it was very funny. and repulsive. and, somehow, sweet. that's the schtick: this guy is so sweet, seems so sincere (even when he's spouting hate against Jews and women), that people want to give him the benefit of the doubt. and then he pushes it to far over the edge of acceptability, people are forced to reject him anyway. the concept exploits people's tendency to think the best of people. on the other hand, some of those he talked to, egged on, are hateful motherfucks who deserve to be revealed for what they are and ostracized. my feeling is that most of the audience understood that borat's hate speech was a put-on, and they didn't take pleasure in the hate itself as much as in seeing people's discomfort.
whether it is socially a "good" thing or not is open to debate. the jewish couple in the film, they are so friendly and nice, it is obvious Cohen chose them for this reason. and the anti-semites and gay-bashers in the film talk like morons (the rodeo guy, the USC frat boys). it is thrilling to see old-world and new-world menaces bonding. and it would be difficult for anyone to cheer for those frat boys. and the confederate gift shop, borat literally trashes the place. ultimately, borat marries a black prostitute - the last person you'd expect a white supremacist to choose. and it's, in general, a good idea to expose the farce of pentacostal, cult-of-personality megachurches.
but for Kazakhs themselves, and the former soviet union in general, the character may come close to an anti-slavic minstrel show. everyone in the village seems insane and/or evil. they've got a "town rapist"! but two entire regions - eastern europe and central asia - would like to pretend that anti-semitism, racism, and misogyny are not their problem. now, at least, they are forced to talk about it. notice it doesn't matter that the scenes were shot in romania; if hollywood says this is kazakhstan, it's kazakhstan (romanian is the language heard in the village, as they went on the assumption that most people can't tell the difference between a romance language and a turkic one).
strangely enough, i'm taking a class right now on international education that has one woman from Romania (Ligia), and another from Kazakhstan (Svetlana). they sit next to each other. they are both experienced and published scholars of educational methods. but as Svetlana begins a story with "In Kazakhstan..." my mind wanders to borat. unless teenagers are less juvenile than me, these images are what an entire generation will picture every time someone mentions Kazakhstan.
But Svetlana mentioned the fetishized view of the West in her home country. she said that young, aspiring Kazakhs of previous decades wanted to shed the superstitions of the past in favor of Russian language and culture. and that now, the kids all want to shed the superstitions of the past in favor of American language and culture. they often have no real undersanding, just a general impression, which is - as she has discovered during her time at harvard and UCLA - often incorrect. that is the major theme of borat, and also describes americans' understanding of Kazakhstan. at the very least, many kids realize that Kazakhstan is not, in fact, the same as Afghanistan. or the same as russia. that's a point most geography classes fail to convey.
and a few (only a few) might absorb borat's lessons: that our first impression of foreign people is often incorrect. and america is as messed up a place as any.
whether it is socially a "good" thing or not is open to debate. the jewish couple in the film, they are so friendly and nice, it is obvious Cohen chose them for this reason. and the anti-semites and gay-bashers in the film talk like morons (the rodeo guy, the USC frat boys). it is thrilling to see old-world and new-world menaces bonding. and it would be difficult for anyone to cheer for those frat boys. and the confederate gift shop, borat literally trashes the place. ultimately, borat marries a black prostitute - the last person you'd expect a white supremacist to choose. and it's, in general, a good idea to expose the farce of pentacostal, cult-of-personality megachurches.
but for Kazakhs themselves, and the former soviet union in general, the character may come close to an anti-slavic minstrel show. everyone in the village seems insane and/or evil. they've got a "town rapist"! but two entire regions - eastern europe and central asia - would like to pretend that anti-semitism, racism, and misogyny are not their problem. now, at least, they are forced to talk about it. notice it doesn't matter that the scenes were shot in romania; if hollywood says this is kazakhstan, it's kazakhstan (romanian is the language heard in the village, as they went on the assumption that most people can't tell the difference between a romance language and a turkic one).
strangely enough, i'm taking a class right now on international education that has one woman from Romania (Ligia), and another from Kazakhstan (Svetlana). they sit next to each other. they are both experienced and published scholars of educational methods. but as Svetlana begins a story with "In Kazakhstan..." my mind wanders to borat. unless teenagers are less juvenile than me, these images are what an entire generation will picture every time someone mentions Kazakhstan.
But Svetlana mentioned the fetishized view of the West in her home country. she said that young, aspiring Kazakhs of previous decades wanted to shed the superstitions of the past in favor of Russian language and culture. and that now, the kids all want to shed the superstitions of the past in favor of American language and culture. they often have no real undersanding, just a general impression, which is - as she has discovered during her time at harvard and UCLA - often incorrect. that is the major theme of borat, and also describes americans' understanding of Kazakhstan. at the very least, many kids realize that Kazakhstan is not, in fact, the same as Afghanistan. or the same as russia. that's a point most geography classes fail to convey.
and a few (only a few) might absorb borat's lessons: that our first impression of foreign people is often incorrect. and america is as messed up a place as any.
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