Borat is 21st century Candide

In 1759, French enlightened philosopher Voltaire publishes Candide, ou l'Optimisme. In France, this novel is considered as a reference of French literature and is well studied by high school students. Voltaire manages to deliver a sharp critic of society of this time. The author gets around the fierce censorship of the time, by making believe that the book was originally written in German by "Mr. le Docteur Ralph". Moreover, Voltaire uses a very cynical, indirectly criticizing tone that would not be censored. The novel tells the story of Candide (French synonym for naive), who travels the world to reunite his love, Lady Cunegund. This travel will lead the hero, along with his tutor Dr. Pangloss whose philosophy is that "we live in the best of all possible worlds", in fantastic misfortune aiming at outlying the absurdity of this believed "best of all possible worlds".

Less than three centuries later, Sacha Baron Cohen turns on his camera and delivers a controversy movie, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan which I just saw, and made me want to write an entry about it. Fictive Kazakh journalist travels through the United States to discover the American culture. As he goes through his travel, the fictive Kazakh journalist encounters real Americans, who do not learn the target of Cohen's movie. The Kazakh journalist is lost in the American way of life, and the spectator can make fun of his savage behaviour. Therefore, the movie is soon criticized by many associations who see in it a way of making fun of the under-developed countries. Nevertheless, even though the director never explicitly stated the movie thesis after its release, it could easily be understood that it is the American society which is targeted.

Borat is 21st century Candide. As Kazakh journalist discovers the USA "best of all possible countries", his "naive" approach to the American world stresses him out as an under-developed world stupid man, but soon the spectator would understand how a complete stranger would look at this believed optimal society and its marvellous values (a cowboy states that we should hung homosexuals, students state that power should never be given to women).