Film / Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

"Jagshemash! My name-a Borat! After 14 year, I have returned to US&A! Is nice!"

"Fourteen year ago, I release moviefilm which brought great shame to Kazakhstan. But now I was instruct to return to Yankeeland to carry out secret mission. I will give my daughter as a gift to someone close to the throne!"

— Borat Sagdiyev

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (also known as Borat 2) is a Black Comedy Mockumentary film directed by Jason Woliner and starring Sacha Baron Cohen and newcomer Maria Bakalova, and the sequel to 2006's Borat.

After the release of his eponymous film, Borat Sagdiyev was accused of humilating Kazakhstan with his movie, and he was sentenced to imprisonment in a gulag for life. Fourteen years later, however, the country's Premier, Nursultan Nazarbayev, offers him a pardon, provided that he completes a mission to deliver the Kazakh Minister of Culture, Johnny the Monkey, to US President Donald Trump in an attempt to redeem the nation.

Through a mix-up however, Borat ends up returning to the USA not in company of the monkey minister, but his estranged teenage daughter Tutar. Borat quickly reasons that his daughter would probably make for a better political gift anyway, and goes on a new journey through America in hopes of pawning her off to a member of Trump's administration. As he travels with Tutar, he reveals more about American culture, the COVID-19 Pandemic (one of the first mainstream films to directly address the subject), and the upcoming 2020 political elections. But Borat also discovers that he has become somewhat of a celebrity in the Land of the Free since the release of his first film, and so he decides to employ a wide variety of disguises to continue his mission unabated.

Since its release, the film has gotten considerable critical attention for its remarkably self-aware attempt to engage with the lasting cultural legacy of the original Borat, which (while very popular in the mid-2000s) attracted a fair amount of controversy for its use of "shock comedy". Since much of the humor of the original film stemmed from the title character's flagrant racism, misogyny, homophobia, and antisemitism, many critics have questioned whether portraying such sentiments humorously might unintentionally help normalize them—making it easier for actual bigots to express their views in the public sphere by coating them in a thin layer of irony. Released amid a period of escalating political and social tensions in the United States, the sequel essentially tackles this criticism head-on, portraying Borat navigating a world where his most detestable qualities have turned him into a cultural icon, and where (in some quarters, at least) his hateful views suddenly don't seem so out-of-place.

The film was released October 23, 2020 on Prime Video. In February 2021, it won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy, which its predecessor had lost to Dreamgirls 14 years earlier. Borat: Subsequent Reportings Retrieved from Floor of Stable Containing Editing Machine, a followup miniseries made up of several specials largely featuring deleted scenes from the film, was released on May 25, again on Prime Video.

Previews: Trailer

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Tropes for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm include:

• Accidental Misnaming: Borat refers to the President of the United States as "McDonald Trump" throughout the film, mentions "Kenneth West" in the intro, and claims that his neighbor stole his "Michael the Mouse" pajamas.
• Acting Unnatural: When realizing people in the US&A are easily recognizing him, Borat's solution is to clamp a paper bag over his head and shuffle into traffic. Realizing it might be the gray suit that people notice, he then strips it off... which means he's walking around in his underwear. After visiting a costume store, his wardrobe becomes a parade of sort of convincing disguises, with many bad attempts to hide his accent or act differently.
• Actor Allusion: Borat's tenure as a barber is a possible one to Baron Cohen's role as Adolfo Pirelli in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, particularly as Borat, much like Pirelli, takes far too long to actually get the job done.
• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • When Borat attempts to order flashlights via Alexa for his redneck friends in lockdown, his "accent" (read: Cohen intentional mispronunciation) ends up getting a package of fleshlights. The rednecks think it's absolutely hysterical.
  • After Tutar interrupts the conservative women’s conference with a speech of her own, most of the attendees seem pretty dismayed by the subject matter she chose to speak on. At least one lady, however, grins as if genuinely amused by the incident.
• Almost Famous Name: Borat has a son named Hooeylewis, and one of the aliases Tutar uses is "Sandra Jessica Parker Drummond".
• Ambiguous Situation: Tutar's alone time with Rudy Giuliani is cut short right before the audience can get any confirmation on what Rudy's intentions were. The production team and SBC thought it was going too far and ended it there and then out of concern for Bakalova’s safety.
• Applied Phlebotinum: In-universe; Gypsy tears are believed to have curse-removing properties.
• Angry White Man: Much like in the first film, though due to society's evolution over the past 14 years, the level of misogyny has been toned down somewhat.
• Artistic License – History: Borat claims early on that Kazakhs guarded the concentration camps during the Holocaust. In actuality, Kazakhstan was part of the Soviet Union during the Holocaust and had nothing to do with it. Probably done deliberately to further illustrate the depths of Borat's ignorance. There is a little Truth in Television to this. The Turkestan Legion did have Kazakh members, and the Nazis did use soldiers captured in Russia (usually the Ukrainians, who really hated Russians and willingly changed allegations) as guards in the extermination camps (so-called Hiwis or Trawnikis).
• Art Shift: During the two moments when the movie focuses on the MelДniД animated film Tutar is watching, the art style shifts to one reminiscent of Disney Animated Canon movies like Cinderella.
• Ascended Extra: The President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, is only passingly mentioned as a gag in the previous movie ("come grasp mighty penis of our leader"), but in this movie he is the primary instigator for the plot, and the mastermind behind COVID-19.
• As Himself: Tom Hanks, whom Borat personally infects with COVID-19.
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign:
  • A rare example of "foreign" meaning "American." Borat uses a number of aliases (with corresponding disguises) throughout the film to pass himself off as American, including "Cliff Safari" and "John Chevrolet", and sings at the anti-lockdown rally under the alias of “Country Steve”.
  • Like in the previous film, whenever Borat speaks "Kazakh" he is actually speaking Hebrew, while Tutar's "Kazakh" is actually Maria Bakalova's native Bulgarian. The Prime Minister is also speaking the actor's language, Romanian.
• Bait-and-Switch: According to Borat, the United States had been ruined by an evil man who stood against all American values... Barack Obama, whose reputation isn't quite as toxic and topical as the obvious Donald Trump.
• Beauty Inversion: Maria Bakalova spends about the first third of the movie in a very unflattering state. And then The Makeover makes Tutar look more like her actress.
• Been There, Shaped History: Borat was infected with COVID-19, which was manufactured by the Kazakhstani government. Whilst infected with it, he travelled to places and met people strongly associated with the virus, such as the Huanan Seafood Market (considered the actual source of the virus) and Tom Hanks on the set of Elvis in Australia.
• Big Bad: Nursultan Nazerbayev, the leader of Kazakhstan, has spent the last fourteen years punishing Borat after his first film ruined Kazakhstan's reputation. He sends Borat back to America to win favour with Donald Trump's government and threatens him with death if he fails in his mission, though this is later revealed to be an elaborate plot to have Borat spread COVID-19, enacting revenge against the world for Kazakhstan's embarrassment.
• Big Damn Heroes: In the film's climax, Rudy Giuliani takes Tutar into the hotel bedroom, and it's heavily implied that he plans to seduce her, but Borat barges in to stop anything from happening.
• Big "WHAT?!": Much like her father in the previous film, Tutar can only exclaim "What?!" when Americans tell her that in the US, women can do things like legally drive cars and own stores.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Tütar in Estonian literally translates to "daughter".
  • Sacha Baron Cohen speaks his fake Kazakh dialogues in Hebrew while Maria Bakalova speaks her dialogues in her native Bulgarian.
  • The first film's Kazakh texts are just jumbled Russian texts. This film's opening scene features actual Kazakh◊ texts◊.
• Blonde Republican Sex Kitten: Borat has Tutar's hair dyed blonde (to resemble Dog the Bounty Hunter), and she becomes a conservative pundit later in the movie. At the end of the film, she sports a shorter haircut resembling Hillary Clinton, reflecting Kazakhstan's more "progressive" shift to some sort of pastiche of neoliberal feminism.
• Brick Joke:
  • After spending a good portion of the original film trying to understand "Not" jokes, one of Borat's first lines in this movie is "My name-a Borat. My life is nice. Not!"
  • Borat purchases strange things throughout the movie, like a racist cake and fleshlights. At the end of the movie, when notarizing his will, he lists them as the assets he leaves to Tutar.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Tutar idolizes her father until she realizes all the lies he's told her, especially about women's rights.
  • Having previously referred to the United States as the “greatest country in the world”, Borat decides by the end of this film that the greatest threat to Kazakhstan is not the Jew, but the Yankee.
• Brown Bag Mask: Used as a disguise, since people recognize Borat.
• Caligula's Horse: Kazakhstan's Minister of Culture (and top pornstar) is a chimpanzee named Johnny the Monkey.
• Call-Back: Before his journey, Borat is injected with "gypsy tears" later revealed to actually be COVID-19, as he and Azamat both mentioned in the original that gypsy tears will protect them on their travels from curses and illnesses.
• Calling the Old Man Out: After meeting Jeanise and the women in the Republican gathering, Tutar lashes out at Borat on the lies he told her about the women in Kazakhstan before she left by car (from Uber), even though they reconciled at the end.
  • A young woman at the debutant ball gets a brief but glorious one, responding to her father saying Borat's daughter is worth $500 with a Precision F-Strike.
• The Cameo: A montage near the end of the film shows Borat interacting with Tom Hanks in Australia, indicating that he was one of the first people Borat unknowingly infected with COVID-19.
• Canon Discontinuity: In the fourteen years between the two films, Sacha Baron Cohen occasionally reprised the role of Borat in various shorts, including a sketch on Jimmy Kimmel Live! where he tampered with the 2018 US midterm elections. The opening scene of Subsequent Moviefilm ignores these appearances, and establishes upfront that Borat has spent the entire fourteen year gap imprisoned in The Gulag.
• Caught with Your Pants Down: Upon discovering that his new mobile phone can access free pornography, Borat excuses himself to the restroom to enjoy it... while the phone's display is still connected to the store's TV.
• Chekhov's Gag: Before setting out to America, Borat is injected with alleged "gypsy tears", itself a Call-Back to the original movie, to protect against curses. His route to the US is also way more long-winded than it needs to be, with inexplicable stops in China, Australia and through the Suez Canal. He was lied to and instead injected with COVID-19, which the Kazakhstan government created to punish the world for laughing at them.
• Chekhov's Gunman: the clerk from the phone store is revealed to be recording the incriminating confession Premier Nazarbayev made.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Luenell, Borat's wife from the first movie, is never seen or mentioned in the sequel. According to Borat's AMA on Reddit, she returned to the United States during his imprisonment because of how wonderful blacks are treated in Trump's America.
  "The police especial are nice to Africans — they love them so much they follow them in their cars, and stop them many times to make a chitty chat. They even take their name and addresses to they can stay in touch!"
• Comically Missing the Point: Borat mentions early in the film that Barack Obama's presidency led to other "Africans" getting into politics, showing a picture of Justin Trudeau as an example. Trudeau is white, and the picture used is an infamous photograph of him wearing blackface.
• Continuity Nod:
  • When Borat is enlisted to deliver the bribe, he is explicitly told to not give it to Trump personally, because Borat defecated in front of Trump Tower in the previous film.
  • In the epilogue, Borat uses a surgical mask as a new mankini.
  • Johnny the Monkey ends up killed and eaten, just like Oksana the bear in the first film.
• Cool Old Lady: The Holocaust survivor that Borat meets at the synagogue isn't as bothered by Borat's antisemitism as most would expect. invoked Sacha Baron Cohen was so honoured to meet her he dropped character after shooting the scene to let her in on the joke, something he NEVER does when he's doing one of his troll characters.
• Cringe Comedy: Like the first film, Subsequent Moviefilm is built on the extreme levels of discomfort that Borat and Tutar place on their unsuspecting marks, and it's made even worse by the fact that none of them are in on the joke, so the cringe is 100% real.
• Damned By a Fool's Praise:
  • Borat idolizes Donald Trump, Michael Pence, Rudy Giuliani, and the extreme conservatives he meets throughout the film. Considering that Borat is an unabashedly racist, misogynistic, ableist, homophobic anti-Semite, this doesn't exactly paint them in a positive light.
  • An easy-to-miss comment by Tutar, during her final conversation with Jeanise, tells the viewer that Tutar thinks the Earth is flat. She also thinks Melania Trump lives in a golden cage and that a woman can be eaten alive by her own vagina.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: As in Borat's other appearances, the film's fictional Kazakh culture is blatantly outdated in the present day.
  • In Kazakhstan, Holocaust Remembrance Day is dedicated to the Nazi soldiers that guarded the concentration camps, rather than the millions of people (primarily Jews) that were murdered in them.
  • Donald Trump and his inner circle, many of whom have faced numerous allegations of corruption and sexual assault, are highly admired in Kazakhstan for their abuse of power and mistreatment of women, rather than denying it like their American supporters.
  • Tutar is genuinely shocked, on more than one occasion, when she discovers that America is not the horribly misogynistic wasteland that Kazakhstan is. She is especially horrified when she sees a woman driving a car.
  Tutar: What are you doing?!
  Jeanise: We're driving. Women can drive.
  Tutar: [sobs in panic] You can't drive! It's impossible for woman to drive! HELP ME! IT'S A WOMAN DRIVING THE CAR!
• Dirty Old Man: A real-life example. The film frequently mentions the various ways that Donald Trump and his allies, particularly Rudy Giuliani and the late Jeffrey Epstein, have behaved and continue to behave inappropriately towards women and young girls. Borat and Kazakhstan initially see nothing wrong with this horrific mistreatment and even idolise these men for it, with the film's main plot revolving around Borat trying to offer his own daughter to someone in Trump's inner circle. When he eventually stops them from sleeping together, Borat tells Giuliani that the 15-year-old Tutar is "too old" for him.
  • This trope is also implied for Mike Pence, whom Borat refers to as the "vice pussy grabber", as he is intended to be the original recipient for Tutar. But it's unknown how much truth there is in this, as he is never actually made aware of Borat's plan, and he's clearly less-than-amused when Borat (disguised as Trump) appears at CPAC to offer Tutar to him.
• Disneyesque: Tutar watches a Disney-style parody film about Melania Trump throughout the movie, who is apparently treated like a Disney Princess in Kazakhstan.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Borat made Kazakhstan an international laughing stock. So what did its President do? He sentenced Borat to a lifetime in The Gulag (only freeing him when it became convenient) and manufactured the deadly, highly contagious SARS CoV-2 virus and let Borat spread it.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Azamat was executed sometime after Borat's arrest and made into a chair, with chram still intact. The climax of the movie however, has a Freeze-Frame Bonus indicating that he was originally intended to be the Patient Zero for COVID-19, but was replaced with Borat for some reason, so for all we know he could have died from COVID unlike Borat and then posthumously have his body turned into a chair.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: The film reveals Borat's full name as "Borat Margaret Sagdiyev".
• Everyone Has Standards: As racist and blinded to conspiracy theories like QAnon as the two men Borat hangs out with are, even they blast the Kazakh’s book by saying that women are people just like men are.
• Everyone Loves Blondes: During Tutar's Makeover Montage, the first thing they do is dye her brown hair blonde.
• Fallen Hero: Invoked with Rudy Giuliani. Borat mentions he's "America's Mayor", referencing how he, as New York City's mayor during 9/11, handled himself and the country's time of need during the aftermath. A long way from how he's portrayed here.
• Fan Disservice:
  • Borat's infamous "mankini" returns, this time as a "maskini" made of surgical masks. Numerous scenes throughout the movie depict him in other unflattering revealing outfits, like in the first movie.
  • Tutar is played by the very attractive Maria Bakalova, but aside from her character being underage,^note Bakalova was actually 24 during filming, she finds herself in all sorts of uncomfortable and outrageous situations throughout the film, such as the infamous fertility dance scene and opening a beer with her "small hole".
• Female Misogynist: Both Tutar (initially) and the Instagram influencer who gives her advice on how to land a rich man. Among the pointers the influencer gives Tutar on how to be a sugar baby is to appear “kind of weak” for men.
• Fictional Fan, Real Celebrity: Borat is a huge fan of Donald Trump, which leads to him crashing the RNC.
• Foreshadowing: One of the fictional logos shown before the film begins represents the Almaty Center For Disease Control, hinting that the second half of the film centers around the COVID-19 Pandemic.
• Funny Foreigner: The entire movie is built on this trope, just like the first one.
• Genuine Human Hide: Azamat's fate following the first movie, having been turned into a chair in Nazarbayev's office, hence why he can't assist Borat with his journey this time.
• Genuine Imposter: Out-of-Universe in the scene where Borat is (badly) disguised as a Jewish person, as Sacha Baron Cohen is Jewish himself.
• The Gulag: Borat starts the movie here, having been sentenced here for his actions in the previous movie. Only the government's wish to curry favor with Trump (and spread COVID-19) ends up freeing him.
• Grand Finale: Baron Cohen has adamantly indicated that the film would be a final send-off for the character of Borat. By the end of the film, Borat gradually overcomes the misogynistic and anti-Semitic beliefs that have been integral to his character from the start, and he proudly allows Tutar to become Kazakhstan's newest journalist.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Borat never meets Donald Trump face-to-face and the latter doesn't appear in person at all, though his presence is consistently felt throughout Borat and Tutar's journey. Borat initially holds Trump up as the pinnacle of America's greatness, but through its portrayal of his followers and representatives, the film constantly presents Trump's abuse of presidential power and his cult-like influence as a serious danger to America and the world.
• Happy Ending Override: Borat ends the first film happily remarried and (poorly) shares what he has learned in America to improve the lives of the people of Kazakhstan. By the opening of this film, Kazakhstan is a laughing stock to the rest of the world, Borat's family hates him, and he's doing a life sentence in The Gulag.
• Historical Rap Sheet: In an example that pertains to very recent history (albeit important nonetheless), Borat and Tutar learn that President Nazerbayev was the mastermind behind the COVID-19 Pandemic, having sent an infected Borat to spread it across the world as part of an elaborate revenge scheme.
• How We Got Here: The intro reviews the last 14 years in Kazakhstan, including the success of the original film, the country suffering as a result, and Borat's punishment for it.
• Hypocritical Humor: The infamous sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is implied to be a respected figure in Kazakhstan, with Borat's son Hueylewis even naming himself after Epstein due to being ashamed of his own father. This is despite the fact that Epstein was Jewish, even though the film's version of the Kazakh people passionately hate Jews to the point of having an entire holiday to celebrate killing them.
• Implausible Deniability:
  • When Tutar is caught having snuck into Johnny the Monkey's crate, she claims that he ate himself when Borat sees his corpse.
  • When people recognize Borat on the streets, he claims that they're mistaken while making no attempt whatsoever to disguise his appearance or voice.
    Borat: [to random passerby] My name-a Borat, what do you say?
    Passerby: [excitedly] Borat?!
    Borat: No, it's not me!
• Insane Troll Logic: Borat's country song that he plays at a right-wing rally simultaneously states that coronavirus is a hoax and that common Republican boogeymen such as Obama and journalists should be injected with it.
• Karma Houdini: Nursultan Nazarbayev manufactured COVID-19 and used Borat to unwittingly spread it, causing a pandemic that has killed millions worldwide. When Borat and Tutar obtain evidence to expose him, they blackmail Nazarbayev into restoring Borat's reputation and fostering women's rights in exchange for their silence, ultimately allowing Nazarbayev to get off scot-free.
• Latex Perfection: Borat disguises himself as Donald Trump in an attempt to get close to Mike Pence. Included in his disguise is a rubber Trump mask that resembles an actual moving human face in subsequent shots (because the actual mask that Cohen wore consists of elaborate prosthetics rather than a ready-made piece). Even the mainstream media didn't recognize him, simply referring to him as a "Donald Trump impersonator".
• Lighter and Softer: This film is less cynical than the first. At its heart, it revolves around the father/daughter dynamic of Borat and Tutar and his growing to see her as a person.
• Love Epiphany: Borat's fatherly instincts eventually win out and he reneges on his plan to pimp his daughter out to Rudy Giuliani.
• Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: Borat finds out late in the film that the Kazakhstani government manufactured the coronavirus and planted it on Borat so that he'd spread it across the world.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: When the kindly Jewish woman asks to hear why Borat is depressed, he tells her that it's "the worst story that ever happened to any human being... or Jew".
• No Periods, Period: Averted in a prominent scene that intentionally subverts a taboo subject. During a debutante ball, an event that symbolically celebrates womanhood and femininity, Borat and Tutar take to the dance floor to show off their traditional “fertility dance.” Guests start clapping along until Tutar displays she's heavily menstruating.
• Non-Indicative Name: Johnny the Monkey is actually a chimpanzee.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: In one scene, Borat speaks to a pregnancy-center pastor, asking him to "remove a baby from his daughter" after Borat had "put the baby in her while giving her pleasure behind a dumpster". This causes the pastor to think that he wants an abortion caused by an incestuous pregnancy, but actually, Tutar simply accidentally swallowed a baby figurine that was on a cupcake. She ate it behind a dumpster because in the movie version of Kazakhstan, it's illegal for women to have treats.
• Over-the-Shoulder Carry: Borat, disguised as Donald Trump, carries Tutar this way when he tries to offer her to Mike Pence at the CPAC rally.
• Parental Incest: Subverted, as discussed above.
• Public Service Announcement: Due to releasing shortly before the 2020 US Presidential Election, the film ends with the message "Vote now, or you will be execute!"
• Recursive Canon: It's revealed that Borat's previous film, which is a real documentary in-universe, enjoyed the same box office success and cultural impact that it had in real life. When Borat browses for disguises in a costume shop, one of the outfits he sees, listed as "Stupid Foreign Reporter", is clearly based on Borat himself, with the model even mimicking Borat's signature thumbs up gesture.
• The Reveal: The SARS CoV-2 virus was manufactured by the Kazakhstani government as revenge for the world's treatment of them due to the original movie. Borat was infected with it and sent to spread it worldwide, thus starting the COVID-19 Pandemic. In fact, that was the true purpose of Borat's journey, hence why he's not punished for being unable to hook his daughter up with anyone in Trump's inner circle.
• Rule of Funny: The scene where Borat is revealed to have directly infected Tom Hanks in Australia with COVID-19 during his journey to the US doesn't exactly hold up with the movie's timeline, given that most of the prologue seems to happen in late 2019 (i.e. Borat introducing COVID to the Huanan Seafood Market) and a good chunk of the movie happens well before Hanks would have been infected (i.e. the scene with Mike Pence happened over a month prior to the virus being treated as a pandemic). But the scene is so audacious and the fact that Tom actually cameoed makes the scene work anyways.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Tutar starts out looking filthy, but after her makeover she turns out to be quite pretty. What's astounding is that she was trying to look like Dog The Bounty Hunter.
• Short Title: Long, Elaborate Subtitle: Similar to the first film, the title of this film also has this.
• Shout-Out: Near the end of the film, the information on Nazarbayev's wall allows Borat and Tutar to realise that Kazakhstan created the SARS CoV-2 virus and used them to spread it. This entire sequence, capped off with a slow-motion shot of Borat dropping his glass in shock, directly homages the famous twist ending of The Usual Suspects.
• Show Some Leg: Tutar Sagdiyev does this during a ball, as shown in the first trailer. She actually ends up showing a lot more than leg.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Surprisingly enough, despite taking place in arguably even darker times than the first Borat, this movie is more idealistic than it in many ways:
  • As stated in Lighter and Softer above, while Borat's journey initially is to just gift his daughter to Mike Pence/Rudy Guiliani, he slowly learns to respect her and become less misogynistic over the movie's runtime, in contrast to the original movie, where most of his companion interactions are the crass madcap shenanigans with Azamat, and his main goal throughout the whole movie is to just have sex with Pamela Anderson, which never changes. The best example of the differences in the two movies are their climaxes: in the first movie Borat assaults and attempts to abduct Anderson^note Although she was in on the joke due to his own attraction to her, whereas in the second Borat rushes in to save his daughter from (at least according to him) being sexually assaulted by Rudy Guiliani.
  • The second movie has more impactful kindhearted characters such as Jeanise the babysitter and the elderly Jewish women. While the first movie also had some kindhearted characters and/or ones fighting for justice such as the Jewish couple running the bed-and-breakfast, the feminists, and gay rights activists, most of them barring Luenell (who was already in on the joke) just end up getting pranked by Borat, with little to no impact on the plot.
  • Even the people being mocked or the butt of the jokes are nicer or more complex in the sequel; for example, compare the fine diners in the first movie disgusted with Luenell's mere presence, whereas in the second movie the people attending the ball all start jamming out to Borat's and Tutar's unorthodox dance and music, only becoming disgusted when it gets graphic. The rednecks who take Borat in, despite being fully hooked to conspiracies and despising Democrats, clearly recognize women's rights and don't care about Borat breaking their rules (with Baron Cohen in an interview even referring to them as genuinely good people corrupted by fake news); compare this to the highly misogynistic, seemingly irredeemable frat bros from the first movie.
  • The Pastor of the crisis pregnancy center was clearly meant to be seen as an anti-abortion nut. However he ultimately proves to be very calm and reasonable despite hearing something so outrageous and disgusting.
• Spiritual Successor: Largely out of necessity, the movie has a lot of similarities to one of Baron Cohen's other projects, Who Is America?, where he took on a variety of different unknown disguised personas to continue the shtick he started with Borat and Ali G. Footage of Baron Cohen as Borat as Country Steve singing the "China Virus song" made the news in June 2020 and was widely believed to be for a second season of Who Is America before Borat 2 was released. ^note In filming, Country Steve had a perfect American accent, which is more characteristic of Who Is America? than Borat. The final film dubs his singing with Borat badly attempting an American accent. Also, Country Steve resembles Billy Wayne Ruddick from the series.
• The Stoic: While working as a barber, Borat shows his customer pictures of one of his past jobs, which included cutting up animals and castrating sex offenders. His customer is decidedly unfazed.
• Take That!:
  • Because Borat himself is a Politically Incorrect Hero, the people and organisations that he admires, such as Donald Trump, the Republican Party and Saudi Arabia, are given blatantly backhanded compliments throughout the film.
  • A minor plot point revolves around Facebook and its reluctance to combat conspiracy theories, something that Sacha Baron Cohen has frequently criticised them for. During an argument with her father, Tutar reveals that she's started reading the platform, and has "learned" that the Holocaust never happened. Borat is shocked and disgusted that someone would claim the Holocaust wasn't real, because its one of the proudest moments in Kazakh history.
  • The beginning of the movie has a content warning about Blackface. Just a few minutes later, Borat throws a prominent jab at Canadian PM Justin Trudeau by showing the infamous picture of him in blackface at a costume party. Making this jab more pointed is that the Trudeau image is the only actual case of blackface throughout the whole movie.
  • In the ending after Kazakhstan becomes a "feminist nation" they start shipping mail-order grooms. One such order is a truckload of young boys being sent to one K. Spacey.
• Took a Level in Kindness: The more time Borat spends with Tutar (who he has never really known due to spending most of her life in The Gulag) the less sexist he becomes.
• Translation Convention: A variation: most of the time, Borat and Tutar speak to each other in "Kazakh" (itself rendered with Hebrew (Borat) and Bulgarian (Tutar). However, there are a few occasions where they speak English to each other, which can be jarring but is specifically so that real-world bystanders understand what they're saying and react appropriately.
• Typhoid Mary: Borat was unknowingly infected by COVID-19, as masterminded by the Kazakhstani government, and sent to spread it worldwide.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: As in the original film, the people who appear (and aren't in on the joke) often don't bat an eye at Borat's insanity, such as locking his teenage daughter in a crate, receiving a fax of a man's genitals, or requesting a cake with the words "Jews will not replace us" on it.
• Vagina Dentata: People in Kazakhstan think that women who try to masturbate will be eaten by their own vaginas.
• What Is This Feeling?: After seeing the baby doll Tutar made in his likeness, Borat finally begins to feel regretful and heartsick for pimping out his own daughter to Giuliani. Not used to having sympathy for a woman, he can only describe it as "a pain in my titties".
• Wig, Dress, Accent: Borat dons several disguises throughout the film because people recognize him (mostly in more populated areas) and Sacha Baron Cohen exposing himself, even as the fictional character of Borat, would ruin the act. Two of them stand out a bit more: his Donald Trump disguise falls under Latex Perfection, while his "Jew" disguise is a Paper-Thin Disguise.
• Wild Child: In her father's absence, Tutar has been chained up in the stables by her new dad, Nursultan Tulyakbay, for over a decade, leaving her filthy, disheveled, unmarried... and yet with more or less the same social skills as Borat. She was also able to overpower Johnny the Monkey, a fully-grown chimpanzee, and partially devour him during the boat ride to America.

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