14 years have passed since the first Borat movie came out, and while a lot of people still recognize Sacha Baron Cohen’s mustachioed Kazakh character, Borat 2, a.k.a. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, proved there are still plenty of folks who could still be caught unaware by him. Among those folks were professional babysitter Jeanise Jones, who was drawn into the sequel when she was hired to look after Borat’s daughter, Tutar, played by Maria Bakalova.
Now that Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is available for the masses to watch on Amazon Prime Video, Jeanise Jones has spoken publicly about how she feels she was duped by the filmmaking team considering that Tutar was not, in fact, a soon-to-be underage bride. Well, plenty of people are now coming to Jones’ support thanks to a GoFundMe page set up by her pastor, Derrick Scobey.
As of this writing, over $92,000 has been raised for Jeanise Jones. As Derrick Scobey lays out, Jones was recruited from their church after the Borat Subsequent Moviefilm producers approached him about needing a “Black Grandmother” for a small role in a “documentary.” Jones had no idea that she was taking part in a comedy, and as such, she spent approximately a year worrying about Tutar.
Because Jeanise Jones was only paid around $3,600 for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (which ended up going to streaming this month rather than premiering in theaters overseas in November, as she was told), and because she’s currently unemployed due to the pandemic, Derrick Scobey put together the GoFundMe as a way to help her out, describing her as “a moral compass and a light shining in darkness” in the new Borat movie. As you’ll see, people have turned out in droves to provide financial aid.
During a recent interview with The New York Post, Jeanise Jones summarized how she felt about her involvement with Borat Subsequent Movie, specifically how it related to Maria Bakalova’s Tutar, with the following words:
I’m feeling like she’s from the Third World and that kind of stuff does happen where they sell women. I’m thinking this is for real so I felt kind of betrayed by it.
Led to believe that Tutar was around 14 or 15 years old, Jeanise Jones spent a lot of her time in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm telling Tutar that she didn’t need things like plastic surgery to get married, and that unlike what her father told her, she could use her brain. Once the sequel finished filming, Jones was worried about Tutar’s well being and asked the other congregants at her church to pray for her. As Jones put it:
We were concerned. We were up there praying for her and asking God to help her and we were doing what we thought was the Christian thing to do.
While Borat Subsequent Moviefilm has been met with largely positive reviews and was reportedly viewed by tens of millions of people in its first weekend, naturally, like its predecessor, the sequel is surrounded by controversy, and that’s not even including what happened to Jeanise Jones. Along with Rudy Giuliani’s appearance in the movie getting significant attention, a lawsuit was recently filed against the creators, but subsequently dismissed, by the estate of Judith Dim Evans, a Holocaust survivor Borat spoke with who passed away between filming and the movie’s release. Cohen revealed who he really was to Evans after speaking with her as a sign of respect.
Don’t forget to read CinemaBlend’s review of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and keep checking back for more news about the sequel. You can learn what movies are supposed to come out next year in our 2021 release schedule.
