Sense of humor

You either have a sense of humor or you don’t – and it’s immediately obvious. But whether it’s funny or not is up to anyone to decide. Half the country is watching Petrosyan, another half the country is spitting.

And on a global scale, there is now no cooler comedian than “Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiev.” Have you heard of this? Until recently, people in Russia knew nothing about him. But the Kazakhs get terribly worried at the mere mention of this gentleman.

His real name is Sacha Baron Cohen. British comedian. He comes from Iran and is Jewish by nationality, which in itself is curious. He became famous as an MTV star, but gained worldwide fame in the image of the fictional Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiev, on whose behalf he spoke in his show, and now he has made a film about this same Borat’s trip to America. The film, with a modest budget and limited release, has been breaking box office records for the second week and has already received about $70 million in the States alone.

In Russia, this movie, apparently, will not receive a penny, because it became the first film actually banned from showing on our territory since Soviet times. That is, there is no formal ban, but the distribution company was “not advised” to show the film to the general public and was reminded that the distribution license does not last forever. So, as in the old days, according to Zhvanetsky, one has to “talk about the collapse and rise of Hollywood without seeing a single film.”

There is no violence or pornography in the film, and, as I understand it, there is not a word about Russia, but Kazakhstan is not presented in the best possible way. And this has become a big problem for our neighbors. Well, we kind of show solidarity with them. And in fact, what will Nazarbayev say when it turns out that in hundreds of cinemas in a friendly country they are broadcasting on the screen that the favorite form of leisure for the Kazakhs is drinking fermented camel urine and then shooting at dogs with guns? And everything else in the same spirit.

The scandal is exactly one year old. And it began even before any film. The film is an apotheosis. For exactly a year, Kazakhstan has been fighting against the “denigration of the country.” And Nazarbayev, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and whoever made statements. Cohen’s show was seen as both racism and a political order, because Sagdiev’s debut coincided with some Kazakh elections. But Sasha Cohen hardly knew anything about this, or about Kazakhstan itself.

The guy does not hide the fact that he simply pointed his finger at the map and found a country there with a funny name, where, in his opinion, people probably still wear animal skins, and it seemed cool to him to speak on their behalf - and he has nothing against Kazakhstan .

This is the outline of events. And then we can treat them as we please. For example, the joke about camel urine doesn’t seem funny to me, like almost all of Borat’s Kazakh-themed jokes that I could find on the Internet. But for some people it’s a “laughing” joke.

Let's put ourselves in the place of the Kazakhs. How to react? For a year, they reacted to this crap with completely serious faces, speaking in the language of diplomatic notes, which made the whole thing look even more stupid, and the comedian Sasha only became more incensed and scored points. Not to mention the fact that MTV’s “propaganda resources” are a hundred times greater than all the information capabilities of Kazakhstan. By the way, Borat gave “on his” website a link to the website of the Kazakh news agency, after which the agency’s traffic increased significantly. This is what citizens calling for tolerance insist on: whether this is good advertising for the country or bad, but thanks to it, millions of people in the world learned that such a country is even on the map. True, skeptics immediately notice that it would be better if they knew nothing about you at all than the fact that you are shooting at dogs and firing catapults at Uzbekistan.

Now let’s take the place of the Russian cultural bureaucrats who receive such films. On the one hand, it is inconvenient to be in front of the Kazakhs. But on the other hand, the ban only fuels interest. It is unlikely that this film would have had a big box office and big press in our country. Just think, stupid jokes from an unknown Englishman about uninteresting Kazakhstan. Neither Tom Cruise, nor Scarlett Johansson, nor Konstantin Khabensky are in the credits. And here you have a fuss, a ban. Pirated DVDs will become available very soon and everyone who wants to will still see the film.

But, in addition to the feeling of embarrassment in front of a strategic partner, officials have another reason not to put the movie on the screen. Let Borat Sagdiev, presenting the Kazakhs as a wild tribe, show that they are not at all alone: ​​when his hero comes to America to join civilization, it turns out that there are even bigger suckers in the States. There is, however, a fear that our people will understand the movie as an officially permitted mockery of the Kazakhs, that is, in the language of the street, of all the “chocks.” Given the current tension with the national question, such films may seem unsafe.

As a result, the situation became somewhat strange. What is there? There is a guy who is a fool himself, and his jokes are stupid.

There are unassuming citizens around the world who find ass jokes funny and who make a movie a box office success.

There are serious politicians who are mortally offended.

There are other, also very serious, politicians who have nothing to do with what is happening at all, but out of solidarity with those first politicians, they are also offended.

There are quite cultured citizens who don’t find it funny, but they already call Borat a cult hero because he bullied politicians.

There are even, dare I say it, human rights activists who insist on a wide release of the film and make noise about blacklists and ferocious censorship.

In general, everything is there. But something, however, is missing. Maybe a sense of humor?