[lbo-talk] Borat

Marvin Gandall marvgandall at videotron.ca
Tue Nov 7 09:54:11 PST 2006


Yoshie wrote:


> 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.



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