The link below is an article found on Yahoo! News from the Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan:
http://news.yahoo.com/kazakhstan-thanks-borat-tourism-boost-130427470.html
Foreign Minister Yerzhan Kazykhanov is thanking Sacha Baron Cohen for boosting tourism in Kazakhstan after the release of his comedy movie, "Borat", over its "depiction of Kazakh rural life and the main character's difficult adaptation to the United States". Although the film is completely mocking the Kazakhstan lifestlye, it is still being praised by the nation's political figures for the impact it has had on their nation, mostly in the tourism area. Within the article, the author mentions that "Borat" was banned in the nation and the director's website was even blocked from Kazakh public access. Seeing this information, does this confirm your idea that any publicity at all is good publicity? Along with the idea, has our country become so ignorant that we judge/chatacterize another nation based off of a comedy film released in the United States? What does Kazykhanov mean when he says he approaches the film as "philosophically"?
Prompt 2
ReplyDeleteI am honestly surprised that Foreign Minister Yerzhan Kazykhanov unbanned all access to “Borat”. Even though it has increased the numbers in tourism to Kazakhstan I do not believe that unbanning all access was a good idea. If you believe something is wrong, you should stick to your guns and not change it just because it is suddenly popular. The tourism was increasing without “Borat” so I do not see why unbanning it was necessary. This, to me, makes the minister appear weak with the fact that he can’t even stick to his owl rules. With today’s society media is a great part of popular culture and I think that this article shows that media is not always bad. If we did not have media, then Kazakhstan could be suffering, in one way or another, and their numbers for tourists would be low. Ultimately, media plays a big part in pop culture and whether we may perceive it as good or bad media, something good can always come out of it.
While I don't believe any publicity is good publicity, I do believe this film helped the country put itself on the map (figuratively speaking). For anyone who has seen the film, it is strictly satirical and had no purpose of actually mocking the country. In my opinion, the film should never have been banned in the first place. I think the foreign minister thanking Sasha Baron Cohen is the right thing to do and a good way to correct his wrong doing of banning the movie in the first place.
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ReplyDeleteI can't believe that Foreign Minister Yerzhan Kazykhanov unbanned the access to Borat and the website. I think that the country should stick to its beliefs, they should not change their beliefs because of money or tourism. I think the movie should never have been banned or that they should never have unbanned it. I think Kazakhstan could get more tourists without unbanning the movie. I also think that media influences a lot of people and the way they see other countries and cultures. I think most people realize that Borat is not a direct representation of Kazakhstan. I think the banning of the movie was too much in the first place and if it was never banned then they would never have had to unbanned it.
A month ago, Kazakhstan authorities asked for an apology from Kuwait for not playing the actual anthem and had the medal ceremony restaged with the correct anthem. I don't think that any amount of a "philosophical" approach would change this. Although Kazakhstan may be unbanning the movie to promote/allow "Borat tours," I think there's a line between cultural insults and boosting an economy.
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ReplyDeleteThe fact that Kazakhstan unbanned the movie “Borat”, which was once officially forbidden by the nation, because the movie boosted the tourism in the country leads people to cogitate about both positive and negative impacts of publicity on society. Made by government, publicity plays an extremely important role in the development of a country, directly and significantly affecting a country’s future and citizens’ lives. Therefore, publicity is always pushed in a highly controversial position that lets people examine and discuss its strengths and weaknesses. However, there is no absolute good or bad publicity existing. Government makes decisions based on which side of publicity that they focus on or the publicity itself values more. For Kazakhstan, the government may think that the boost of tourism will stimulate and speed up the economic growth of the country, enhancing citizens’ standard of living. Compared with mocking effect, economic growth means more to the country, so the government changed their mind and unbanned the film. As another example, Chinese government once made a publicity that was used to stimulate the national economy by encouraging the development of automobile industry. Although the government knew the problems such as heavily traffic jam and air pollution the cars can cause, they still decided to execute the publicity because they thought rapidly economic development was really needed at that time. In conclusion, there is no absolute right or wrong publicity. People can reduce the negative impacts the publicity will make by discussing and making comparison, but there is no way to completely eliminate the negative influences.
Any publicity is in no way good publicity. We can see the constant proof of this the modern media. If we take a look at Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, or Michael Jackson we can see how careers are defined by the negative publicity they have received. An even more recent example is of Jason Russell, the leading activist speaking out about the dictator Joseph Kony, who has lost a great amount of followers after his recent situation.
ReplyDeleteI believe that this article is a good example of any publicity at all is good publicity. I have seen the movie "Borat" and I can understand why the movie was banned from the country to start with. I think that any country should be proud that it has a high rate of tourism, despite what people think of it. I do believe most people in the US do not judge Kazakhstan based only off of "Borat". I think people do know that it is simply a movie and not exactly like the way "Borat" portrays it.
ReplyDeleteWhile some people disagree with the fact that Borat is being thanked, I do not see a reason why this is such a big deal. It might have been a crazy movie that got banned, but does that really matter? If a film like that came out in America and it caused enough tourism to wipe out the US's debt, then nobody would complain. You can not blame a country for being happy that they are finally making money and attracting people, especially from a comedy movie.
ReplyDeleteI personally find this hilarious that the country took the movie this seriously. There is no doubt in my mind that there are movies bashing the United States and yet we do not ban their movies but rather see it as their free speech. I think the fact that the whole country banned the movie makes them look petty and not able to take things lightly. Obviously the movie did good things for them like increase the tourism rate. The movie was a joke and should be taken as such.
ReplyDeleteAfter having ban the movie it is pretty bold of the Minister to be thanking Sacha Baron Cohen now. First he made him basically a publc enemy in the country and now he is thanking him. I suppose that this is the right thing to do but it must have been very embarrassing to make such a drastic turn around.
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ReplyDeleteI find it quite funny how the foreign minister is thanking Sacha Baron Cohen for the movie "Borat". This movie was just a comedy and Kazakhstan's tourism went up because of it. I still dont believe that any publicity is good publicity. For example, earlier this year the scandal involving Jerry Sandusky is not good publicity for him or the entire Penn State University. I also do believe people carachterize a country just from a movie. There are a ton of ignorant people in our country.
I don't quite understand the significance of this article. It is simply an example of how ridiculous the lack of freedom of speech is in Kazakhstan. The prime minister banned it because he didn't like it, then opened it back up because his opinion changed. Also, I don't think our society is ignorant, just curious now that some light has been shed on this little known country. A tenfold increase in tourism still probably isn't that much in Kazakhstan either.
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ReplyDeleteI think that this is quite ridiculous of the minister. Clearly this video was offensive to the minister because it insulted his country. It seems that the minister is giving up his pride because he realizes that the video is bringing in revenue. It seems very hypocritical of the minister to do such a thing.
I do not believe that our country has become ignorant to the point that we are basing a our opinions off of blatant parodies of other countries. This film is solely a work that was derived from the style of humor based off of stereotyping. Obviously everyone in the US does not believe the things that were stated in this film, just like most people are aware that most stereotypes are not actually true and are just crude generalizations. I like to believe that our country has not descended to such a low intelligence level that our citizens are not capable of distinguishing the difference between over the top parodies and real life.
ReplyDeleteSometimes seeing something good or bad can be good or bad publicity, just depends on who the person is and how they see it. Someone might think that even though the movie was considered bad towards their country, it had benefits of having more people go there to actually help their economy out. But then again it gave bad judgements towards that country which made people ignorant to the truth. Wether or not having that movie, people will always judge others which is not right but its done anyway. So really having a judgement can be determined on if you take actions towards that judgement. And maybe him meaning philosophically he was saying that, that is what the country does with the anthem and such.
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ReplyDeleteAlthough the film, "Borat" portrays Kazakhstan in a negative light, it ended up being positive for the nation in the end. It's ironic that the government blocked the film's director from the country after the release of the film, but once he realized the benefits his country was noticing, they embraced it. The increased tourism undoubtedly had a positive impact on local business and surly came from the debut in the movie. This is absolute proof that any publicity, good or bad, is beneficial.
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ReplyDelete"Borat" does indeed make Kazakhstan look bad, but as said by the blog group, no publicity is bad publicity. The movie shed light on Kazakhstan and it ended up raising tourism in the country. I don't think people are being ignorant. The movie was made in a certain way, merely leaving people to keep their own judgements about the country. By Kazykhanov saying he appreciated it philosophically was that the movie had an unseen meaning that could be easily sought out.