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Travel Inspiration

Borat - the real Kazakh

By Roadjunky, Posted Nov 10, 2006

borat kazakhstan

It's nice!

Jewish-British comedian’s invention Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat is the most interesting satirical statement since Jon Stewart’s faux-political Daily Show.

Jewish-British comedian’s invention Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat is the most interesting satirical statement since Jon Stewart’s faux-political Daily Show. For those of you on Mars or way out in the Amazon, Cohen’s character Borat is a Kazakh journalist with a bad suit, catchy bad English, and quirky cultural mannerisms (like the man kiss.) The crux of Borat is that no one knows anything about Kazakhstan so they take him to be the real thing, and his ‘documentaries’ come to resemble Candid Camera. He manages to expose antisemitism, racism and outright stupidity as he tours the ‘USnA.’ Whether or not Cohen actually stole the character from real life Turk Mahir Cagri doesn’t matter – what he gets on film from real life is everything ‘reality tv shows’ wish they could be. If not always humorous, Borat gives us insight into today’s flattening world.

With today’s media in flux the best place to catch the cultural phenomena of the day is YouTube. Did you miss Borat’s appearance on the talk shows (if you’re traveling I hope you did!)? Catch him on Letterman and Conan no worries. Taking a look at the commentary Borat’s videos produces really makes a statement about our world: the people of the world don’t understand each other at all!

During one of his pieces on Da Ali G show, Cohen ‘plays’ a song with lyrics, ‘Throw the jew in the well,’ and patrons in a country bar in Arizona actually sing along… This gets the YouTube masses saying things like:

UncleJoe53 (5 hours ago)
you don’t need to be a genocidal antisemit to sing an antisemitic song. “normal” antisemitism is enough.
all the other idiots: so all your fucking jeffs, bobs and jacks are dying for israel (a state)?
I think they’re dying for american capitalists, no matter whether they are christian or jewish (a religion).
What has war on iraq to do with israel anyway?

Leftwing, rightwing, ( most;) ) americans are stupid.

inosdelaquaia (4 hours ago)
Dude, the guy is JEW and he’s doing this for a better world in a funny way for al of us!! WAKE UP AND GET ABOVE IT (AND LAUGH)”

The point is – he gets people talking… What value comedy then?


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