You cannot buy the kind of press the upcoming Borat film has been getting. If only this stuff was happening when it was being released.
Borat is one of the alter-egos of Sascha Baron Cohen, aka Ali G. The character is a mustachioed Kazakh who interviews hapless subjects and creates general comedy gold. Borat, like all good Kazakhs, is a misogynistic, genocidal anti-Semite, and one of his bits involved convincing a bar filled with Oklahomans to join him in a rousing rendition of the Kazakhstan traditional song, Throw the Jew Down the Well.
Borat was born when Ali G became too famous to do the same sort of interview schtick, but a movie featuring the character has been rough going. The original director, Todd Philips of Old School fame, quit the picture. Larry Charles was recently attached. And now Kazakhstan is calling foul. In fact, they think that Cohen is out to get them.
"We are looking into the possibility that this is a political order," Ilyas Omarov, spokesman for the Kazakh foreign ministry, told AFP. The breaking point came when Borat hosted the MTV European Video Awards recently, flying in via Air Kazakhstan – a propeller plane with a drunken pilot (I watched some of this awards show and was not impressed with Borat, which is unusual).
Of course there’s not much Kazakhstan can do about it – except order a hit on the funny man. What a sequel to the Borat movie that would make.