Performative politics and the redundancy of Borat

If this keeps up, comedic genius Sacha Baron Cohen may have to concoct a circumspect alter ego who keeps his clothes on to act as a foil to the political status quo.
Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat character hinges on the premise that it’s much easier to con people playing an imbecile than playing a genius, writes Lisa Van Dusen.
The buffoonish hamming, the slapstick vulgarity, the imbecilic racism, the bunko set pieces, the cartoonish misogyny, the elaborate dupery, the unseemly honeytraps … with such outrageous antics happening in the most powerful office in the world, politics, as has been noted, can be hard to mock the...

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