Hardly `very nice'
Kazakh celebs offer up their thoughts on the global phenom known as Borat
Kazakhstan was thrust into a unflattering spotlight 14 years ago with Sacha Baron Cohen's hit Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
Cinemas in the former Soviet republic refused to show the film. The Kazakh government took out a four-page ad in The New York Times defending itself.
But the central Asian country's reaction to the sequel, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, which debuted on Amazon last month, has been more mixed. We asked four Kazakhs — a filmmaker, comedian, artist and TV personality — for their thoughts.
NU RT AS ADAM BAY ACTOR AND DIRECTOR
“I saw mockery not over Kazakhstan, but over those viewers who could believe that such a country could exist in the modern world. And I did not really take it as something insulting or humiliating toward me,” said Adambay, who has his own production company.
Others aren't as willing to brush off the franchise. The hashtag #cancelborat made the rounds on social media after the sequel's release with comments about how the franchise is racist. U.S.
Ambassador to Kazakhstan, William Moser, recently commented to Kazakh state TV that, “It's just a movie.”
Adambay said he understands “those who are outraged over using the name of our country and our flag by Borat,” but “such reaction provides even more hype to this film.
“Just imagine the country as a person,” he added. “Would a self-sufficient person ever get into a skirmish with someone who has made fun of him? I don't think so.”
MURAT DILMANOV SATIRICAL ILLUSTRATOR
Dilmanov said “the humour of Borat is incomprehensible to the majority of people in Kazakhstan, although the film is somewhat funny.”
Inspired by Borat's signature skimpy lime green swimsuit, Dilmanov drew Borat as a mermaid sitting atop a stone and then posted it to his social media accounts. “How would a sculpture like this look in the centre of the Sairan Lake?” he wrote, referencing a reservoir in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty.
Dilmanov said the international attention Borat brought Kazakhstan was a good thing, even if it was a little infamous.
“At least people look on the map to find out if this is a real coun
try,” he said. “But there are also negative consequences. A friend of mine who lives in the United States told me that Americans of Kazakh origin began to experience bullying.”
NURL AN BATYROV COMEDIAN
Batyrov, who has an Instagram following of more than 1.2 million for his short video clips, said he would have never paid any attention to the movie if not for Kazakhstan's outraged reaction.
“I don't find it a really funny comedy, as I don't like a genre that contains racist jokes. At the same time, I don't feel offended,” Batyrov said, adding that the influx of tourists to the country after the first movie was a plus.
Batyrov acknowledged that Kazakhstan's culture is different from what's depicted in the movie, but he was pleased to see the country's tourism board lean in to the publicity of the sequel by using Borat's “very nice” catchphrase in its own promos.
AD IL LI Y AN TV HOST
Liyan said Borat was “an entertaining movie, not a documentary,” but it wasn't his taste.
“(I) don't like the humour where someone bolsters himself with contempt for others. The Borat-style humour feels more American. (Kazakh) satire and jokes are quite different,” said Liyan, who was the first presenter of X Factor in Kazakhstan.
But Liyan agreed with Batyrov that the Borat movies are a good opportunity for introspection. He pointed to an incident this summer, when a group of beachgoers in western Kazakhstan bludgeoned a seal until it was unconscious to take a picture with it. The story was picked up by Western news outlets.
“I call this behaviour Boratshina, and we need to eradicate it so that no one could tell us that Borat is a real Kazakh character,” he said. “I think the main impact of Borat is that we started to value our country even more.”