I can't believe the same man responsible for the vile minstrel show that was Borat is so often lauded as some sort of progressive champion. I guess it's ok to be racist as long as the targets are Kazakhs and not Jews.

Borat wasn't the stereotype of a Kazakh. It was the stereotype of a stereotype of a Kazakh.

I thought it was a representation of our ignorance towards eastern culture. Even his opening lines are polish and nothing at all to do with Kazakh..

Playing on the west’s ignorance was the joke, and him convincingly reeling people in for interviews was the comedy. Not the character itself, the reaction to the character.

You're pretty dense if you think borat etc is unfiltered racism. Even people in kz see borat as high comedy. If you think anyone is offended by borat and etc then you yourself has unreasonably soft skin.

Your points are voided, in any cases.

My experience with this is very different. I used to know a few kazakh fellows and their views on Borat were resentful to say the least. They said Sacha Cohen is a universally hated figure in Kazakhstan, along with the Borat movie itself, to the point where a lot of people genuinely want him dead. I have no doubt some Kazakhstan citizens actually enjoy Borat but to generalize it as being seen as "high comedy" over there is a vast and incorrect exaggeration.

Yep. I know that your version is correct, as well. My only point is that there are several young kz thst are not offended by it. They just don't associate it with Kazakhstan, and take no offence. It's just like the red sonja movie or whatever with Schwarzenegger, in russia, they just think it's disconnected fun, and has nothing to do with Russia. But i agree sir

Why make personal attacks? You could have made the same points without calling him names.

Its not personal at all, sir. "You" and all the other aspects is the royal you, not at all anything personal against the good sir. "You" is just a wider you, do not worry about it. Thank you good sirs. We have no problems sirs.

If Borat is your version of high comedy then I feel sorry for you. That scene in the beginning where he calls his sister the highest ranked prostitute in the country really makes you instrospect. You can say Borat is some sort of modern Tocqueville but Tocqueville didn't spend the entire time pretending to be German and telling everyone about how they drink horse piss in Germany.

Kazakhs weren't the targets.

Yup, the controversial scenes in Borat's "home village" were actually shot in rural Romania. But I'm not sure that stereotyping poor, rural Romanians is any better.

Romanians, too, were not the target.

Neither Romanians nor Kazakhs were the but of the joke.

They were a vehicle to poke fun at ignorant westeners.

> Neither Romanians nor Kazakhs were the but of the joke.

How could one tell?

A few things

- Kazakh people (mostly) look nothing like Borat

- It was clearly (to me, a European) set in eastern Europe

- Cohen played on our ignorance to make us believe Rumania is Kazakhstan

- Everybody he encounters thereafter is American

- Cohen uses Borat to mock stereotypical American[0] behaviour

- I am aware just how much juvenile humour there was too

[0] applies to most places, but the film is set in America

That logic is not generally acceptable when it comes to ethnic and racial humour. I don't believe many Kazakhs felt good about it.

I doesn't matter. If I make a movie to make fun of german but the main character is jewish and greedy, that would raise a lot of eyebrows.

It does matter.

Jewish people portrayed as greedy is an existing stereotype with a sad history. There is no such existing stereotype for the people of Kazakhstan in the target audience of the movie.

Also, say what you mean. Raise eyebrows? So what. The last Star Wars movie raised some eyebrows. This thread already has enough people righteously missing points, so just say what you mean.

That's what makes it worst, the theme didn't even have anything to do with Kazakhs, they just threw in the low-effort stereotyping for comedic effect.

I think GP means to say that the target was our privileged ignorance.