Comedian Jenée: People are Idiots

Can We Still Tease Pollacks?

The country of Kazakhstan is threatening to sue comedian Sascha Baron Cohen because one of his characters, Kazakhstani journalist Borat Sagdiyev, ridicules its people.

Are they serious? Can a freakin’ country sue for slander???

For those unfamiliar, Cohen is the star of the very funny Da Ali G Show, which airs in the U.S. on HBO. His main character is Ali G, a Cockney dude decked in rapper gear who primarily assaults political figures from around the globe with inane questions. The humor isn’t as much in his persistent denseness as it is in the responses from his interview subjects, who delicately indulge his stupidity to save face.

Cohen’s second character is the aforementioned Kaz (I can’t spell it out anymore- they need to buy some vowels) journalist Borat. This guy’s also clueless, but he’s lovable clueless. He’s the naiive foreigner trying to understand a language and culture that are totally unfamiliar to him. The fact that the character is from Kaz is almost irrelevant. He could be from any non-English speaking country and his antics would be just as funny.

Somehow the Kaz people have been oblivious to the Borat character through his five years on the air in the UK and America. I guess they don’t get HBO or BBC over in Kaz. But apparently they do get their MTV, because it was his recent hosting job on the 2005 MTV Europe Music Awards that got their burkas in a bunch.

I watched the awards ceremony (anybody who’s read more than a few of my blogs can guess why) and I thought he was hilarious. After Madonna’s opening number he said, “It was very courageous of MTV to start the show with a genuine transvestite. He was very convincing. It was only his hands and his testisatchels that gave it away.” He introduced performers by other bands’ names and closed the show with, “To the world, I love you! Apart from Uzbekistan. Assholes.” It was a rare occasion when I considered an awards show host entertaining instead of annoying.

But the Kaz foreign ministry disagrees with me and held a press conference yesterday on the matter:

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.

Do they actually think anybody has an agenda against Kaz? For that matter, do they actually think that a week ago more than three people knew or cared where Kaz is? They should realize this is good publicity for them. Borat put them on the map- literally. He should be their hero. They can’t possibly think their bustling tourism industry could be severely affected by one outlandish character’s appearance on an MTV awards show. Nobody’s going to be packed and ready to go to Kaz only to declare, “I heard that Borat guy mention cow punching is a sport over there. Maybe we should go somewhere more civilized and exciting like E. Timor.”

The whole world talks shit about Americans and it’s usually not in jest. But our politicians don’t hold press conferences every time it happens because we know we’ve got it good here. It kind of relates to the esteem issues I mentioned in my last two blogs: when you’re confident with who and what you are, you don’t really care what anybody else thinks. The Kaz government needs to just chill because taking a comic to court over a few little jokes makes them look much dumber than anything Borat says or does.