‘Borat’ Too ‘Woke’? Advocacy Group Asks Oscars to Bar Film Over ‘Racism’

The American people are grappling with something new and strange in our lives these days, as satire and reality are being forced to meld by the “woke” legions of the far left.

We likely have the internet to blame for this, as our written words are often and unflinchingly delivered with no discernible inflection, leaving the end-user to determine the amount of sarcasm, cynicism, or satire inherent in our statements.  When you add fact-checkers into the mix, we find ourselves in murky media waters, with the fourth wall being shattered to bits in some cases.

For instance, the Borat films, which are meant to be some sort of satirical commentary on the political and cultural divides in the United States, and are helmed by an actor pretending to be a plebeian rube from poverty-stricken Eastern Europe.

In this world of constant outrage and “wokeness”, this is just too much for some to fathom.

Advocacy groups are calling for the Borat sequel, starring Sacha Baron Cohen, to be barred from the Oscars and Golden Globes for “promoting racism in entertainment” and “portraying Kazakh people as misogynistic, incestuous, anti-Semitic, and barbarous.”

Several advocacy organizations have called for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm to be banned from competing in the industry’s awards after the film earned an Oscar nomination and two Golden Globe nominations, according to a report by Fox News. The organizations say that Sacha Baron Cohen’s flick is guilty of “normalizing, promoting and monetizing whitewashing, ethnic stereotyping, cultural appropriation and racism in entertainment.”

“Mr. Cohen went beyond any moral or ethical standards in portraying Kazakh people as misogynistic, incestuous, anti-Semitic, and barbarous,” said Gia Noortas, CEO of Hollywood Film Academy. “Due to this harmful misrepresentation, more Kazakhs today will face racial abuse, bullying, humiliation, and dehumanization.”

The groups are now “calling on the film award organizations worldwide to publicly condemn whitewashing and cultural appropriation, stand against racism and racial hatred and remove Mr. Cohen, his cast, crew and film ‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’ from their respective competitions this year.”

Whether you enjoy Sacha Baron Cohen’s films or not, it’s important to recognize what it is that he’s hoping to accomplish, and to apply the filter of satire to the entire affair.  Otherwise, the advocacy groups in question run the risk of looking as foolish as Snopes when they attempted to fact-check The Babylon Bee.