Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan!

Re: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhst

You do know he is actually Jewish. I would have thought the name Sacha Baron Cohen was a bit of a give away.

 

Re: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhst

Its a really funny movie. The thing is, he pretends to make fun of Kazakhstan but he actually shows alot of things which are amusing (but sometimes disturbing) about other cultures. Anyone who saw the behaviour of the frat students in the film, or the dude at the rodeo show, will know where i'm coming from.

 

Re: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhst

Haven't seen it yet, but from what I understand he is making fun of ignorance and alot of it is at the expense of Americans. Pretty good for a British Jew.

I look forward to seeing it because it looks pretty damn funny.

 

While I think Cohen is incredibly funny, I'm uncomfortable with some of his jokes, particularly with this Borat character. He crosses the line of bad taste! I'd rather watch this on DVD so I'm not stuck with Borat for 90 minutes.

If I were a Kazakh, I probably would be highly insulted, but I reject the comparison with anti-Semitism or racism. There are no anti-Kazakh prejudices to stir up in the West. Kazakhstan is used because most people in the West have a vague awareness that it's a real country, but little more.

 

http://www.slate.com/id/2152789/?nav=tap3

 

The movie satirizes some of the worst characteristics of Americans. If I were a Kazakh, I would be howling with laughter at the hypocritical, misogynst, fat Americans.

 

Indeed. Kazhakstan has little to concern itself about this movie.

That said, Baron Cohen is a bit old hat. Borat is just another flavour of Ali G. The MO is to take silly, pompous or ignorant people and make them unwittingly commit various gaffes on camera. The Baron Cohen character (whatever flavour) is just the catalyst.

Chris Morris does it a lot better.

That said, the line about " in America, women can vote, but horses cannot - what is the meaning of this?" is pretty funny.

 

It's hillarious. Too much is made of this....its freaking shtick for crying out loud.

All credit to Cohen.

 

Kazakhstan is a modern country. It has a tremendous wealth due to its natural resources. It is also very divese. The country is 25% Russian, it also has Ukranian, Volga German, Korean, Uighur, Tatar, Uzbek, Polish and Romanian minorities. It has made Russian an official language and has not been the reactionary place Uzbekistan has been. Similarly it has not created the personality cult Turkmenistan has. Borat should have been Turkmen, because for one the country would never have found out he mocked them, foreign media is so heavily censored. Also the stange antics of Turkmenbashi fit in much better with Borat's bigoted interpretations than do the reality of multi-cultural pluralistic Kazakhstan!!

 

Re: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhst

Dude, seriously, who cares about the dissimilarity between Borat and real Kazakhs? Is anyone actually stooopid enough to believe that all Kazakhs are a certain way simply because they saw a comedy show? As i said, Borat is simply a device to show up cultural wierdness in all cultures, not just the (fictitious) Kazakh culture.

The Kazakhs should simply have laughed this off. Instead they issued vigorous denials, going on a "charm offensive" in the US and treating Borat seriously. This just gave "Borat" the opportunity to make them look silly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MflQLADej9A

 

Re: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhst

I have to say that it is unfortunately that he chose a real nation to generate this charachter. He could have just made a nation off.

 

Re: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhst

Have you seen the Ali G show (which has Borat segments)? I'm not sure it would work with a fictitious country.

 

Re: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhst

Any Kazakh who comes to America (and many other countries) will be met with giggles and questions about the movie. I'm sure it will be, at the very least, highly annoying.

 

To this day, I still tear up with the thought of Kate Winslet losing Leonardo diCaprio in the cold North Atlantic; theirs was such a perfect love and it was so cruel that they were denied.

I met her about a year ago and sympathezied; she seemed remarkably strong because she looked very confused with my tender expression of sympathy. Still, I just know she had to be hurting very deeply on the inside. Such a brave girl. Bless.

 

You could do a lot better than this

Maybe not.

 

Who are you talking to with the line, "nice way to start making new friends?" The comic who plays Borat? Or are you saying that the US should have censored the movie?

 

I thought he meant Jews

 

Re: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhst

I don't know if that matters, at least not around me where most of the Borat fans didn't even know it was a real country to begin with.

And the people that become more susceptible to this kind of false truth because of their lack of knowledge couldn't be helped anyways so theres really no reason to get all worked up about it.

 

Re: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhst

That's a good point, I figure most people who know it's actually a real country probably know that it's not as depicted in the movie anyway

 

Borat to Bruno

Who's going to be more upset about his next movie? Gays, Austrians or fashion designers?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW8_cz-6qro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7uvs5sweio&NR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16lkQ0BkZoo

 

Well it was usually the American movies which used ignorance about other countries now Europeans are catching up... For example almost every single person that I have met who has seen the movie hostel told me he would think, rethink and double rethink going anywhere near Eastern Europe after seeing that movie!

similar reactions to movies like Euro trip, Team America, Finding comedy in Muslim world (or something like that, especially this one has this approach that tries to show how misunderstood Muslim world is but funny enough even the part shown as reality of the Muslim world suffers from pure ignorance!!)...

Most Americans or Europeans who are not affected by such things can easily wave this by saying "oh come on lighten up it is just a joke" or "it is just a movie"... BUT they don't see how ppl take movies as the whole truth!... in the past it was historical movies that suffered from this issue by showing historically inaccurate events and character attributes but now it is taking over the whole entertainment industry... the problem begins with majority of the target population being super ignorant about most other cultures.. so basically anything you show they will take as reality!

 

I'm struggling to see how anyone could take Borat that seriously. I sypmathize with Kazakhs because I think they'll be teased about the movie for years.