Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan has been in the news an awful lot recently, and it isn't because it is a feel-good family flick you could take your kids to. Far from it. It is because it is a hilarious movie that is very crude at times, and is purported to give a not-so-pleasant view of Americans in their "natural habitat."

Now, I'm not endorsing the movie. It was funny — very funny; I laughed my guts out. But all the while I felt ashamed doing so. When the movie ended, most members of the audience just sat there as the credits rolled, trying to process what it was they had just seen. Very slowly they all stood, some with eyes wide and other chuckling to themselves, but all clearly both uncomfortable and thoroughly entertained.

If you like a clever comedy and are prepared to laugh hysterically then wash your eyes out with bleach when you get home, then Borat is right up your alley.

What distinguishes Borat from all the other vulgar dime-a-dozen explicit comedies out there is its supposed exposé showing Americans as they really are. HBO spokesman Quentin Schaffer has been quoted as saying, "Through [Sacha Baron Cohen's] alter-egos, he delivers an obvious satire that exposes people's ignorance and prejudice. . ." Entertainment Weekly adds, ". . . the people Borat talks to become the symbolic heart of America — a place where intolerance is worn, increasingly with pride."

I think in order to make statements like this, one has to overlook an awful lot of genuine American goodness that was demonstrated in the film.

To be sure, Cohen, who plays Borat –— the character the movie is centered around — came upon a few rude people.

Borat was given a ride by drunken frat boys, for example, who said among other things that they wished slavery still existed and that racial minorities get all the breaks. At a rodeo he talked with one cowboy who discussed Muslims in a very racist manner. Interviewing some feminists he mentioned that his country's scientists have proven that women's brains are the size of squirrel brains (the feminists walked off mid-interview).

But what I believe has been overlooked by any who approach this movie with the idea of placing the spectacle of ridicule upon Americans are the numerous instances of Americans treating Borat kindly and with understanding, without falling for Cohen's specific attempts to bring out racism and bigotry in them.

For instance, there was the time Borat was invited to a rich dinner party — on Secession Drive, no less. He was treated amicably and with understanding, despite calling a pastor's wife ugly and bringing a plastic bag of feces to the table. It wasn't until Borat invited a scantily-clad prostitute into their home that the hosts kicked him out, but up until then they did their best to try to understand this strange foreigner and treat him well.

There was another scene when Cohen took driving lessons from an instructor and did his best to goad the instructor into saying something bigoted. When Borat kissed the instructor, the instructor simply shrugged and said that he wasn't used to it, but that it was ok. Borat, while driving, began to talk about his view of women and the instructor was so horrified that he had to say that women have a right to choose the person with whom they have sex (to Borat's utter shock and dismay, of course).

When invited onto a local news station for an interview, Cohen frustrated the station with his inability to understand the procedure and his constant interruption of the weather broadcast, but instead of getting angry, throwing racial slurs and kicking him out (as the producers had hoped would happen, no doubt), the crew laughed hysterically and continued the interview for a good while before he left.

One of the most uncomfortable scenes for me was when Cohen arrived at an evangelical church near the end of the film. The movie then went on for a long while just filming the church members running around like they were on fire, praying in tongues, shouting from the pulpit and acting rather silly — all timed, of course, with comic looks of confusion and wonder from Borat.

As a Christian myself, I had to cringe and ask, "Is this really how the world sees us?"

But what I did notice through this entire exchange was how kindly the Christians in that church treated the awkward foreigner.

What many reviewers have failed to acknowledge is that Borat is a film with an agenda, and it has been edited to further this agenda. How many interviews did Cohen do that never made it into the film? How many of them were completely harmless and therefore un-funny, which is why they got the cut?

I think the myriad of reviews that have painted Americans as bigots, sexists and altogether simple, hateful folk are not indicative of the egregious behavior of Americans, but rather indicative of the self-deprecating "blame America first" attitude of those who have written them.

Columnist Brandon Dennis: brandondennis@thedaily.washington.edu