"Borat"

When "Borat" came out in 2007, I avoided seeing it, since it was rumored to be crude.

This last summer, driving through Las Vegas and listening to a NPR radio interview with Sacha Baron Cohen on the occasion of the release of his new movie, "Bruno", I realized that I may have missed some significant humorous times in my elevated efforts to avoid crudeness. So, on Sunday, I watched "Borat" on DVD.

For all the changes in the former Soviet Union, English-speakers remain lamentably-ignorant of Central Asian places like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Ignorance is opportunity, of course, and it allows comedians like Cohen to impute all sorts of hyperbolic tendencies to that blank place on the map. Like the absurd national anthem:

Kazakhstan greatest country in the world.
All other countries are run by little girls.
Kazakhstan number one exporter of potassium.
Other countries have inferior potassium.

Kazakhstan home of Tinshein swimming pool.
It’s length thirty meter and width six meter.
Filtration system a marvel to behold.
It remove 80 percent of human solid waste.

Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan you very nice place.
From Plains of Tarashek to Norther fence of Jewtown.
Kazakhstan friend of all except Uzbekistan.
They very nosey people with bone in their brain.

Kazakhstan industry best in the world.
We incented toffee and trouser belt.
Kazakhstan’s prostitutes cleanest in the region.
Except of course Turkmenistan’s

Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan you very nice place.
From Plains of Tarashek to Norther fence of Jewtown.
Come grasp the might phenis of our leader.
From junction with the testes to tip of its face!

Yes, "Borat" is crude, but it is also funny. The journey between Borat and his producer Azmat across the USA is absurd. The fight between Azmat & Borat, featuring both running naked through hotel hallways, got me laughing uncontrollably: I had to leave the room to regain my composure.

I have to be careful when I laugh uncontrollably these days, because I come uncomfortably close to death (like when I started laughing uncontrollably while watching the Shadow Play in 'Austin Powers III' in a movie theater, and I actually fainted in my seat from lack of oxygen). Fortunately, I did not die on Sunday. But I keep catching myself humming:

Kazakhstan greatest country in the world.
All other countries are run by little girls.
Kazakhstan number one exporter of potassium.
Other countries have inferior potassium.

And when I hum, I sense death is near.

Oddly enough, the copy of "Borat" I saw didn't feature one of its most famous sequences (probably because it's so offensive) but featuring my former home, Tucson, AZ:




And speaking of that dangerous Austin Powers III Shadow Play, here it is: