<p>My impression is that the man is too smart not to know exactly what he was doing when he chose them.</p>
<p>“I still can’t get over the fellow plopping the gold 9 mm gun on the counter when Borat asks for a gun to kill Jews with. I’m still in shock that such Americans still exist. Naive, I guess.”</p>
<p>Do you find the movie to be the definitive authority that such people do, in fact, exist?</p>
<p>I haven’t seen Borat, but I can’t believe that he skewers anyone in the movie like he skewers David Beckham and Posh Spice when Ali G interviewed them on British TV. [Warning: adult themes]</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P842Tmi6lrc[/url]”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P842Tmi6lrc</a></p>
<p>garland, trust me, life in real Kazakhstan is nothing like Cohen presents it. 
Funny thing, Kazakh people have predominantely Mongoloid features and don’t wear mustache as a rule. So Borat looks just plain wrong. We have a number of close friends who grew up in Kazakhstan( some are Russian, some are Jewish, some are Kazakh) and who have families there now. It’s a complicated and interesting country, but not in the way described in the movie. :-)</p>
<p>garland</p>
<p>I am not Kazakh but I was born in Kazakhstan. This country was a part of Soviet Union so many people there are atheists like everywhere else on the former Soviet territory; to call Kazakhs Muslims is a big mistake.</p>
<p>By the way even wikipedia mention Sunni Islam, Russian Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism as main religions.</p>
<p>I would say that if you want to consider this country Asian Kazakhstan would be much closer to China than to even Turkey where women are allowed not to wear veil.:D</p>
<p>After Borat’s movie some people tried to change the wiki article about Kazakhstan adding stupid info from the movie, so it has been locked for a while; no changes are allowed.</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakhstan[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakhstan</a></p>
<p>Enjoy!;)</p>
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</p>
<p>The war room was probably not the way Peter Sellers and George C. Scott portrayed it in Dr. Strangelove, either. (“there’s no fighting in the war room”).</p>
<p>It’s comedy. In a way, Borat’s character is a harder edged version of Dan Akroid and Steve Martin as the “wild and crazy guys” on Saturday Night Live. The joke is that Borat could possibly be that stupid. Obviously, you have to set that up by having him play a reporter from a vaguely familar, but plausibly backwards, non-Western country. He can’t, for example, be a reporter from Swedish TV…although he does play an Austrian reporter with his “Bruno” character.</p>
<p>interesteddad, I agree completely, that’s why said that Kazakhs just got “lucky” . There are actually much more “backwards” countries in Central Asia( Turkmenistan anyone? ) . Now some people seem to think that because the americans shown in the movie were real, the Kazakhs must be too. I don’t think there was a real Kazakh person in that movie. It was filmed in Romania after all. :-)</p>
<p>Well, I am sure his depiction is in no way accurate. I’m still not convinced it’s not deliberate.</p>
<p>“This country was a part of Soviet Union so many people there are atheists like everywhere else on the former Soviet territory; to call Kazakhs Muslims is a big mistake.”</p>
<p>The number who are actual practicing members of a religion may be a lot lower than the nominal figures suggest. But, according to the CIA World Factbook, the predominant religion in Kazakhstan, by a slim margin, is Islam:</p>
<p>Ethnic groups:<br>
Kazakh (Qazaq) 53.4%, Russian 30%, Ukrainian 3.7%, Uzbek 2.5%, German 2.4%, Tatar 1.7%, Uygur 1.4%, other 4.9% (1999 census)
(edit - 2.4% German???)
Religions:<br>
Muslim 47%, Russian Orthodox 44%, Protestant 2%, other 7%
<a href=“https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/kz.html[/url]”>https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/kz.html</a></p>
<p>I wandered into this thread as my wife and I were debating what films we might want to go see today. Borat is on the list. But the more I read about the movie the more I get the feeling, expressed by garland, that the audience for the movie are the people who want to feel how much smarter, hipper, less rascist/bigoted they are than the rest of us.</p>
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<p>I haven’t seen the movie, but I don’t think that’s the drift of Sasha Baron Cohen’s humor at all. He’s kind of a cross between Richard Pryor (profane), Paul Linde (malapropisms), Howard Stern (shock), Andy Kaufman (insane), and candid camera. Love him or hate him, he is an incredible comedic actor with a very fast comedic mind.</p>
<p>His TV shows feature three different “characters” all portrayed in over-the-top cartoon exaggeration. The first is Ali G – the idiot white rapper. The second is Borat – the idiot, sex obsessed reporter from Kahzakstan TV. The third is Bruno – the idiot flaming Austrian fashion reporter. </p>
<p>Cohen is brilliant in his ability to stay in character while interviewing people in ways that make the interview subject and audience squirm. For example, when interviewing a federal drug enforcement agent, Ali G repeatedly asks the proper dose for each drug, or where he could buy some, or which LSD makes you fly…</p>
<p>His characters say and do the most outrageously offensive things. For example, Borat asks if someone wants to see pictures of his sister…and then shows them pornographic snapshots. Or asks the hosts at a wine tasting if the black waiter is their slave. Because his character is a total idiot, his interviewers assume he is serious and try to answer his questions or respond to his antics. The only one I’ve seen storm out of an interview was Marlon Fitzwater, the ex-Presidential press secretary. Al Haig got kind of testy, too if I recall. As did the anti-gay activist when Ali G asked if he could give him a lap dance.</p>
<p>It seems that most people either find Cohen incredibly funny or they cannot stand even 10 seconds of his humor.</p>
<p>I would watch some of the YouTube clips of the Ali G Show from HBO before going to the movie. You’ll either laugh or walk away in disgust.</p>