Intercultural Incompetence
Borat Parodies Western Clichés about Eastern Europe
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The Kazakh reporter Borat Sagdiyev is a fictional character created by the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. Borat is ostensibly out to make a documentary film in the West, but he emerges in fact as agent provocateur: Using politically incorrect statements, he entices his interlocutors into reacting in a way that has an impact on the audience. Last year, the film Borat arrived in American and European cinemas. Acting within the loose-knit framework of a road movie, Cohen lets Borat perform in different episodes which attack precarious phenomena within U.S. society: obsequiousness, bigotry, sport fanaticism and cult of stardom.
(Osteuropa 5/2007, pp. 95–108)