[BRIEF NOTE] Me on Borat

[rfmcdonald]

Two articles in the Toronto Star--Ron Chamach's "Borat's inner Jew", which explores Cohen's porting over of anti-Semitic stereotypes onto Kazakhs for his comedy, and Peter Howell's "Blame it on Borat", which anticipates a wave of painful shock comedy drawing on Borat's precedents--sum up my pretty much sum up my continued negative reaction to the character of Borat. That said, as Robert A. Saunders' Transitions Online article "Welcome to Boratistan" points out, Cohen's shtick is definitely bringing a lot of publicity to Kazakhstan.

Ironically, Borat has endowed “Brand Kazakhstan” with an elusive trait that cannot be bought at any price: the “cool” factor. The Kazakh flag now adorns countless Borat T-shirts, buttons, magnets, and other paraphernalia that will undoubtedly be showing up in Americans' Christmas stockings. And for more adventurous Borat fans, one Kazakh tour operator just introduced two new package tours, “Kazakhstan vs. Boratistan” and “Jagshemash!!! See the Real Kazakhstan.” And right now, someone somewhere around the world is probably downloading Borat’s fictitious anthem “O Kazakhstan” as a ringtone for their mobile phone. This is a windfall for a nation that a year ago languished in obscurity. Based on its recent behavior, Astana has both the will and the capacity to capitalize on this incipient “Cool Kazakhstan” brand. And while he may have offended more than few Kazakhs (and Kazakh-Americans) in the process, Sacha Baron Cohen deserves much of the credit for this strange turnabout.