Word: alis
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Echoing the success by “The Da Vinci Code” producers to lure Catholic viewers by drawing attention to that film’s taboo themes, Cohen (star of HBO’s cult hit “Da Ali G Show,” and Class Day speaker at Harvard in 2004) and his backers at Fox have been focusing attention in their promotional materials on the protestations of the Kazakh government, and of Cohen’s hilarious replies. One recent television spot for the film explicitly refers to the news coverage of Borat, urging...
Perhaps these segments are meant to spice up the narrative, and keep casual viewers happy; in any case, this “gonzo comedy” suits Fox (the film’s distributors) far more than Cohen’s old “Da Ali G Show” home HBO. Cohen’s real strength, here as always, is in using his deadpan portrayal of a totally oblivious foreigner to expose prejudice and hypocrisy in the supposedly civilized world...
...course, without cheap shots, there would be no Borat. Could Cohen get away with blatantly mocking many other nations? His gay Austrian character on “Da Ali G Show,” Bruno, is a ridiculous, hyper-flamboyant character, but he isn’t an indictment of all of Austria, just as Ali G and his “Staines massive” gang don’t represent the entirety of England...
...plausible that their citizens would wash their faces in the toilet. He's been exploiting this by videotaping the reaction of unsuspecting people to his characters' horrifying behavior since 1998, when he started on England's short-lived The 11 o'Clock Show, and later on HBO's Da Ali G Show. His characters--aspiring rapper Ali G, gay Austrian fashionista Brno and Borat Sagdiyev, the U.S.-loving Kazakh--get away with astonishing rudeness because people are too weirded out by youth culture, flaming gay guys and foreigners to question them. When one of his guises gets too famous...
...director Sergei Dvortsevoy, showing at the Harvard Film Archive (HFA) on Nov. 4 and 5, offer insight into the daily lives of marginalized residents of Kazakhstan and other former Soviet countries. Those hoping to catch a glimpse of a real live Kazakh next weekend, however, are better off seeing Ali G’s “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” Although Dvortsevoy was originally scheduled to appear for the screenings of his films, he won’t make it to the United States. Brooke Holgerson, Editorial Assistant...