#unibrows

Thanks @td-worrisometruths for this beautiful conversation (?)

You guys! It is 2020 and we have a new president AND a new Borat movie!!! I really didn’t think we needed a new Borat movie but the thing about history is that it keeps repeating itself and making new deplorables for Sacha Baron Cohen to make fun of. I watched this the night before election day since I realized that no matter what happened, I would never want to see these deplorables again. And boy was I right! But what about the wigs? Let’s discuss!

The film begins in Kazakhstan, where Borat is serving hard labor as punishment for the first Borat movie. It is then decided for purposely purely driving a convoluted plot that Borat should go back to the US and gift Mike Pence a monkey. Sure!

Before bidding Kazakhstan farewell, he visits his family and the true star of the movie is revealed: his 15 year old daughter, Tutar (as played by the 23 year old actress and future Oscar winner, Maria Bakalova). We meet Tutar in her natural habitat: a barn where she is died up like a farm animal. Her hair is a matted mess and she has a lovely Frida Kahlo unibrow. I wonder if this bitch is gonna get a glowup?

Fast forward a few moments to the indeterminate southern US, where Borat arrives only to discover that he is too famous to carry out a secret mission AS Borat and must disguise himself. He quickly finds a Halloween Highway store where he buys BULK WIGS and now we all can have closure on where Game of Thrones got all those low budget wigs while giving their money to CGI dragons for so many years. 

It is also discovered that Tutar has smuggled herself into a monkey crate (and eaten the monkey!) so that she may escape the shackles of the Kazakhstan patriarchy and also her own drab brunette hair. Borat does a quick flip and decides to gift Mike Pence his daughter and not a monkey skeleton also so that he isn’t murdered by the Kazakhstan government. 

After a quick trip to a vapid instagram influencer’s house and a beauty salon, Tutar gets the American glowup she (and we!) were promised. The unibrow disappears and heavy cake makeup is applied. This blonde wig of nonsense essentially transforms Tutar into any Real Housewife/instagram influencer/woman you hate at Starbucks which is to say: it is the perfect exemplification of American white female privilege. Ever overprocessed tendril bespeaks a girl who basically wants to be a Barbie doll. And everyone who comes in contact with the new Tutar sees just that.

Borat’s bulk wigs, for their part, do their job of fooling deporables into thinking he is just a normal Southern gentleman who doesn’t know how to use conditioner. But it is Tutar who does all the heavy lifting in this film and her fabulous wig is the key in all of it. Of course, her Mike Pence gifting doesn’t pan out but instead the pandemic changes the narrative in weird and wonderful ways.

Through it all, Tutar becomes more and more empowered as the blonde American girl she has always wanted to be. She and Borat go their separate ways for a bit, and she reemerges with a blonder, straighter, more Fox News worthy wig as she seeks to be her own journalist, not just the daughter of one. I think Gretchen Carlson would probably approve?

I won’t spoil the ending, but we all know that it ends with hobgoblin Rudy Giuliani. But ultimately, it ends with Borat and Tutar reuniting as only they can and a strangely sweet father/daughter film emerging. 

Ultimately, Borat and Tutar return to Kazakhstan not to be murdered, but to become a journalist father/daughter team! Also: Maria Bakalova loses the wig and sports her own hair and in doing so breaks from the overprocessed blonde American dream and fulfills her own destiny. AMEN!

VERDICT: WURQS