![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldRadio Free Europe reports that Borat Sagdiyev, a fictional Kazakhstani television reporter played by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen on Cohen's Ali G Show, is an unpopular figure in his putative homeland.
Cohen's character rather reminds me of Santo Cilauro and Tom Gleisner's Molvanîa: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry. Supposedly a parody of the hip sort of travel guide, Molvanîa portrays a highly dysfunctional polluted eastern European country more notable for its psychopathic violence and systemic amorality than for anything attractive in its own right. Think of the western image of Ruritania as influenced by the Yugoslav civil wars.
Borat Sagdiyev and Molvanîa are defended, by their creators and their supporters, as creations which aren't bigoted at all, as artistic endeavours which speak more to frailties found in humans generally than in stereotyped conceptions of eastern barbarism. Perhaps. Then again, where do the cheese-eating surrender monkeys fit in, post-Jonah Goldberg?
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.
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.
Cohen's character rather reminds me of Santo Cilauro and Tom Gleisner's Molvanîa: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry. Supposedly a parody of the hip sort of travel guide, Molvanîa portrays a highly dysfunctional polluted eastern European country more notable for its psychopathic violence and systemic amorality than for anything attractive in its own right. Think of the western image of Ruritania as influenced by the Yugoslav civil wars.
Borat Sagdiyev and Molvanîa are defended, by their creators and their supporters, as creations which aren't bigoted at all, as artistic endeavours which speak more to frailties found in humans generally than in stereotyped conceptions of eastern barbarism. Perhaps. Then again, where do the cheese-eating surrender monkeys fit in, post-Jonah Goldberg?
