Thread: Kazakhstan got on the specially designated countries list in USA

Yeah, that's right - I used to think he looked Turkish too. I got really surprised when I saw the film and heard him talking about Kazakhstan. I think that Borat is a Turkish name but I have never met anyone called that.

Sacha Baron Cohen is Jewish, that's why he looks vaguely Middle Eastern and a bit like a Turk with make-up on.
In case people don't know - Sacha Baron-Cohen is BRITISH and not American. So it's not an American film actually. He went to Oxford University and is well educated, well spoken and intelligent. I think this and the fact that he is British makes it even worse. Everyone knows that Americans are rubbish at geography. But British people simply have no excuse! I think the film is tasteless and insulting towards Kazakhstan. Likewise the film the Baron-Cohen did in America afterwards, can't remember the name and it was so terrible that I didn't even finish watching it. There is plenty of things to critisize America for, but ridiculing the culture of American people in America is just rude.

A quick quote I pulled from Wikipedia about Cohen.. Not that it answers any questions, but this is his defense of the whole thing:
Baron Cohen has had some trouble because of racist or prejudiced comments his characters have made (see Da Ali G Show). HBO spokesman Quentin Schaffer has replied to criticism concerning Baron Cohen's characters: 'Through his alter-egos, he delivers an obvious satire that exposes people's ignorance and prejudice in much the same way All in the Family did years ago.'^[26] Regarding his portrayal as the anti-Semitic Borat, Baron Cohen says the segments are a "dramatic demonstration of how racism feeds on dumb conformity, as much as rabid bigotry", rather than a display of racism by Baron Cohen himself.^[27] "Borat essentially works as a tool. By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice", Baron Cohen explains.^[9] Addressing the same topic in an NPR interview with Robert Siegel, Baron Cohen says "...and I think that's quite an interesting thing with Borat, which is people really let down their guard with him because they're in a room with somebody who seems to have these outrageous opinions. They sometimes feel much more relaxed about letting their own outrageous, politically incorrect, prejudiced opinions come out."^[28]
Baron Cohen, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, says he also wishes in particular to expose the role of indifference in that genocide. "When I was in university, there was this major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw, who said, 'The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.' I know it's not very funny being a comedian talking about the Holocaust, but it's an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic."^[9] Regarding the enthusiastic response to his song, "Throw The Jew Down The Well", he says, "Did it reveal that they were anti-Semitic? Perhaps. But maybe it just revealed that they were indifferent to anti-Semitism."^[9