2008 Woodie Awards
While watching Da Ali G Show with friends last weekend, I remarked that I was surprised that the Kazakhstan government had not taken legal action against comedian “Ali G” (née Sacha Baron Cohen) for his portrayal of “Borat” the Kazakhstani reporter. Borat is a popular comic personage among American youth, but others aren’t laughing. Even though I like the show a lot, it comes as no surprise (especially in a world suffused with legal suits and court proceedings) that Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry threatened legal action against the comedian.
The conflict raises the question of how far is too far when depicting another culture in a comedic light. Whereas the problem of offensive portrayal used to be generally limited to specific groups within a larger population (e.g. the blackface minstrelsy of the late 19th – early 20th century), now the scope is much broader and transcends international borders. Although we’ve reached a stage where goods and ideas are readily imported and exported across the global marketplace, mankind has a ways to go before insensitivity towards other cultures (intentional or not) is a thing of the past. Of course, this does not necessarily mean that we should look forward to a dull and humorless future. Ultimately, it is a matter of achieving some level of mutual respect and understanding. When the writers on Fox’s animated show “Family Guy” make a crack about Canadians, they can feel pretty secure that no Canadians will be up in arms over a silly joke.
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Ian Buruma said something about this at his talk I went to today - taking my own spin on what he said, it’s almost as if we thought all these things were in-jokes, as if they were simply invisible to foreigners.
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