I agree 100% with Desdemona. Good analysis.

Lox, I HAVE experienced what you said... "if you were in a bar (in my case, just in school) in the US and some guy decided to ridicule you for being Canadian, for the enjoyment of his friends, in a way that demonstrated a distinct lack of wit and knowledge about you or Canada and that painted you and your nation in a grotesque light such that you felt offended, and he and his friends wouldn't leave you alone despite your discomfiture, and it was obvious that how you felt was something they did not give a shit for, and there were more of them and they were bigger and it was on tv everywhere for people to see, and everywhere you went people laughed and smirked and sniggered behind your back and in your face in a derogatory way ..."

Hell, yeah. All through Junior High and High School in New York State in the 60's, I experienced just that. From that experience I learned just how ignorant and crummy some young Americans can be...just like the idiot frat boys in the movie. Sad.

I didn't enjoy it a bit when I was treated that way...but it was not watching a movie that I was experiencing then. It was real life. Real life is very different from watching a movie. I got offended by such behaviour in real life, you bet I did. I do not get offended watching it in a movie that is obviously intended as an extreme satire and not as a depiction of reality. Anyone who watches that movie and thinks that the Khazaks are actually like that would have to have a mentality about the level of an eggplant! On the other hand, anyone who watches it and realizes that a lot of ordinary Americans can easily be fooled into thinking Khazaks or other Muslims from small countries are like that might get some insight into how a nation of people can be manipulated into giving their consent to a totally unjustified foreign war of aggression against Iraq, and might therefore be somewhat complicit in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of olive-skinned, funny-looking foreign guys with mustaches.

And that, unlike the movie, is not funny. People who consent to aggression and back leaders who are war criminals deserve to be embarrassed now and then, I think.