zeynep tufekci on Twitter
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If that were the case, he would have chosen his character to be an American or a Brit. Blackface minstrel shows aren't satirizing racism, and neither is Cohen. https://t.co/TC1SiwigMO— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) October 25, 2020

This is a question and i'm not trying to dunk on the tweet

I thought the main reason why those were bad because it mocked black people and they were the target of the ridicule, and while Cohen uses a similar technique in Borat he is targeting Americans as part of his satire, not Kazakhs.

I saw a criticism in vein of "People he can mock by making them think Kazakhs are actually like this would also believe that there is a country called Loftristan and its people act like that" and i can accept that, but comparison to blackface makes almost zero sense to me.

  • hagensfohawk [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    In order to mock Americans, Cohen has to set up a deliberately over the top caricature of someone from a "backwards" culture. It's what lends weight to the comedy of getting Americans to agree with the crazy shit that the Borat character says.

    Also, it's funny. And white libs who want to pretend like it isn't need to get the sticks out of their asses and stop with the performative wokeness.