In the course of a formal dinner with the owner, George Matthews Marshall IV, and his family, Borat disparaged Jews, gays and Yankees and inquired after his hosts' slaves. He was finally shown the door after he invited "a friend" -- an immodestly dressed black woman who showed up late, explaining that she "worked nights" -- and made as if to accompany her to the bathroom.
Probing prejudice is a motif for Baron Cohen, who is an observant Jew. In an episode broadcast on HBO last year, Borat's open-mic night performance at a Tucson bar inspired patrons to join in a chorus of "Throw the Jew down the well!"
The Marshalls were not so accommodating. When Marshall recounted the evening to his daughter Heather, a documentary filmmaker, she became outraged and called several news outlets to alert others to the hoax.
Matthew Labov, Baron Cohen's publicist, declined to comment on the incident. "We're not actively seeking any press," Labov said in response to a question about the Borat film. "If people are seeing him doing what he's doing, that's fine, but we're not going to comment on it."
Labov did acknowledge Baron Cohen's dilemma. "The more times the press writes about this thing, the more it lowers the veil of secrecy," he said.
In those instances when the veil has slipped during filming, Baron Cohen appears to have taken it in stride, gamely posing for pictures with fans who then have posted them on their Web logs. But when a Daily News photographer took a photograph of him with his fiancee, Isla Fisher, at the premiere party last week for her film The Wedding Crashers, he lunged for the photographer with what The Daily News called a "one-handed martial arts-style hold."
Robert Katz, a writer and producer who worked on "Ali G" segments in Britain, dismissed the notion that Baron Cohen's joke had worn out either in Britain or the US. "He just becomes better at what he does," he said.
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