Is Borat a Stolen Character or does a Crazed Turkish Man want Attention?

Sacha Baron Cohen’s character, “Borat,” may have been stolen from a Turkish internet celebrity, Mahir Cagri. According to the Associated Press, Mahir is in the process of flying to London to meet with a lawyer to discuss his legal options. In addition, Mahir said,

“The world knows he is copying Mahir,” Cagri told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his hometown of Izmir on Monday, minutes before he was to board a plane for Istanbul to appear on a talk show.

“I am not saying this – the world is. I have received so many e-mails from people in the United States who tell me he is imitating me,” he said.

A relatively unknown claiming the right to a song, or in this particular case, “character” is not something completely unusual, but in this particular case, Mahir Cagri may have been the original, the real Borat. He had his claim to fame as one of the first Internet Celebrities. According to his original homepage, here are some “real” quotes from the turkish internet celebrity, Mahir.

• “I KISS YOU!!!!!!”
• “Who is want to come TURKEY I can invitate ….. She can stay my home ……..”
• “I like sex”
• “I like music , I have many many music enstrumans my home I can play”
• “I like to take foto-camera (amimals , towns , nice nude models and peoples)”
• “I like to be friendship from different country”

And here are some Borat Quotes… [source]

• “I like sex”
• “May I ask you are a man who does with another man”
• “Last night, me and my wife, we have sex.”
• “This one I have to pay money for, but she worth it! Wow wow wee waa!”

A lot of professional Hollywood “characters” are based off real life examples of how people really act. If Mahir Cagri really didn’t speak the way he wrote on his homepage and he created the broken English writing style, he may have a claim, but I am willing to claim he was not writing his website in jest, but was being completely serious and paying an extraordinary attention to detail.