Kazakhstan rocks!
Posted on 08/05/2006 4:52:49 PM PDT by Pokey78
JAGSHEMASH, America! Sacha Baron Cohen, the Cambridge-educated comedian who gave the world Ali G, the idiotic, tracksuited rapper from the West Staines Massive, is about to test America’s sense of humour to the limit.
Baron Cohen has finished shooting his new film, which centres on a crazed journey across America in an ice-cream van by his moustachioed character Borat Sagdiyev, a fictional Kazakh television reporter with the meaningless catchphrase.
While some of the film is scripted, much of it sees Baron Cohen, 34, mercilessly baiting luckless Americans who fail to twig that he and his film crew are actors.
Insiders report that police were called more than 50 times during filming by angry and alarmed victims, while some ordinary Americans tricked into taking part have branded Baron Cohen “disgraceful”.
Baron Cohen has already developed a strong following in America — his Ali G show, which also features Borat, became a hit on the television channel HBO and was nominated for three Emmy awards last year.
The new film, entitled Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, purports to be a government information broadcast made by the main character, a rabidly sexist anti-semite.
The film does not open until November and changes may still be made, but last Friday night a preview was shown in Traverse City, Michigan. The audience was amused although some found it shocking. Jamie Ross, 47, a lawyer, said: “I don’t know what kind of comedy you’d call that, it goes beyond slapstick.”
A local reviewer noted: “It makes fun of just about every subculture of America: blacks, gays, women, Jews, cowboys, Christians, college boys, no one is spared.”
Baron Cohen has attracted a stream of complaints from Kazakh diplomats because of Borat. He reduced the audience at an MTV awards ceremony to silence and boos after greeting them with: “Good evening, gentlemen and prostitutes.”
In the film — during which the main character becomes overwhelmed by a desire to marry Pamela Anderson, the former Baywatch star — Borat goes to buy a car and asks a dealer whether a Humvee would be suitable for running over gypsies.
In another scene Borat insists on driving to California, instead of flying, “in case the Jews repeat their attack of 9/11”. In another scene, Baron Cohen, who is himself Jewish, is shown spitting out food given to him by the Jewish owners of a bed-and-breakfast because he believes it may be poisoned. He tells Alan Keyes, a black presidential candidate, he has a “chocolate face”.
While Kazakhstan may be the butt of Borat’s jokes, his interviewees often come off even worse, lured into betraying extreme or idiotic views. In one scene Borat is at a rodeo discussing homosexuals with an older man in rancher-style clothes, and says: “They hang ’em in our country.” The man replies: “That’s what we’re trying to do here.”
At another point, Baron Cohen, naked in a hotel room, catches the fat actor playing his producer, also nude, looking at a magazine containing pictures of Anderson. A wrestling contest ensues, with the fat producer sitting on Baron Cohen’s face.
Matt Dentler, producer of the South By South West film festival, who has seen an early version of the film, said: “This naked hairy male chase ends up coming into a giant marketing convention with 200 suited and tied people, screaming ‘call the cops’ and throwing them to the ground.”
While the Borat film was being made, George Matthews Marshall from Natchez, Mississippi, was tricked into holding a dinner party for Borat and a large black prostitute.
Marshall said that, while Borat was fondling the woman, the comedian tried to lure him into making pro-slavery and anti-Jewish comments.
Marshall, 76, whose family have lived in his house since before the civil war, said Baron Cohen’s behaviour was “disgraceful” and “disgusting”, adding he had been led to believe Borat was the host of a serious cultural programme.
“He intimated we might have favoured slavery . . . we were horrified,” said Marshall.
Last week an official at the Kazakh embassy in London confirmed he was aware of Borat but declined to comment.
Additional reporting: Jane Boursaw, Traverse City
Celebrate diversity! Oh, and don't forget to thank the entertainment industry for their hard work...
Like many recent articles from formerly respectable British newspapers, this is inane and written in lower class slang.
I guess this article appeared in their version of the "Style" section of the paper.
look what michael moore hath spawned.
This guy can be forgiven a lot because of his funny performance in "Talladega Nights" as a French homo NASCAR driver.
To me nothing is less entertaining than this sort of "comedy" from Cohen or the Jerky Boys where you take ordinary working people and you viciously and sadistically f*** with them for the enjoyment of the audience.
Celebrity-prank shows like Punk'd are one thing, but watching millionaires ridicule actual working people making $30K a year is about as funny as leukemia.
Borat rocks. I can't wait.
Come on. It IS funny. His satirical over the top style does in fact lampoon all kinds of cultural stereotypes. If we can't laugh at ourselves...who can we laugh at??
Borat is hilarious, and so is Ali G. I love how he ridicules the lame rap subculture that champions drugs, under-achieving and a total lack of morals.
Might be funny, I'll have to check it out when it hits HBO.
I don't get the point of this paragraph.
Kazakhstan rocks!
He gets the unwitting old man to basically say he's trying to hang gays.
"Celebrity-prank shows like Punk'd are one thing, but watching millionaires ridicule actual working people making $30K a year is about as funny as leukemia."
Well said, this is the decadence of the Hollyweird elite, pathetic
I don't know. Sam Kinison could pull this off and be hilarious. This guy doesn't do it for me.
http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2004/08/in_my_country_t_1.html
Heeeeeeeere's Borat!!!
;-)
The Ali G character is rarely funny to me, but Borat is often very funny!
He makes fun of jihadists, anti-semites, and the ordinary people who coddle them. Few people reading this article think he would be funny, but I bet 8/10 here would laugh out loud actually seeing it.
In one skit, he is doing an artsy shared dance experience with hippies in San Francisco -- a touchy-feely I'm OK, You're OK atmosphere. How OK is a jihadist bigot in their midst? Hilarity ensues, as the hippies get a wakeup call that not every ideology and culture is equally good.
Each participant is asked to do a simple crayon drawing expressing their feelings or an emotional time in their life. They take turns explaining their drawings as everyone in the room offers praise and validation of their feelings.
Then Borat's turn. He has drawn a picture of soldiers machine gunning crying villagers. The hippies offer condolescences -- "was that your village you grew up in, I'm so sorry".
He says emphatically with a straight face, something like -- "No this is the greatest day for my people, the proud victory of our soldiers over our enemies from the village of kazak"
Look on the hippies faces -- priceless.
In my opinion Borat isn't just humor, but a also an experiment to see how ordinary people react when confronted with evil ideologies. The show is interesting partly because you are curious how various types of people will react. Do they coddle it, ignore it, support it, confront it? Sometimes what happens is surprising.
neh-ver heard of 'im
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