> On 11/7/06, Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Oh, the Guardian is pompous and overwrought as always.
>>
>> That said, Kazakhstan is an odd choice of country to
>> make fun of. The Kazakhs are rich. It's not a backward
>> country.
>
> I'm afraid the idea may have been any -stan would do. :->
========================
The intent is a universal one. Borat is another riff, fair or not, on "the
idiocy of rural life" - and more so in the southern US, where the movie is
mostly set, than in the the fictionalized "Kazakhstan", which is glimpsed
only briefly at the beginning, and is so over-the-top that it lacks
satirical punch. The mirror of America which "Kazakhstan" in the form of
Borat represents soon becomes apparent to an urban Western audience which I
think explains a good deal of the movie's popularity in the Age of Bush. In
general, apart from mostly being wildly funny the identification of
homophobia, sexism, anti-semitism, racism, and chauvinism with backwardness
and ignorance has a progressive thrust. That said, the Borat sketches in the
film are not as clever as those he has done on the Ali G show. You can
probably catch these on YouTube.