By Josh Gregory
There’s no such thing as bad publicity, as the saying goes. And this has proved to be the case with 'Borat'. In case you've managed to avoid the massive publicity of the last few months, Borat is a satirical film, which meditates on the experience of an ill-educated and badly behaved outsider travelling through middle-America. The film has reached number 1 in the US box office and received broadly positive reviews from across the world.
Of course, not everyone's happy. Several days ago the Russian censor decided to ban the film; the star, played by Sasha Baron-Cohen, an Englishman, takes on the persona of a Kazakhstani television reporter, and much of the controversy stems from the fact that Kazakhstan (as opposed to for instance 'Molvania') is a real country, and people there have taken offence at the film's portrayal of Kazakhstan as racist and backward. Russia appears to be showing solidarity with its former Soviet Socialist Republic.
But I'm not sure if Russia has made the right decision. The Kazakhstani government has made a U-turn in recent days, from condemning the film to welcoming it as a satire. (My colleague Mr Tharoor blogged about this on 20 October.) In some sense, all the bad publicity has benefited Kazakhstan. Being given the opportunity by the media to respond to the negative portrayal in Borat, they have been given a truly global arena in which to talk about their country in more positive terms.
And so to the actual film. It didn’t really live up to the hype. It’s funny in parts, but suffers from the impression that a lot of the ‘Borat meets Americans and makes funny about jews/mentally ill; Americans unwittingly make fun of themselves by agreeing with Borat’ scenes were scripted and staged. So because Mr Baron-Cohen wasn’t genuinely exposing ‘isms’ (as he has done in his other persona, Ali G), the broad and fairly thorough offensiveness was less excusable.
However, my low enjoyment levels may have been partly to do with the fact that, because I was one of the last into the cinema, I was in the 'Godzilla row' at the very front; where everything seems very, very large and it tends to be like watching a tennis match. And, possibly also because the projector failed during the film. And, possibly also because the cinema, in London’s Leicester Square, was full of drunken businessmen. Who were, judging by the guffawing, the ideal audience. So, maybe the censor got it right; it probably wouldn't been a success in Russia anyway...
