Kazakhstan, Reversing Itself, Embraces ‘Borat’ as Nice
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Our own political correctness keeps people from asking if he’s a joke - instead “kindly” following along into the madness. The racism comes from the average persons ability to believe the he is a real person - a crazy foreigner - rather than a parody. Taking him seriously requires that you believe people like him exists. People who absolutely would have never looked Kazakhstan up to see if it actually existed or not. Borat is a projection of racism in order to mock the worldview of Americans - and it works fantastically. The fact that he mostly focuses on otherwise kind/quiet people “going along with it” is the entire message.
IIRC Ali G was originally filmed in Britain and the same sorts of antics were pulled off easily... I don’t think “going along to get along” is unique to Americans, although as a multicultural country I am sure we have a bit more than average.
Ali G is the same way - you'd have to think street kids are absolutely insane if you can look at Ali G and try to keep a straight face. To take Ali G seriously is the same as admitting you have no idea whatsoever what the youth culture looks like.
I wish this was encouraged more, but unfortunately our society is moving in the opposite direction. Speaking up gets you labeled as a malcontent, at best, unless it’s of the “50 Stalins”[1] variety of critique.
https://sanerthanlasagna.wordpress.com/2016/02/01/50-stalins...
Source: My partner is Kazakh.
The one redeeming quality the movie had was that it usually got its laughs from people's reactions to Borat, not from Borat actually being a dumb foreigner.
This isn't reddit. You don't need to defend your opinion.
All this stuff about offending people with jokes just boils down to how much drama and trouble you can create by bullying the creators and whether or not the ideologues in the media will amplify your message.
In the west, particularly in the USA, there's a weird assumption that "protected classes" extend to jokes too. Jerry Seinfeld highlighted this absurdity with the "anti-dentite" episode. Since profession is not a "protected class" joking about it is ok. This makes no sense because it's entirely possible a dentist or programmer would not feel good about being stereotyped, and so it has nothing to do with being sensitive or anything like that, it's just an illusion that these specific groupings are not allowed but all other groupings are allowed.
I think the world would be a much better place if we all learned to laugh at each other, and ourselves. This selective cancellation and different rules for Borat and Apu are just exposing the absurdity of this type of thinking.
You can and such disparaging stereotypes are rather common.
These are not very similar.
Cohen writes: "I chose Kazakhstan because it was a place that almost nobody in the U.S. knew anything about, which allowed us to create a wild, comedic, fake world." Why not just make up a fake country then? Why disparage real people for no reason.
The article seems terrible to me. They're talking about one American immigrant and his friend who have decided to make an ad campaign out of the film. I can't imagine how they think that's representative of the thoughts of the nation.
Because there will always be some geography buffs who will be able to name the countries of the world, even if they don't actually know anything about the cultures therein. Make up a fake country in a fake place in the world, and someone is more likely to unmask you than if you said you were from a country whose name and vague location is known, like Kazakhstan.
During Da Ali G Show, people would be told it was a BBC production, or given the name of a production company, and everything would be set up and the interview subject ready to go before Cohen would enter the room. The point was to make it difficult for the subject to just get up and walk away.
Well said. By the way, before Borat, Cohen had a character called "Christo" who was Albanian [1]. It was the exact same character as Borat. But the word is that Albanian gangs, which are plentiful in London, have threatened him so he dropped the Albanian origin and switched it to Kazakhstan. Had Kazakhstan had some gangs in UK, he would have picked some other country to disparage.
[1] https://www.indiewire.com/2014/07/before-borat-there-was-chr...
Choosing a country with -stan ending certainly seems like it would play into the decision. Americans, and many politicians, regularly speak about such places as if they’re entirely inhabited by subhumans. Then Borat comes along and the average person seems to ignorant to know the joke is on them.
Borat skits seem to be him pretending to be a foreigner and being dumb and obnoxious while his subject looks increasingly uncomfortable. There is no layered irony or subtlety for the most part - it's just the low brow humor of being dumb and awkward to make someone else feel dumb and awkward.
Surprised NY Times ran with it, but It’s something that I’ve noticed in emerging markets which are more inaccessible— those can speak English can take outsiders for quite the ride.
I’m an expat as well but the level of entitlement of some expats in these countries does disgust me.
As for the claim that Borat is "nearly the most racist movie in history," that shows the author's ignorance of film history and the thousands of very racist films that have been made worldwide. One could argue that Borat is racist, and there would be plenty of points to debate, but there are many many more racist movies in American film history (Birth of a Nation, Song of the South, the entire blaxploitation genre) - not to mention plenty of racist non-American films.
Some nifty political acrobatics has happened over last few years, and the clan of ex-President is now dead, and buried without a single shot fired, hence the easing, if not an encouragement.
Some times, the reality beats fiction... even if one don't want it to.