I don’t know a lot about KZ’s current politics, but I know a little. The article talks about Russian involvement, which is interesting, given that Kazakhstan largely imports their oil from Russia. Their attempts to build nuclear have usually been opposed by Russia. Trying to figure out the play here.

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Have you seen the movies? I have to wonder when people say things like this. This argument is based purely upon my interpretation of the media, but so are those articles.

I have always seen Borat as an extreme parody of what westerners (more specifically Americans) think the outside world is like based on nothing but pure ignorance and maybe some propaganda mixed in too. I really don’t see how they could be interpreted as racist, maybe xenophobic at worst. And I definitely don’t see how they could be interpreted as islamophobic. That is just a massive stretch. These articles honestly just read as really tone-deaf if you ask me. People who think the movie was just making stereotypical jokes for the fun of it I feel like aren’t seeing the full picture.

I see those jokes being used to directly make fun of the people that actually say racist / xenophobic things like that in real life, because when you see them coming out of the mouth of this ridiculously played up fictional character it makes it even more obvious how stupid the things being said are and how stupid the people saying them are. It is used as part of the setup because sometimes the people being filmed just flat out agree with the crazy shit he is saying and go along with it, you see a more authentic look at these types of people than you would otherwise because these people only talk about the craziest shit they believe when they feel like they’re in an echo chamber. You don’t get those kinds of genuine reactions from people normally and I think that is also part of the purpose, to shed a light on the side of society that is normally kept in the shadows.

For instance, The majority of Americans live in big cities and never see deep-south rednecks so can only picture them how they have seen them in movies and TV. These people are ignorant to how a huge part of the rural country thinks and acts, but we have seen how those people and their views can be powerful enough to get an orange dumbass elected in to office. Crazy views need to be put out in the sun to for everyone to see, no matter who is saying them. People need to be shown that their stereotypes are often mis-informed or wrong and I feel like these movies do that if you can watch with an open mind. They’re just movies, the first time I watched Texas Chain Saw Massacre I didn’t assume that all deep woods rednecks are crazy cult-like murdering cannibals. That’s up to the viewer to interpret, if people are interpreting Borat as a character who is supposed to accurately depict a modern Kazakh citizen they’re incredibly dense and probably have never left their house. Every character Sacha Baton Cohen plays is an incredibly over-the-top and often really stupid or ignorant person, so ridiculous that you can’t even see that type of person actually existing in any real capacity. I don’t personally see how anyone could interpret his characters as any kind of representation of reality, they’re designed that way to highlight the absurdity of the given subject matter.

I think there is a lot of nuance to the Borat movies that is missed on people who wanna just scream about a movie they’ve never watched just so everyone can see how progressive they are. Borat movis arent documentaries, they are comedies.

Whatever Sacha’s personal views are, I couldn’t really care less because that’s not what the movies are about, I can separate the art from the artist and see the movies for what they are.