I think the thing movies like Borat and Napoleon Dynamite have in common is that they become these momentous pop culture events that for a time have a heavily-engrained meaning but eventually fade off and disappear and become completely irrelevant. I guess fad is a good one-word term. I remember the experience of seeing both of these films in packed auditoriums and roaring with laughter along with everyone else... and then later, watching the same movie again on DVD after the hysteria had blown over and just scratching my head.
Now, years after the initial release of both - what relevancy do either have any longer? You still hear the occasional Borat reference ("very nice!") here and there but suffice it to say I feel that Sasha Cohen's finest hour has come and gone and I have my doubts that aside from people who heckle him for sport the guy who played Napoleon is likely fairly comfortable walking the streets and not being accosted like he probably was at the height of that movie's popularity.
I think the Simpsons did a marvellous job of addressing this whole phenomenon in that episode where Bart gets famous (the episode is actually called, IIRC, "Bart Gets Famous") with his "I didn't do it" catch phrase. There really is no science to how these things work... they just... catch on for a while... and then they're gone, and it's like it never happened, and even the people these things happen to just move on and don't really care.
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