Any jokes about Pakistan would be dangerous. Even stating the FACT that the majority of the child rapist gangs in the UK are of Pakistani origin is shouted down as racist
geoff evans
3 years ago
Interestingly, SBC’s other major comic success was Ali G. An absurd and derogatory depiction of a young man of Asian heritage and more than likely Muslim. Bit of a theme here? Though I suspect AG would not run today. Maybe time too will catch up with Borat (as it did with Apu). But it probably helps for his current acceptance that he targets unpopular figures on the right…
Interesting how history can be reframed. At the time many people did think the TV character (‘Ali’) referred to an Asian trying and failing to be cool and black. (Though some black commentators saw the character as ridiculing black culture.) The Alistair LG name was created for the 2002 film. Though even current wiki refers to the character as a ‘chav’ indicating poor white rather than privileged. Punching down as usual.
I think the whole point of the Ali G character was that he was not of South Asian heritage. My recollection was that he was a relatively privileged white boy appropriating a ‘street’ identity.
Andrew D
3 years ago
Yes, we can talk about Kazakhs, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Afghans etc without giving offence. But there’s one Stan whose exonym we dare not utter…
Kazakhstan had once one of the biggest German minorities (Stalin’s policy towards different ethnicities) and more Lutherans than France (Alsace and Lorraine).
The tragedy of the Volga German Republic and Stalin’s ethnic removal policy. What happened to them: did they migrate to Germany post-1991 or are some still there?
M Spahn
3 years ago
It helps that Borat’s Kazakhstan has no resemblance. Kazakhs look more like East Asians than Middle Easterners. I think his sets are actually in Bulgaria or something.
Gary Taylor
3 years ago
Wait – I thought the rule was ‘don’t punch down’?
Dan Poynton
3 years ago
Yes, Baron Cohen is certainly a liberal and has recently said some egregiously woke things about freespeech and offence (mind-numbingly ironic, considering his work), but his comedy work has been so consistently politically incorrect and anti-woke – so full of “unacceptable appropriation” and so “unsafe”, in short so damn good – that to paint him as a simply an “anti-Trump liberal” seems ignorantly tribal and un-nuanced. (Although your observation on which Stans are acceptable to satirise in the West is brilliantly perceptive. However this is not Cohen’s fault – he is simply riffing on the present social convention)
Any jokes about Pakistan would be dangerous. Even stating the FACT that the majority of the child rapist gangs in the UK are of Pakistani origin is shouted down as racist
Interestingly, SBC’s other major comic success was Ali G. An absurd and derogatory depiction of a young man of Asian heritage and more than likely Muslim. Bit of a theme here? Though I suspect AG would not run today. Maybe time too will catch up with Borat (as it did with Apu). But it probably helps for his current acceptance that he targets unpopular figures on the right…
The character’s full name is “Alistair Leslie Graham,” so I don’t think the character is intended to have any Asian heritage.
Interesting how history can be reframed. At the time many people did think the TV character (‘Ali’) referred to an Asian trying and failing to be cool and black. (Though some black commentators saw the character as ridiculing black culture.) The Alistair LG name was created for the 2002 film. Though even current wiki refers to the character as a ‘chav’ indicating poor white rather than privileged. Punching down as usual.
Interesting. I only discovered the movie and the character many years after the fact.
I think the whole point of the Ali G character was that he was not of South Asian heritage. My recollection was that he was a relatively privileged white boy appropriating a ‘street’ identity.
Yes, we can talk about Kazakhs, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Afghans etc without giving offence. But there’s one Stan whose exonym we dare not utter…
You wouldn’t be referring to Islam’s only nuclear power, Pakistan would you?
Aren’t they also rather ‘chummy’ with the CCP?
I trust the USN, in the form of an Ohio class sub, has them under ‘close observation’, for all our sakes.
Surely not the People’s Republic of Jockistan?
Kazakhstan had once one of the biggest German minorities (Stalin’s policy towards different ethnicities) and more Lutherans than France (Alsace and Lorraine).
The tragedy of the Volga German Republic and Stalin’s ethnic removal policy. What happened to them: did they migrate to Germany post-1991 or are some still there?
It helps that Borat’s Kazakhstan has no resemblance. Kazakhs look more like East Asians than Middle Easterners. I think his sets are actually in Bulgaria or something.
Wait – I thought the rule was ‘don’t punch down’?
Yes, Baron Cohen is certainly a liberal and has recently said some egregiously woke things about freespeech and offence (mind-numbingly ironic, considering his work), but his comedy work has been so consistently politically incorrect and anti-woke – so full of “unacceptable appropriation” and so “unsafe”, in short so damn good – that to paint him as a simply an “anti-Trump liberal” seems ignorantly tribal and un-nuanced.
(Although your observation on which Stans are acceptable to satirise in the West is brilliantly perceptive. However this is not Cohen’s fault – he is simply riffing on the present social convention)