Borat Sagdiyev
fictional character created and portrayed by Sacha Baron Cohen
Borat Margaret Sagdiyev (; Kazakh: Борат Маргаретұлы Сағдиев, romanized: Borat Margaretūly Sağdiev; Russian: Борат Маргарет Сагдиев) is a satirical fictional character created and performed by Sacha Baron Cohen. Depicted as a Kazakh television journalist, the character serves as the main protagonist of the 2006 mockumentary Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan and its 2020 sequel Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, and a main character of Da Ali G Show.
Borat's humour arises from his espousal of outrageous sociocultural viewpoints, his violation of social taboos, and his use of vulgar language and behaviour in inappropriate settings. Most often the comedy relies on Borat's obliviousness to First World natives not sharing his regressive worldview, but occasionally Borat's innocent and collegial demeanor will provoke his targets to reveal biases they would otherwise be reluctant to share publicly. Entertainment Weekly put the 2006 film on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list.
Origins
The character was first developed for the purpose of short skits on F2F on Granada Talk TV that Baron Cohen presented in 1996–1997; at this time, the character was known as Alexi Krickler. The character, now known as Kristo Shqiptari, was picked by BBC Two's Comedy Nation. Alexi and Kristo were nearly identical in looks and demeanor to the later incarnation, although Alexi claimed to be Moldovan and Kristo claimed to be Albanian rather than coming from Kazakhstan.
Fictional character biography
Borat was born and raised in the village of Kuzcek, Kazakh SSR to Maryam Tulyakbay and Boltok the Rapist.
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This entry incorporates text from “Borat Sagdiyev” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.