borat
This weekend, while many of you are still picking candy corn kernels out of your pubis, we will finally learn whether the coming of Borat—and, looking ahead,
Universal's $42 million investment in Bruno—was a matter of the right man at the right time, or yet another overhyped Hollywood fiasco fated to elicit
sneers of SoaPy derision for years to come. One thing is certain: The
first ones to accuse Borat of having jumped the goat were the Kazakhs themselves, and they still have strong opinions on the subject on the eve of their mainstream debut. A Kazakhstan-in-the-klieg-lights round-up:
· The country's
embassy website offers their official "Take on 'Borat,'" in which they claim the movie has "nothing to do with the real Kazakhstan," but that they "hope the movie will spur increased interest" in the country. To help their case, they include a photograph of the recent crowning of a freshly depilated Miss Kazakhstan 2006, Gaukhar Rakhmetalyeva. (Very nice...How much?) [
Kazakhstan News Bulletin]
· The populations of Salem, VA and Almaty, KAZ bridge a nearly insurmountable cultural divide with a common desire to literally string up and gut Sacha Baron Cohen: "'I'd kill this impostor on the spot,' said Eltai Muptekeyev, who makes his living in Almaty by posing for photos with a blindfolded falcon clinging to a thick leather glove on his hand." [
AP]
· Galymzhan Zhakiyanov, a leader of the opposition party, uses the movie as an opportunity to highlight the current Kazakh administration's shortcomings, saying, "If human rights and freedoms were not being violated, if Kazakhstan did not become famous for its corruption scandals around the world, then Sacha Cohen would've chosen some other country for his jokes." He then removed the blindfold from his own falcon (cellphone technology has not yet reached their borders), tied the statement to its leg, and sent it to the local Reuters bureau. [
Reuters]
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