"Borat" Banned in Russia?
Baron Sasha Cohen may have gone too far for Russia's film censors
The BBC and Moscow Times have the story. The Turkish Invasion blog reports that the movie is already being sold as a pirated DVD in Moscow maketplaces.
Comments
The funny thing is, the movie is really an attack on American culture.
I really doubt anyone thinks that Kazakhstan is as backward as Borat makes it sound. The movie actually is probably a good thing for Kazakhstan, since most people don't even know the country exists, and will now be more open to learning something about it.
Posted by: Jason Herr | November 9, 2006 3:41 PM
Is it really a "funny" movie?
The highlights suck.
Posted by: Andrew Waller | November 9, 2006 8:37 PM
I think Jason is right, and Kazakh officials should just get over it (don't think many will learn even how to spell country's name in the US, though).
According to the Federal Culture and Cinematography Agency official, there was an informal suggestion to refrain from showing it on big screen( i can only guess to please Kazakhs, not sure why), and the XXth Century Fox has not applied for the license yet(reported by RIA Novosti, one of the central Russian news agenicies, but doesn't show up on their English site). I hope they do start showing it soon. Otherwise it will be the first precedent when a movie was banned for other than "pornographic contents" reasons in Russia since 1991.
Posted by: Arbitr | November 9, 2006 10:23 PM
This is bad for Russia! It's a shame that a country can ban a film like this denying it's people the freedom to choose for themselves.
I personally think Borat is funny as hell!!!!
Posted by: John | November 10, 2006 4:29 AM
I've actually heard that it was banned because of containing offensive religious and cultural issues, whatever that means. Which I consider false, cause it is funny as hell.
Maybe that's the way they do PR in Russia.
Posted by: bokonon | November 12, 2006 7:09 AM
well i think borat is a stupid character, how he can be funny? kill me i don't get it!
Posted by: fantastic | November 13, 2006 3:57 AM
What's noteworthy with Borat's banning? Russia has very little free press left thanks to Putin.
12 Russian journalists have been murdered to date, a more troubling and newsworthy development than Borat's banning.
Posted by: penny | November 15, 2006 9:45 AM
Hello, I'm new to this site. Nice to meet you all. :)
I was checking out this site after I saw it listed while checking out news on the ex-Russian spy who died.
I noticed that the above source for this article is "Turkish Invasion" and that blog is also a source on this site. I was wondering how do people think about this "Turkish Invasion?"
Thank you.
WEB
Posted by: W.E.B. Du Bois | November 24, 2006 9:58 PM