Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat” causes stir with Kazakhstan

By April MacIntyre Sep 2, 2006, 19:28 GMT

Sacha Baron Cohen - It took 6 weeks for Sacha to grow facial hair and eyebrows to play Borat. In contrast to his characters, he is a soft-spoken, gentlemanly Cambridge man who considered pursuing a PhD before going into comedy. © Glenn Harris / Photorazzi

London born comedian and actor Sacha Baron Cohen has caused an international stir with the government of Kazakhstan.  Cohen plays three principal characters on HBO’s "Da Ali G Show."   His Borat character is currently building a bit of controversy.

Cohen’s main alter-ego is Ali G, a lower-class white male, a caricature satirizing those who claim an urban culture to which they don’t belong.   
Ali G has a “whiff of Islam” about him, according to the late British producer Harry Thompson, who was instrumental in the creation of the character Ali G for The 11 O’clock Show.

The country of Kazakhstan is now feeling the brunt of Cohen’s satire with another famous creation, Khazakstani TV reporter, Borat.

Always armed with a live mic and a misplaced sense of lust for his sister, Borat searches for porn, and reels in American targets for his scatological humor and unabashed anti-Semitism. The Borat trademark is to capture political and religious leaders with inappropriate and silly questions in staged interviews – the victim unaware and unprepared.

In the upcoming release of “Borat” this fall, Cohen’s Kazakhstani TV talking head Borat is dispatched to the United States to report on the greatest country in the world. With a documentary crew in tow, Borat becomes more interested in locating and marrying Pamela Anderson.

New York magazine reports the Kazakhstan embassy and government are scrambling to address the upcoming release, and have entertained the idea of buying ad time on air in the US to educate Americans about the “real Kazakhstan.”

Embassy spokesman Roman Vassilenko says “the government is divided on how to respond.”  Government hard-liners who are outraged over the impending Borat film have yanked the www.borat.kz website.

New York magazine reports Cohen’s response to Kazakhstan simply as Borat claiming to “fully support my government’s decision to sue this Jew.”

Reporter Geoffrey Gray for New York magazine reports that any further muzzling of Borat by government officials are “Sovietesque and will only goad Cohen on.”