Walking the Tightrope

Why on earth has the daughter of the president of Kazakhstan complained about the banning of "Borat" aka Sasha Baron Cohen aka "Ali G" a notoriously unfunny "entertainer" who claims to be a comedian? The anti-semitism displayed by the character is justified by its creator as a "dramatic demonstration of how racism feeds on dumb conformity, as much as rabid bigotry," at best this can be described as deeply misguided. His other creation - Ali G I can only describe as a racist, sexist homophobe and about as funny as a traumatic limb amputation.
There has always been a thin line between comedy and offence, the trick is to know how far you can push things before people start to feel uncomfortable with the material, often the use of stereotypes works very well - just look at some of the characters they had in "Goodness Gracious Me" - stereotypes that we all recognise such as the competetive grannies, which are often shared by more than one culture. And then we have Mr Baron Cohen relying on offensive sterotypes that could have been created by Julius Streicher. Now here's my advice to this self-made celebrity who clearly worships his own creator. Grow up and get a proper job.