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[moi]

http://lenta.ru/articles/2006/10/20/borat/index.htm

Британскому комику Саше Барону Коэну, который до недавнего времени был известен только аудитории телеканала МТВ, по всей видимости, не дают покоя лавры героев мультсериала South Park, который давно уже стал символом неполиткорректности. Коэн, выступающий под различными сценическими псевдонимами, уже прошелся и по еврейской тематике и по поводу войны в Ираке, однако его излюбленной темой стал Казахстан. Поначалу официальная Астана гневалась на скабрезные шуточки британца, но в конечном итоге сдалась - на днях зять президента республики Рахат Алиев, занимающий пост первого замминистра иностранных дел, пригласил Коэна в Казахстан, чтобы тот лично ознакомился с предметом своих шуток.


Казахстанская эпопея Коэна началась еще в прошлом году, когда артист выбрал в качестве одного из своих творческих перевоплощений образ казахского журналиста Бората Сагдиева. Впервые он появился на церемонии вручения наград европейского МТВ 3 ноября в Лиссабоне. Коэн, который выступал ведущим этого шоу, между объявлениями номинантов в шуточной форме рассказывал аудитории о жизни казахов. В ходе вечеринки на сцене появлялся даже вымышленный президент Казахстана.

Зрители, надо сказать, узнали о жизни этой азиатской страны немало интересного. В частности, любимым развлечением казахов, по словам Сагдиева (начнем уже называть его именно так, поскольку в дальнейшем Коэн редко отступал от выбранного образа), является стрельба по собакам, а алкоголь в этой стране употребляют все от мала до велика, не брезгуя даже перебродившей конской мочой.

Творческие изыски Бората заставили Астану нервничать. Действительно, ведь мало кто на Западе разбирается во всех нюансах казахского быта, а тут такая интригующая информация. Это могло больно ударить по имиджу Казахстана,
который ко всему прочему собирается в 2009 году возглавить ОБСЕ.
Казахский МИД пригрозил подать судебный иск против Сагдиева.

Если в казахском МИДе думали напугать Коэна повесткой в суд, то расчеты Астаны не оправдались. Борат оказался глумливее - он просто поприветствовал желание Казахстана устроить против него тяжбу. Видимо, артист понял, что напал на золотую жилу и впредь от казахской тематики уже не отказывался. В заявлении Бората была сказано, что он не имеет ничего общего с мистером Коэном и полностью поддерживает намерение казахского правительства привлечь "этого еврея к суду" (кстати, Саша Барон Коэн, действительно еврей, что не мешает ему отпускать довольно грубые шуточки по поводу своей нации - так однажды он обвинил евреев в вымирании динозавров и назвал их причиной урагана "Катрина").

Казахские чиновники так и не решились обратиться в суд, побоявшись, видимо, стать посмешищем, доказывающим всему миру, что среди привычек их народа не числится злоупотребление конской мочой. Тем временем Борат продолжал развивать казахскую тему - кульминацией его творчества стал фильм "Борат: культурные исследования Америки в пользу славного государства Казахстан". Премьера картины, начальная сцена которой демонстрирует отъезд "казахского журналиста" в Америку на автомобиле, который тянет лошадь, должна была состояться в Торонто 8 сентября. Однако после первых пятнадцати-двадцати минут показ по техническим причинам был прерван. Мировая пресса тем не менее отметила это событие, а критики, уже увидевшие фильм, заявили, что ничего более неполиткорректного (главным образом по отношению к Америке), вульгарного, но в то же время смешного, они не видели.

Саша Барон Коэн в образе рэппера Али Джи, фото с сайта darrenfrodsham.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk


Любопытно, что рекламная кампания фильма совпала с подготовкой визита президента Казахстана Нурсултана Назарбаева в США. Борат подсуетился и тут. Перед самым приездом Назарбаева в Штаты, артист явился в Белый дом, чтобы лично вручить приглашение на премьеру своего фильма президенту США Джорджу Бушу. Понятно, что в Овальный кабинет комика не пустили. Одновременно Казахстан начал по всей Америке крупную пиар-кампанию, направленную на разрушение образа республики, созданного Сагдиевым.

Это, впрочем, не помешало комику объяснить все происходящее происками злопыхателей из соседнего с Казахстаном Узбекистана. Так под огонь сагдиевского юмора попала еще одна среднеазиатская страна.

Эпатируя публику, Борат вряд ли рассчитывал, что его воспримут как серьезного актера. Некоторые публичные высказывания комика ввели в транс добропорядочных граждан США. Так, например, Сагдиев, приветствуя зрителей родео в городе Салем, штат Вирджиния, посоветовал президенту Буш "выпить кровь всех мужчин, женщин и детей Ирака". При этом актер, представленный зрителям как гость из Казахстана, пожелавший "засвидетельствовать свое уважение американской нации", исполнил свою версию национального гимна США, заканчивающуюся вместо привычного "the home of the brave" ("земля доблести") фразой - "your home in the grave" ("ваш дом - могила").

Но в конечном итоге эти выходки стали для Сагдиева дорогой к славе – его заметили даже серьезные голливудские деятели. Уже известно, что Борат сыграет в одном фильме с Джонни Деппом. Речь идет о картине Тима Бертона "Суини Тодд", съемки которой начнутся в феврале 2007 года. Что и говорить, казахская тематика принесла артисту существенные дивиденды. Это, судя по всему, понял и Казахстан, благоразумно решив отнестись к выдумкам британца более снисходительно. Ведь выглядеть в глазах всей планете жертвой розыгрышей Сагдиева - это одно, а быть страной, откуда тот черпает вдохновение для своего пусть и не всегда адекватного творчества - совсем другое.

(с)
_________________
Вещь в себе является вещью для нас различными способами, но никогда в своем истинном виде.

[Gourmet]

Статья из приложения Culture британской The Sunday Times от 15 сентября 2006 г.:

Welcome to my world!
Borat went to America to make a film: has it changed how he feels about camels, diners and wife cages? He talks to Stephen Armstrong


Tell me a bit about yourself — are you married? My name Borat Sagdiyev, I son of Asimbala Sagdiyev and Boltok the rapist, and former husband of Oxana Sagdiyev, who was daughter of Mariam Tulyakbay and Boltok the rapist. My hobbies is ping pong, disco dance and taking photographs of ladies doing toilet without their knowledge. My wife is dead. I did not kill her. It not problem, I have new wife.
Where did you grow up? What was it like growing up there?
I grow up in beautiful Kazakh town of Kuzcek. My house was in nicest area, three miles from fence of Jewtown. I was lucky to be from good family, so I stay on after school and do further educations. I study plague research at Astana University and create three new ones! One of them was sprayed on Uzbekistan and kill two millions goat! Then, after that, when I 13, I leave education and start workings.

We don’t know much about the country in the UK. What are its good points and its bad points?
Kazakhstan nice place and now as civilised as any other — especial since the Tulyakev reforms of 2003, which mean women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats and age of consent have been raised to 11 year old. In Kazakhstan, we treats all peoples with equal respect — even the “strange ones”. Last May, we open the Almaty Retard Centre. It have over 300 cages for them to live in, and public viewing gallery where for 10 tenge you can look on them, and for 15 you can throw potatoes. Why not? They like!

Does it have many of the problems of the region? Ethnic tensions?
Most problems in region is caused by assholes Uzbekistan — who as everyone knows is nosy people with a bone in the middle of their brains. If there is one more item of Uzbek propaganda claiming we in Kazakhstan do not drink fermented horse urine, give death penalty for cleaning anoos with Kazakh flag or export over 300 tons of human pubis per year, then we will have no alternative but to commence bombardment of their cities with our catapults.

Is there anywhere else you would like to live?
I would very much like livings in Beverlys Hills. It have biggest stars in the world, who lives there and walk in the streets. One afternoon when I looking on shops, I see, buying a handbag, most beautiful woman in world — Liza Minnelli. Then I see driving in a car hero John Wayne, and when I return to my hotel Best Western, fighting legend Muhammad Ali open door for me.

Why did you want to work in the media?
I have be television reporter since seven years. My profession journalist.
I have previous work as ice-maker and gypsy-catcher, and was also do computer maintenance — I the one who would paint the outsides and remove dead birds from their pipes. I have also be doctor one time, for two week during school holiday. Before that, I was extractor of spermatozoa from animals. I the best in Almaty! One time there was a camel who everyone say could not be released. I say, leave it to Borat! I grip, pull; grip, pull; grip, pull... for 17 hours... my arm was to begin to ache very much... then there was a rumbling... and... liquid explosion! Hi five.


Are you a big star at home? Do you have fans? How do they treat you?
I fourth most famous person in Kazakhstan. No 3 is ex-Olympic gymnast Lily Utmarkan, who now perform in Kazakh State Circus, where she famous for be able to put one foot in ear while other in her vagine. No 2 is our glorious premier and No 1 is animal actor Jonny the Monkey, who dress like Humphrey Bogarts and smokes cigarettes.

What is the most exciting story you have covered for your station?
Last year, I cover the annual feast of Shurik — this almost exact the same as your FA Cups Final. Only slight difference is instead of 80,000 people gather in arena for look on activity sportive, we have two millions shepherds who come down from the Tinshein Hills and gather in a field, where they get very drunk on ferment horse urine, then dig a big hole that they fill with dog and Uzbek. They then throw potato on them for two day, before comb each other’s hair and return to hills.

Why did you decide to go to America?
I go to US and A for learn lessons for Kazakhstan, and this was great success. We now has democracy, just like Americas — only slight difference is that instead of man with most votes who win, it is man who can suspend heaviest weight from his testes satchel. Our current premier can suspend a car battery for 8.4 seconds. Also, in America a woman can vote, but a horse cannot! Crazy! In Kazakhstan, only women allowed in our congress is prostitutes. We say that to give a womens power is like to give monkeys guns.
Very dangerous. We have stopped do this ever since the 2001 Astana Zoo massacre. Another positive things I take back to Kazakhstan from America was use of death penalty. We now also gives it for serious crimes, such as spitting or cleaning anoos with Kazakh flag.

Did you learn everything you needed to?
Yes, I learn all I ask to learn, but my premier had also instruct me to capture lady from the Pussycat Dolls and take her back to Kazakhstan for him. I fail in this, but did manage get the three young boys and cheeseboorger he also ask for.

What was the biggest surprise about the country? I was very surprise to learn it is now illegal to shoot at Red Indians. Once again, I would like apologise with all my heart to the staff of the Potawatomi Casino in Kansas. Sorry. I was also very surprise to discover womens is permit to operate motorcar in US and A. This could never happen in Kazakhstan — it too dangerous. We say that “to let woman drive a car is like to let monkey fly a plane”. We do not allow this any more since 2003 Astana air crash.

What do you think of the American people? I like them very much — I make many new best friends. I like most the professor of driving I meet, although I was very nervous about travel alone in motorcar with another man. Only time this happen in Kazakhstan is to journey to edge of forest for make bang bang bang in anoos.

What was the best and worst thing that happened over there? Best thing that I get to eat delicious American hamboorgers. First day I go to McDonald’s, which is restaurant so fancypants, it actual have a separate for do toilet in! There I eat 17 hamboorgers and next day my anoos was hang loose like mouth of tired dog.

Would you like to go back, or maybe to live there? I current cannot travel due to sex-crime misunderstanding, but once I prove the horse was consent and this resolve, I would like returning.

Is there anything Kazakhstan could learn from the USA? And vice versa?
Kazakhstan is glorious nation and is now very little that could be improve there. I invites all peoples of Great Britains to come visit and see how modern we now is. I recommend very much you stay at family resort, Astana Funworld, where there is luxury cages for the wifes, unlimited buffet of Turkmenistan prostitutes for the husbands and an enclosure where childrens can shoot squirrel, dog and gypsy.

How has your film been received in Kazakhstan? This movie have already been release in Kazakhstan and was blockbusterings! It open simultaneous on all seven of our country’s screens and take top spot from Hollywood movie King Kong — which had been No 1 film in Kazakhstan ever since it was release in 1933. I would also recommend that people go see new Kazakh moviefilm Nomad, which a very accurates portrayal of how Kazakhstan was 50 years ago.

What are your ambitions now? I not sure when I will be do my own next project, because for the next 18 months our country’s camera is fully booked to make other television programmes. During this times, I am focus on showbizness career of my 11-year-old son, Bilak. He recent start as actor in Kazakh version of Teletubbies. He still very nervous about appear on camera — especially for the sex scenes. I do not know why — he have a magnificent chram, circumference 16.7cm. He should be proud to show it to the other childrens.

Do you have a message for the people of Britain?
Do not trust traitor of government, Yulkin Tulyakev.

The joke’s on you

Borat Sagdiyev is a pig of a man: stupid, belligerent and charmless, according to His Excellency Erlan Idrissov, Kazakhstan’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. He is also worthy of a Nobel Peace prize for having united in laughter wildly disparate elements of western political opinion. People who usually hate each other for the soundest of ideological reasons can be seen chuckling together whenever Borat appears. This is Sacha Baron Cohen’s greatest triumph — we all laugh at Borat and kid ourselves that it’s okay for us to do so, because Baron Cohen really has our own respective ideological enemies in his sights.

The political right, those who fulminate against “political correctness gone mad”, and who, when you engage them in conversation about important topics of the day, invariably end their discourse with a sad shake of the head and a rueful “You couldn’t make it up”, love Borat because at last someone is poking fun at stupid foreigners once again. It doesn’t really matter that Borat is, specifically, a Kazakh — anyone from that sort of country will do. He might as well be a Tajik, or a Moldovan, or an Albanian. Here is a chance to laugh at someone poorer, more stupid and less refined than the rest of us, who does not get the nuances of western civilisation, but who indubitably wishes that he did. Borat, with his crap imitation western suit and ludicrous moustache, is your stereotypical foreign moron as seen from the superior shores of ol’ Blighty: desperately wishing to be like us, but missing by a mile. It is wholly believable that foreign monkeys such as Borat might drink fermented horse urine and keep their wives in cages. It’s what one would expect — and well done, Mr Baron Cohen, for reminding us all of this important point.

We have seen Borat’s like before, remember. Manuel, the waiter from Fawlty Towers, for example: cringing, hopeless, mustachioed, thick as mince. We would not portray a Spaniard like that today — it wouldn’t ring true. We’ve been to Spain now, and have discovered that not all of them are incalculably stupid; furthermore, that old dictatorship has gone. They have a democracy now, proper drains and a health service. So, for a really good laugh, we cast our eyes in the direction of the twilight, further east. The Englishman mugged up as a dense, hilarious foreigner has been a staple of British humour dating back long before 1975 — a sort of patronising and pseudo-benevolent racism. Peter Sellers singing Goodness Gracious Me; Michael Bates in boot polish singing Land of Hope and Glory to the titles of the dismal It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. Borat, your right-wingers and soi-disant racists will aver, is in the fine tradition of English humour, dating back to that cheerful, Jew-bashing nun in Chaucer — and all the better for that.

The liberals, meanwhile, love Borat because, of course, Baron Cohen is not remotely taking the piss out of Kazakhs, you know? In a way, it doesn’t matter that he’s a Kazakh. He could be a Tajik, or a Moldovan, or an Albanian; anyone who, through his unfamiliarity with western codes and mores, is able to unsettle our complacency and expose our inherent xenophobia and sexism. And unsettle, especially, those dreadful Americans, who, in addition to being sexist and xenophobic, are simultaneously triumphalist and utterly, utterly ignorant of world affairs. These backwoods Texan cretins probably think Kazakhstan is in Europe. (Part of it actually is, incidentally.) The joke isn’t on the Kazakhs: it’s on the Yanks and, by extension, us Brits.

Obviously, Kazakhs don’t really live in yurts and count rape among their thin list of hobbies. What Baron Cohen is doing isn’t crass and offensive racial stereotyping at all — it’s more Lenny Bruce than Al Jolson. Baron Cohen is himself from an ethnic minority, remember. He’s using our subconscious racism as a means to poke fun at the bigoted and the politically blind. A bit like Johnny Speight did with Alf Garnett in Till Death Us Do Part. And if Borat becomes an accidental hero, and his loathsome values are admired among some sections of the population — as happened with Garnett — then the joke is still on us. Even more on us, you might argue.

I’m in the third group of people, who thoroughly enjoy Borat: the amoral ones, the people who will laugh brazenly at racist jokes (which Borat — and Ali G, and quite a lot of the truly brilliant stuff from Ricky Gervais’s Extras, and Banzai — undoubtedly is), and will laugh even louder when our own preconceptions are ripped to bits and lampooned. It is my guess that Baron Cohen is similarly disposed, that his standpoint is: a fusillade of laughter upon all your houses — I adhere to no political viewpoint, I find humour in everything. But then I suppose I would say that.

Rod Liddle