Borat, Sascha Baron Cohen and the Legacy of Andy Kaufman

If you get the feeling that you’ve seen the whole Borat thing before but you haven’t been fortunate enough to catch Da Ali G show on HBO or DVD yet, you aren’t alone. Sascha Baron Cohen is truly an original; at least as original as anyone can be in Hollywood in the 21st century. Let’s face it, there’s nothing new under the sun anywhere and this is especially true in the golden world of entertainment. And as original as Cohen is, that feeling that you’ve seen it all before isn’t difficult to explain.

The controversy and artistry of Sascha Baron Cohen in all his many incarnations reminds me of nothing so much as the late, great Andy Kaufman. Andy Kaufman made a career out of blurring the line between reality and entertainment, culminating in his legendary appearance on the sketch comedy show Fridays. Kaufman was the host one night and was featured in a sketch about couples at a restaurant. Midway through, Kaufman appeared to break character and complain how stupid the sketch was. (It was.) A pre-racist Michael Richards was a member of the regular cast and appearing in the sketch and he walked off-camera and came back with the cue cards and thrust them at Kaufman whereupon all hell broke loose.

It was without a doubt the highlight of entire run of Fridays, which was somewhat more than the rip-off of Saturday Night Live it was accused of being at the time, but was somewhat less than Saturday Night Live at its best. Except for this night. Kaufman’s appearance was far funnier and memorable than anything that has ever occurred on Saturday Night Live, and it was so bizarre and open to the possibility that it was real that it made the newspapers the next day. Andy Kaufman was accused of going psychotic on national television. And indeed it did appear so. He came back the next week and made a tearful apology, claiming that his career was now in jeopardy. Again, it was great television. And the greatest thing about it was that you really couldn’t tell if it was real or staged. At least not the initial eruption that sparked it all.