A weekend screening of Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat” was canceled after activists complained the film was racist. According to a report from World of Reel, Vidiots was set to host the 2006 film with producer Monica Levinson in attendance, with a packed house expected. Then the event vanished from the venue’s website without an announcement or a postponement notice.
“Before the screening was supposed to take place, I’m told there was some uproar over the film being shown,” World of Reel reported. “The complaints ranged from Cohen being a ‘Zionist’ to the character of Borat being a ‘racist’ caricature.” A person close to the situation told the outlet “the activists won.”
The cancellation lands just as Cohen is separately facing renewed accusations of racism tied to his upcoming Ali G film, scheduled for release in October. Critics of that project argue the Ali G character legitimizes anti-black stereotypes and are demanding theaters refuse to screen it.
What makes the Borat cancellation notable is Cohen’s own history of pushing to restrict speech he deems harmful. In past remarks, Cohen argued:
This is not about limiting anyone’s free speech. This is about giving people, including some of the most reprehensible people on earth, the biggest platform in history to reach a third of the planet. Freedom of speech is not freedom of reach. Sadly, there will always be racists, misogynists, anti-Semites, and child abusers. But I think we could all agree that we should not be giving bigots and pedophiles a free platform to amplify their views and target their victims.
That standard is now being turned back on him. If a movie or character can be labeled racist and stripped of its platform on those grounds alone, there’s nothing in Cohen’s own framework that protects Borat, or Ali G, from the same fate. He built the argument; activists are simply the ones applying it.
This is the core problem with any system that hands a third party the power to decide what counts as “racism” and then strip the offending speech of its reach. That power doesn’t stay pointed at the people who first advocated for it. Once the mechanism exists, anyone can invoke it against anyone, including the person who demanded it be built in the first place.
