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It will be interesting for you to see how our film industry’s highly skilled “dubbers” handle the challenge presented by the movie Borat: Cultural Learning of America for Make Benefit Glorious Motion of Kazakhistan, which is now playing in Glorious Nation of Brazil.
CONTROVERSIAL
The film, which stars a fake Kazakhstani journalist with a strong accent and a poor command of the English Language, has been a massive – yet controversial - hit in the United States. Borat is played by his creator, British comedian (and Cambridge University graduate) Sacha Baron Cohen, who was also responsible for Ali G. an ignorant and politically incorrect interviewer who was a TV sensation at the start of the decade. Borat actually began life as a minor character on Do Ali G Show. Borat is even more extreme in terms of his misogyny and his virulent anti-Semitism (Baon Cohen is himself Jewish and seems to be obsessed with the issue).
LEGAL PROBLEMS
The humour of both Ali G and Borat lies in the fact that their victims don’t know that they are being set up. They are told that the interviews are for a foreign TV station and are mad to sign release forms. Several of the people who appeared in Borat are now suing its producers. Not surprisingly, the government of Kazakhstan has reacted badly to the primitive portrayal of their country, but Sacha Baron Cohen insists that the joke is on America. (no audio)
THE BORAT PHENOMNEON
SOURCE: SPEAK UP
Standard: British accent
Speaker: Mark Worden
A movie that has taken America by storm: Bohat: Cultural Learning of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. It stars Sacha Baron. Cohen, a British actor already famous for another memorable personality. Ali G. this time he plays Bohat Saddiyev, an outrageous Journalist who has come to discover the real America.” The intriguing thing is that all the other characters are real people who don’t know that they are being fooled.
Here Borat presents the film in a splendid parody of the promotional video. By the way, please don’t use Borat as a model, if you’re planning to improve your English!
Borat (Kazakhstani accent, the others are all Standard American accent)
My name Borat Sagdiyev, I here make promotion, talk to you about movie films I make. The Ministry of Information decide to make this film about America because we want to be like you, America have most beautiful women in world, for example, Lisa Minelli and Elizabeth Taylor. It also center for democracy and porno. I like!
Interviewer
It has been said, Mr. Sagdiyev, that your country is extremely oppressive.
Borat:
Yes, it’s true. Thank you, I met some very nice peoples on my journey across America. In New York Cities I meet this man who teach me how to drive a motor cars, yes?
Mike:
My name is Mike, I’m going to be your driving instructor. Welcome to our country, OK?
Borat:
My name Borat (he kisses, Mike on both cheeks).
Mike:
OK, OK, good, good. Well, I’m not used to that, but that’s fine.
Borat:
Look, there is a woman in a car. Can we follow her and maybe make a sexy time with her…?
Mike/
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Borat:
And get her, why not?
Mike:
Because a woman has a right to choose who she has sex with.
Borat: What?!
Mike:
How about that? Isn’t that amazing?
Borat:
You joke? It is very strange in America is that a woman is permit to drive a car. We say in Kazakhstan, “To let a women drive a car is like let a monkey drive a plane!” Yes? Yeah! We do not do that anymore, since the Astana air crash of 2002.
THE COMEDY COACH
Borat’s next victim is a comedy coach:
Borat:
What is a not jokes?
Comedy coach:
A not joke is when we try to make fun of something and what we do is we make a statement that we pretend is true but, in the end, we say in “NOT” which means it’s not true.
Borat:
So teach me how to make one.
Comedy coach:
Alright: so a not joke is, I would say: “That suit is black…NOT!!!”
Borat:
This suit is NOT!!!
BLACK!!!
Comedy coach:
No, no, NOT!!! Has to be the end.
Borat: OK.
Borat:
This suit is black not.
Comedy coach:
This suit is black…
Pause. You know what a pause is?
Borat: Yes.
Comedy coach:
This suit is black…
NOT!!
Borat:
This suit is black…
NOT!!!
Borat:
This suit is black…
Pause…NOT!!!
Comedy coach:
You don’t say “pause.”
This suit is black…
That’s a pause…
NOT!!!
Borat:
This suit is black…
Comedy coach:
OK, I don’t…I don’t…
I’m not quite…
Borat: NOT!!!
THE FEMINISM DEBATE
Yet “the Veteran Feminists of America” provide the perfect target for his politically incorrect humor:
Borat: so what means this feminism?
First Feminist:
It’s the theory that women should be equal to men in matters economic, social and…
Second feminist:
Now, you are laughing.
Borat: Yes!
Second feminist:
That is the problem:
Borat:
Do you think a woman should be educated?
Third feminist: Definitely.
Borat: But is it not a problem that a woman have a smaller brain than a man?
Third Feminist: That is wrong.
Borat: But a government scientist, Dr. Yamak, have proved I it ssize of squirrel.
Third feminist: he’s wrong.
Borat:
Give me a smile, baby, why angry face?
Second feminist:
Well, what you’re saying is very demeaning. Do you know the word demeaning?
Borat: No.
Second feminist:
We are saying to you that…
Borat: I could not concentrate on what this old man was saying.
Third feminist:
OK, hav ewe finished now?
Borat:
Listen, pussy cat (bad word), smile a bit!
Second feminist:
All right, that’s it, I’m done.
