Borat's Antisemitism Recontextualized - I thought the joke was that SBC was Jewish and fishing for reactions

SilkGnut

SilkGnut

Gnuts of the Finest Silk
kiwifarms.net
Joined
Jan 27, 2019
I look forward to a thousand late ratings on this post, but it just hit me the other day, Borat is from Kazakhstan, a country that few people these days recognize or know any history about. Though it is easy to blame classical American ignorance, the Russkies have made information on the area scarce so ignorance is understandable. What I had not realized is that they were absolutely devastated by the Holodomor that wiped out huge swaths of their population. Given how Borat would have been born only a couple decades after that event the memories would have far from faded. Rewatching the scenes seems to bear this out. Many scenes play out much more logically with that context in mind; the look of terror he dons makes far more sense given the genocide that his country had yet to recover from.

I would not be shocked if this were common knowledge when the movie first came out, but these days I can not seem to find any writings about it. Considering how I always thought it was a strange angle to take I appreciate that there is more to the joke than "Jewish comedian acts antisemitic and gets people to agree with him" .
 
  • Autistic
  • Informative
Reactions: Kamov Ka-52, Gustav Schuchardt, Army Burger and 4 others
Gustav Schuchardt said:
This thread will sadly fill up with people denying the Kazakhstan Holodomor in the 1950s killed six billion people.
Click to expand...
It is drastic understatements like these that cause the event to be forgotten about. For shame.
Underestimated Nutria said:
Not antiseptic here but it would be hard to blame someone from USSR from hating jews.
Click to expand...
My ignorant American ass never connected the dots. I wonder how many people just took it as an exercise in pushing boundaries.
 
  • Feels
  • Like
Reactions: Gustav Schuchardt and Underestimated Nutria
SilkGnut said:
Though it is easy to blame classical American ignorance, the Russkies have made information on the area scarce so ignorance is understandable. What I had not realized is that they were absolutely devastated by the Holodomor that wiped out huge swaths of their population.
Click to expand...
Informations are not scarce anymore, and havent for 30 years.
and they dealed with holodomor by making it an exile for germans and other groups they didnt trusted.

Borat also doesnt look like a khazak at all.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Underestimated Nutria
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back