More than a few times during a recent screening of Borat in New York, one audience member found herself laughing, but catching herself, she would say “no” and cover her mouth as if she had acted in a socially inappropriate manner. When you watch Borat, you may also catch yourself laughing as the title character crosses from somewhat poor taste into downright vulgar. Like the audience member at the screening, you may want to fight your urge to laugh. Don't. Go with it. The movie is in bad taste, but it's also 100 percent, grade-A funny.

Everything Borat does in the movie comes from such a strong comic ignorance that no one can mistake Borat for being anything other than the village idiot. He drinks out of a toilet bowl. He carries a live chicken around in his suitcase. He thinks there are no Jews in New York City.

These are the mild jokes. There are other, harsher jokes. No one is spared in this movie. His sister, he is proud to proclaim, is the No. 4 prostitute in his home country of Kazakhstan. She holds up her trophy to prove it.

We gays aren't spared either. He prepares for his trip to America by obtaining gypsy pills that will protect him from AIDS. After he spends the night with a few men after having met them at a Gay Pride parade in Washington, D.C., he says in shock to a conservative Republican, “Are you trying to tell me that men who tried to put rubber fist in anus is homosexual?”

There are other scenes like this, including one involving his fat producer, which can only be seen to be believed. Like many of the audience in attendance, you may find yourself laughing and thinking, “Wow, they didn't just go there, did they?” But that's the nature of this film — everything is fair game for ridicule, and nothing is sacred. Gays, women, African Americans, Christians, Southerners, fraternity boys, Pam Anderson and many others are subjected to Borat's special kind of treatment.

This is not all that surprising, because we have seen similar characters before. Borat, like Archie Bunker on All in the Family or Michael on The Office, is a great character because he reflects the intolerant part of our society. He reflects part of life that we may want to sweep under the rug, but that is nevertheless, especially to gay people, all too familiar: having to deal with the idiot who holds offensive views.

The truly funny thing about the “rubber fist in anus” scene is that he performs all these sexual acts with gay men, but he does not perceive of them as gay. The irony, of course, is that when people think of gay men, they only think of sex. Borat, being clueless, never figures out they are gay until it is pointed out to him.

The film works best if you think of it as social satire. All the groups being skewered, in a sense, are skewering those who seemingly do not know better. How can you take Borat seriously when this is a man who poops in a bag and brings it to the dinner table because he doesn't know proper etiquette? Borat exposes us to the intolerances in our society, and because he makes us laugh at him, he gets away with it, whereas a thousand speeches on intolerance would not.

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