the character of borat would be known to american audiences from the hilarious (and extremely edgy) hbo series ali g. the show is sort of an import, but not exactly... it has content from an older bbc show mixed in with other, newer stuff. in the uk, the borat material is compiled into its own show, which i believe is called borat's tv show or something like that.

and i believe one of my readers dressed up as borat for halloween this year.

anyway, kazakhstan is pissed. says reuters:

Kazakhstan's Foreign Ministry threatened legal action on Monday against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who wins laughs by portraying the central Asian state as a country populated by drunks who enjoy cow-punching as a sport.

Cohen, who portrays a spoof Kazakh television presenter Borat in his "Da Ali G Show", has won fame ridiculing Kazakhstan, the world's ninth largest country yet still little known to many in the West.

"We reserve the right to any legal action to prevent new pranks of the kind." He declined to elaborate.

Cohen's earlier jokes about the Central Asian state include claims that the people would shoot a dog and then have a party, and that local wine was made from fermented horse urine.

the horse urine and cow-punching jokes aren't the half of it... the character of borat isn't just ignorant or portrayed as from a backward country; he's also portrayed as extremely racist and antisemitic, and as someone who happily practices incest and beastiality, etc. it's pretty out-there stuff, and i'm not surprised that kazakhstan would be pissed about it. but the show is still pretty damn funny.¶

yes, i went as borat.

i even wrote my show review in character.

now that was work. ¶

here's my blog post on it. ¶

awesome. ¶