns to the States, this time to “give his daughter to someone close to the throne.” Which, in Borat’s mind, means someone close to the White House.
It’s been almost 15 years since the first Borat film was released. For those unfamiliar with the concept, comedian Sacha Baron Cohen dons a mustache, an ill-fitting suit, and a heavy accent to disguise himself as Borat, a Kazakhstani documentarian sent to the US to learn more about American culture. The schtick is that he interacts with real people—whether politicians or small-town churchgoers–punking them in-character to reveal the inanity and prejudice under the surface of everyday American life.
Cohen reveals in the trailer he’s had a much harder go of traversing the States in disguise, since his character is so well-known. But, it seems Borat is a master of disguise—especially when he infiltrates the annual Conservative Political Action Conference known as CPAC.
Yes, the end of the trailer seems to show Borat crashing one of the largest conservative gatherings in the country while wearing a hyperrealistic Trump costume. Looking like an off-brand version of the President with his daughter slung over his shoulder, Borat appears to burst into the hall where Mike Pence is addressing coronavirus concerns, yelling, “Michael Penis, I brought a girl for you!”
Incidentally, this isn’t the first time CPAC has been targeted by a prankster. In 2017, some attendees were tricked into waving tiny Russian flags before Trump’s big speech.
Did Pence actually hear Borat? Was anybody at the conference concerned about a Trump look-alike running around with a woman thrown over his shoulder? Did Borat hit up any other Washington spots? We’ll have to wait until October 23, when the “moviefilm” is released on Amazon Prime.
Jane is a Chicago transplant who now calls Cleveland Park her home. Before joining Washingtonian, she wrote for Smithsonian Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times. She is a graduate of Northwestern University, where she studied journalism and opera.
