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Comment by ALittleLight | Hacker News Reader

It's odd to me that in a time of increased political correctness it's also seen as perfectly okay by the mainstream media to mock a group of people as dumb and evil just because they're foreign and unknown.

Cohen writes: "I chose Kazakhstan because it was a place that almost nobody in the U.S. knew anything about, which allowed us to create a wild, comedic, fake world." Why not just make up a fake country then? Why disparage real people for no reason.

The article seems terrible to me. They're talking about one American immigrant and his friend who have decided to make an ad campaign out of the film. I can't imagine how they think that's representative of the thoughts of the nation.

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>Cohen writes: "I chose Kazakhstan because it was a place that almost nobody in the U.S. knew anything about, which allowed us to create a wild, comedic, fake world." Why not just make up a fake country then? Why disparage real people for no reason.

Well said. By the way, before Borat, Cohen had a character called "Christo" who was Albanian [1]. It was the exact same character as Borat. But the word is that Albanian gangs, which are plentiful in London, have threatened him so he dropped the Albanian origin and switched it to Kazakhstan. Had Kazakhstan had some gangs in UK, he would have picked some other country to disparage.

[1] https://www.indiewire.com/2014/07/before-borat-there-was-chr...

This feeds into some of my less charitable interpretations of SBC - he delights in dunking on the hated and powerless to amuse the powerful, but folds instantly at the slightest indication of real danger.

> Why not just make up a fake country then?

Because there will always be some geography buffs who will be able to name the countries of the world, even if they don't actually know anything about the cultures therein. Make up a fake country in a fake place in the world, and someone is more likely to unmask you than if you said you were from a country whose name and vague location is known, like Kazakhstan.

Surely even more common than Geography buffs are people who would Google "Borat Kazakhstan" prior to the interview and learn the whole secret. If he tells his subjects a different name so they can't Google him, then he could tell the subjects the name of a real country, but present the movie with the fake country the same as he might do for his name.

His approach in the past has been that nobody ever knows his character's name before the interview starts.

During Da Ali G Show, people would be told it was a BBC production, or given the name of a production company, and everything would be set up and the interview subject ready to go before Cohen would enter the room. The point was to make it difficult for the subject to just get up and walk away.

I think we see it differently. I think he’s pointing out how easy it is to get Americans to participate in bigotry because of how ignorant many are.

Choosing a country with -stan ending certainly seems like it would play into the decision. Americans, and many politicians, regularly speak about such places as if they’re entirely inhabited by subhumans. Then Borat comes along and the average person seems to ignorant to know the joke is on them.

I don't think that's the case at all. How is the joke on the American if the guy pretending to be Khazak is acting dumb? I've not seen Americans being rude or mean or judgmental to the Boat character until he is rude first, so it's not like it's highlighting some immoral or prejudiced behavior.

Borat skits seem to be him pretending to be a foreigner and being dumb and obnoxious while his subject looks increasingly uncomfortable. There is no layered irony or subtlety for the most part - it's just the low brow humor of being dumb and awkward to make someone else feel dumb and awkward.

You are bang on the mark. My partner owns a travel company so knows this “Mr Keen”. We’re flagging the article on Kazakh social media, won’t let some foreigner come in and speak for the country.

Surprised NY Times ran with it, but It’s something that I’ve noticed in emerging markets which are more inaccessible— those can speak English can take outsiders for quite the ride.

I’m an expat as well but the level of entitlement of some expats in these countries does disgust me.

You have to think that Political correctness only seems reserved for specific groups. France doesn’t seem to care about being PC to Muslims for example. Actually they choose to demonize groups like this instead.

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