Forums › Life › Politics, Media & Current Events › Kazakhstan up in arms over Ali G spoof
Tuesday November 15, 2005
The Guardian
The great and good of Kazakhstan are getting tired of having to clear up wild misconceptions about their republic. They are tired of having to insist that shooting a dog and then having a party is not a favourite national pastime and of denying that their wine is made of fermented horse urine and that women are kept in cages. They are so frustrated at the bad image which they believe the comedian behind such fictitious claims, Sacha Baron Cohen (aka Ali G), is making through his spoof Kazakh television presenter Borat that they are threatening legal action.
A Kazakh foreign ministry spokesman, Yerzhan Ashykbayev, said yesterday: “We do not rule out that Mr Cohen is serving someone’s political order designed to present Kazakhstan and its people in a derogatory way.”
Borat, who touts himself as the second-best-known television presenter in the former Soviet republic, has been making jokes at the expense of the citizens of Kazakhstan for five years. In the US he persuaded officials to observe a 10-minute silence in memory of a massacre that never happened and caused controversy when he got regulars at a bar to join in a spoof anti-semitic Kazakh folk song.
But it was Borat’s appearance at the annual MTV Europe Music Awards show in Lisbon earlier this month that has really upset the foreign ministry. The character arrived in an “Air Kazakh” propeller plane controlled by a one-eyed pilot clutching a vodka bottle. Later he described an all-woman band as “international singing prostitutes” and said it was brave to have Madonna – “a genuine transvestite” – on the show. Kazakh politicians and diplomats have had to repeatedly stress that Borat is nothing to do with them.
this has happened before – ISTR the Kazakh embassy even complaining about the poor quality of Borats moustache!
race and comedy is always a complicated issue. In my youth Benny Hill would often imitate a “comedy Chinaman” – in pigtails and Chairman Mao suit, although such a character would no longer be accepted today it was actually fairly gentle. Thames also licensed the format to Hong Kong TV, where they had the “Benny Wong” show – in this version the Chinese presenter would dress up as an “Engrishman” in bowler hat and pin-stripes and act like Mr Cholmondley-Warner….
Nowadays in todays politically correct world Chinese actors are occasionally shown on British TV often in roles either as cops (always a high-ranking detective) or as criminals, and usually beating up people or shooting at them.
The last Chinese person I saw on the telly was on a documentary – a copper in Swansea whacking a black man with a baton (ninja-style) in the aftermath of a weekends binge-drinking, if it wasn’t for his “POLICE/HEDDLU” badge on his uniform it would have looked like a scene from a Hong Kong movie. Its hardly suprising people are becoming paranoid of Oriental faces in the UK…
Perhaps in real terms Benny Hill’s portrayal was kinder!
As funny as much of Mr Cohen’s work often is, there does appear to be a nasty streak to it.
Ali G’s mockery of chav culture is funny; but I noticed sketches where people were the butt of jokes but their faces were mosaiced out. This would indicate the people did not appreciate the joke and refused to sign the release forms.
Now legally the TV company is entitled to use the footage anyway providing the identities are “disguised” – this is how all the CCTV crime shows get away with showing real incidents without having to pay “criminals” (often the shows TX before those on screen go to Court!) – but it strikes me as extremely unethical to use footage of a person who has not consented merely for a comedy show, no matter how much it cost to set up the sketch.
Another dodgy incident was when “Ali G” turned up on the Sara Cox show on BBC R1. This TX’d in the early morning – Cohen proceeded to (as Ali G) turn the air blue just as thousands of kids were listening with parents on the school run.
Sara Cox was disciplined by the BBC (a black mark which stays on the staff record and will be revisited every time she applies for new work from Auntie) – and lost her show shortly afterwards. she may since have returned to auntie but in a lower-paying slot.
Although her own content may not have helped matters, surely you do not normally go on someones radio show as a guest and swear pre-watershed, unless the intention is to damage destroy their career?
I made it a point never to swear on stations I have done voice work for (even pirate ones) – despite posts from me on here which would make Gordon Ramsay blush) – it just creates extra trouble for those who put in the hard work to keep the station running.
an interesting aside is that both Cohen and Cox may have shared the same artist management company, and would perhaps have been competing for work from a limited pool of potential offers.
its rather like how Ben Elton sucessfully broke Benny Hill (to the point where hill suffered severe depression and died) in the 1990s – comedy is an uber-competitive, very harsh business.
mind you I can understand why Kazakhstan and its citizens are the butt of jokes..
before Borat all I knew about the place is that it was in the USSR, they launch space-rockets from there and there are camels.
all this is true, I have checked multiple sources including legit tourist info sites.
– a national sport involves playing polo with a head taken from a dead goat
– national food includes sheeps’ entrails, and a popular dish is flat noodles and boiled horsemeat sausage
– popular entertainment includes a dance called “orteke”. this involves mimicking the movements of a he-goat which has fallen into a pit.
– it is permitted for men to kidnap a young teenage girl to take as your wife (apparently though some girls actually allow themselves to be kidnapped, so they can go out with blokes whom their parents don’t approve of)
– an opposition politician was found dead with three bullet holes in his head. The police and security services (run by the president who has been in power since 1991 when the USSR broke up) are claiming it is suicide
whatever Borat may say, this place is not likely to be top of my holiday destinations lists…
Sue me, ‘Ali G’ tells Kazakhstan
ALMATY, Kazakhstan (Reuters) — A British comedian who uses a boorish, sexist and racist Kazakh alter ego called Borat to poke fun at interviewees has responded to a legal threat from the Kazakh authorities by satirically welcoming the move.
Sacha Baron Cohen, who plays the spoof Kazakh television reporter in his “Da Ali G Show”, incurred the wrath of Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry this month after appearing as Borat at the annual MTV Europe Music Awards.
He described shooting dogs for fun and said his wife could not leave Kazakhstan as she was a woman. The Foreign Ministry said his behavior was unacceptable and that Cohen might be serving political orders to tarnish Kazakhstan’s reputation.
Responding in character as Borat, Cohen, who is Jewish, said: “I like to state, I have no connection with Mr Cohen and fully support my government’s position to sue this Jew.”
“Since 2003 … Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world,” he said on his Web site, http://www.borat.kz.
“Women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hat and age of consent has been raised to eight years old.”
One Western diplomat in the Central Asian state’s biggest city Almaty said he at least partly sympathized with the Kazakh government in trying to set the record straight.
“They are damned if they do (respond) and damned if they don’t,” he said. “It’s sort of unfortunate that he hit upon Kazakhstan.”
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Forums › Life › Politics, Media & Current Events › Kazakhstan up in arms over Ali G spoof
