From Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:
KAZAKHSTAN: MTV EUROPE AWARDS HOST CARICATURES KAZAKH TV JOURNALIST.
The live broadcast of the 12th annual MTV Europe Music Awards on 3 November featured a controversial host who pretends to be from Kazakhstan named "Borat Sagdiyev." But the rude host isn't from Kazakhstan at all. Borat is a fictional character created by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen that satirizes a Kazakh television journalist.
Cohen, playing the character of a Kazakh journalist named
Borat Sagdiev, welcomed an international audience to the 2005
MTVEurope Awards in Lisbon, Portugal.
Borat got laughs by pretending to get things mixed up. And
that's usual for Cohen's invented character, who frequently
appears on the MTV network.
MTV calls Borat a television journalist who is the "sixth
most-famous man in Kazakhstan."
But nothing about Borat's descriptions of Kazakhstan
withstands scrutiny. Borat doesn't look like an ethnic Kazakh.
His native language resembles Polish more than Kazakh or Russian. And the music to his fictional program on "Kazakhstani Television" sounds like it is more from the Balkans than Central Asia.
In fact, Borat is a parody of a Kazakh television journalist
invented by Cohen. The British comedian first gained international
fame by posing as another fictional character – a British hip-hop
music journalist named "Ali G."
That character became so popular among the young generation
in Britain that his television program – "Da Ali G Show" – became a
huge hit in Britain in 2000. Ali G's pop culture status was such
that he was even featured as Madonna's chauffeur in the video for
her song "Music."
But Kazakh officials aren't fond of the prank interviews
that Cohen conducts with unsuspecting Westerners while pretending he is Borat Sagdiev from Kazakhstan. (((No!! Who would have guessed?)))
Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Mukhtar Karibay put the
objections this way to RFE/RL's Kazakh Service on 4 November:
"Yes, I heard about that guy once...last year or the year before
last. He has nothing to do with Kazakhstan. He is a citizen of a
foreign country. Our embassies officially protested his statements
then. Afterwards it was found out that he was not a Kazakhstani. And then all talks about him withered. I believe it was established that the person had some psychological disorders. Well, since he has
mental problems, there is no need to pay attention to that person and to act officially on the ministry's behalf. I am sure it is not
the case for any official to react now. There are different people,
you know. For instance, there are people, who run out to the center
of the stadium naked during soccer matches. That is just a similar
case."
In both the United States and Britain – where the Borat
character has appeared regularly on "Da Ali G Show" – Kazakh
officials have formally complained about the false portrayals of
their society.
Last year in Washington, Kazakhstan Embassy press secretary
Roman Vassilenko told "The New Yorker" magazine that Borat was
responsible for spreading many misconceptions and falsehoods about Kazakhstan.
For example, Vassilenko lamented, women are not kept in cages in Kazakhstan as Borat has claimed. Kazakhstan's national sport is not shooting a dog and then having a party. Wine in Kazakhstan is not made from fermented horse urine. And a person cannot earn a living in Kazakhstan as a "Gypsy" catcher.
(((This is the part where I started chuckling uncontrollably in the Zurich airport.)))
While acting as Borat, Cohen has made all of those claims
about Kazakhstan. He also has convinced many of the unsuspecting
victims of his prank interviews to behave ridiculously out of respect
for what he says is Kazakh culture.
Once, Borat persuaded a meeting of local officials in
Oklahoma City to stand in silence for 10 minutes in memory of the
victims of Kazakhstan's so-called "Tishniek massacre."
"As everyone know, today is the 14th year anniversary of the
Tishniek massacre. So please, now, I ask you to stand and give them
respect. Please, we will have 10-minute silence."
The fact that Cohen invented the fictitious "Tishniek
massacre" has led some pop-culture critics to argue that he is really
making fun of Westerners who know little or nothing about Central
Asia.
But his stunts clearly touch on culturally sensitive issues.
One of his most controversial jokes was to lead a sing-along at an
American country-and-western bar.
Posing as Borat, he claimed the tune was a national song of
Kazakhstan called "In My Country There Is Problem." He then got bar
patrons to sing: "Throw the Jew down the well so my country can be
free. You must grab him by the horns. Then we have a big party."
Even though Cohen is an observant Jew in real life, the
Anti-Defamation League condemned that stunt as anti-Semitic – saying that his irony would be lost on most of the television program's audience. (((Should the rest of us CARE that most people are too stupid to see how hysterically funny that is?)))
Borat's portrayal of women in Kazakh society also has
upset Kazakh officials. In one prank interview, an American tries to
explain that the legal rights of men and women are equal in the
United States. A dumbfounded Borat laughs incredulously and responds with what he says is a common expression in Kazakhstan: "First God, then man, horse, dog. Then women. Then rat." (((Our boy has got to be winning the sweepstakes in feminist humor there.)))
Speaking with the owner of one elite gentlemen's club in
London, Borat described Kazakhstan's equivalent as a place where
businessmen gather to watch pornographic videos: "You have a
gentlemen club. In Kazakhstan, we have a club where you go. You have other men that come with friend. They talk. They do business. They watch porno. We see a man and a woman, very exciting to see."
Borat's derogatory jokes about Central Asian woman
aren't just restricted to Kazakhstan. Women from Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan also are targeted by rude and unflattering comments –
always presented as if this is normal behavior for a man from
Kazakhstan.
Acting as Borat, he has told his interview victims that a
Kazakh man buys his wife from her father for 30 liters of
insecticide. He also has claimed that the favorite hobbies for men in
Kazakhstan are disco dancing, archery, rape, and table tennis.
Borat describes Kazakhstan as a place where people kill dogs
for fun: "We love, in Kazakhstan, to kill animal. To hunt. It so much
fun. It is a great feeling when you kill an animal. It make you feel
like a real man. We like to shoot a dog. In Kazakhstan they say this
thing is crazy. Thank you very much."
In Lisbon at a press conference just hours before the live
broadcast of the MTV European Music Awards was due to begin, Cohen again shocked journalists with a joke that has been condemned as "in bad taste."
Disguised as Borat, Cohen told the journalists he had brought
a gift for them – a bag of birds from Romania, the first country in
mainland Europe to have detected an outbreak of bird flu.
Unfortunately, he said, most of the birds died. (By Ron Synovitz.
Originally published on 4 November 2005.)
