NOVEMBER 5 • 2020 | 33

MAYBE ANOTHER LORRE 
CLASSIC; ROCK & ROLL 
HEBREWS; KID STUFF
The comedy/drama series B 
Positive premieres on CBS 
Nov. 5 (8:30 p.m.). Drew 
(Thomas Middleditch) is 
a therapist and the newly 
divorced father of a 12-year-
old daughter. He needs a 
kidney transplant, and he 
finds a match in Gina, a past 
acquaintance. Sara Rue, 
41, co-stars as Julia, Drew’s 
ex-wife. You might remember 
Rue as the star of the sit-
com Less than Perfect. She 
was born Sara Schlackman 
(“Rue” is her mother’s maid-
en name). 
Appearing in recurring 
roles are Bernie Kopell, 87, 
and Linda Lavin, 82. Both 
play residents of an assist-
ed living facility where Gina 

works. Lavin plays Norma, 
a woman who came out as 
a lesbian after the death of 
her husband. Lavin is most 
famous as the star of the 
1970s sitcom Alice. 
Koppel is best known for 
playing Dr. Adam Bricker, 
the ship’s doctor, on the hit 
program The Love Boat. 
Lavin and Koppel had recur-
ring roles in early seasons 
of Mom, the hit CBS sit-
com. Mom begins its eighth 
season after the B Positive 
premiere. Both shows were 
created by Chuck Lorre, 68, 
the man behind a slew of 
hits, including The Big Bang 
Theory.
HBO will first stream a 
video of the 2020 induction 
ceremony into the Rock and 
Roll Hall of Fame Nov. 7 (8 
p.m.). The band Nine Inch 
Nails is being inducted. Ilan 
Rubin, 32, who has been 
the group’s drummer since 
2009, is being inducted as a 
band member. Rubin was a 
child musical prodigy, show-

ing great talent at age 8. 
Also inducted as a per-
former is Marc Bolan (1947-
77). Bolan, born Marc Feld, 
was the son of working-class 
English parents. His father 
was Jewish; his mother was 
not. Marc spent much of his 
teen years hanging out at a 
community club for Jewish 
young people. He’s credited 
as a father of the “glam-rock” 
look and sound. He was the 
lead singer and songwriter 
for the group T-Rex (“Bang a 
Gong, Get It On”). Bolan died 
in a car accident. He had a 

Jewish funeral and is buried 
in a Jewish cemetery. 
Non-performers are 
inducted into the Hall via the 
Ahmet Ertegun Award for 
Lifetime Achievement. The 
two Ertegun award winners 
this year are Jewish: Jon 
Landau, 71, and Irving Azoff, 
72. Landau is most famous 
as the producer of many 
Bruce Springsteen albums, 
including Born to Run. Azoff 
is a leading record company 
and concert ticket company 
executive. 
The Mighty Ones is a 
child-friendly animated 
series that begins stream-
ing on Hulu and Peacock 
TV on Nov. 9. It follows 
the fun adventures of a 
group of creatures: a rock, 
a strawberry, a stick and a 
leaf. Self-named the Mighty 
Ones, they live in a backyard 
belonging to three people 
whom they mistake for gods. 
Josh Brener, 36 (Silicon 
Valley), voices one of the 
Mighty Ones. 

ARTS&LIFE
CELEBRITY JEWS

NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST

PAMELA LITTKY/2020 WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC.

A still from 

B Positive

I

n Borat Subsequent Moviefilm 
(now streaming on Amazon 
Prime), the high-fiving fake 
Kazakh journalist successful-
ly gets a bakery to decorate 
a cake with “Jews Will Not 
Replace Us” and goads a plas-
tic surgeon into mimicking a 
caricature of a Jewish nose. In 
a recent talk show appearance, 
he also insists the coronavirus 
was created in a lab in Israel.
Jewish comedian Sacha 
Baron Cohen has been playing 
Borat on and off for more than 
two decades, first on TV and 
then in movies. Even more 
than rampant misogyny and 

general buffoonery, antisem-
itism has been central to the 
character’
s identity — even 
though Cohen speaks fluent 
Hebrew (that’
s usually the lan-
guage he uses when mimicking 
Borat’
s “Kazakh” tongue). 
When the original 2006 
Borat movie became a huge hit, 
the Anti-Defamation League 
criticized Cohen, saying that 
many viewers wouldn’
t get that 
he was making fun of bigots 
instead of encouraging them. 
That concern takes on new 
layers in the age of “fake news” 
and social media bubbles. 
Much of the new movie 
focuses on Borat’
s efforts to 

offer his “daughter,” Tutar 
(played by Bulgarian actress 
Maria Bakalova), as a bride to 
various members of President 
Trump’
s inner circle — includ-
ing, in one deeply uncomfort-
able scene, Rudy Giuliani. But 
Cohen also allows plenty of 
time for Borat’
s antisemitism. 
In the film’
s craziest scene, a 
depressed Borat enters a syna-
gogue “to await the next mass 
shooting;” he’
s “disguised as a 
Jew,” with a hook nose, devil 
horns and “puppetmaster” 
strings. 
One of the Jews he meets 
there is Judith Dim Evans, a 
Holocaust survivor. She con-

fronts him about his bigotry: 
“Look at me. I am a Jew,” she 
says. “The Holocaust hap-
pened.” Borat weeps; they 
embrace. It’
s a moment that 
finds tenderness in the absurd. 
Cohen dedicates the film to 
Evans (she died after the scene 
was shot). He has also made 
up with the ADL: The actor 
is now an outspoken advocate 
of the Stop Hate for Profit 
campaign to limit the spread 
of misinformation and hate 
speech on social media. 
But there may be no better 
illustration of the confusing 
role Borat plays in society 
than what followed: Evans’
 
daughter sued Cohen and the 
film’
s producers, alleging they 
coerced her mother to partici-
pate in a film that “mock[s] the 
Holocaust and Jewish culture.” 
This lends credence to ADL’
s 
original concern that many 
people won’
t get the joke. 
Regardless of where Borat’
s 
morals lie, his new movie is 
full of his signature: deeply 
uncomfortable laughs. 

AMAZON STU-

ANDREW LAPIN EDITOR

‘Borat’ Returns, 
Along with His 
Antisemitism

ARTS&LIFE
MOVIE REVIEW