Sacha Baron Cohen‘s outrageous Ali G character is back after 24 years — and so is the controversy.
With a new movie coming in October — Ali G: Who Iz I? — some activists are calling Cohen’s dreadlocked wannabe hip-hop star a racist caricature and urging theaters to boycott the Amazon-MGM Studios film.
The movie is a mockumentary where cameras follow Cohen-as-Ali G, as the character attempts to stage a career comeback (see trailer below).
As first spotted by Variety, NewsCord — a U.K.-based watchdog site that uses AI to track media bias — has rallied its members to support sending 37,000 emails to cinemas around the world urging them to refuse to screen the film. “Black British comedians called the character ‘an alibi for racism’ in 2000,” the organization wrote (it was apparently one comedian, to be precise). “[British author] Jeanette Winterson asked what separates it from the Black and White Minstrels; Kazakh and Arab organisations documented the harm of the catalogue behind it. Sony Pictures UK is selling it with the line ‘He iz back. We ain’t liable.’ The screens belong to the chains, and a booking is a choice.”
While British writer Afua Hirsch wrote on Substack, “Black people don’t dress like that anymore. Even white people imitating Black people don’t talk like that anymore. Sexualizing black women and casually mocking working class women is not accepted anymore. Baron Cohen’s so-called ‘humor’ is a crude compound of all these things.”
Of course, saying Black people don’t really look or talk like this arguably misses the point of the parody. Ali G is supposed to be ridiculous — a white British man who doesn’t realize that his over-the-top attempts at cultural appropriation are embarrassing, while those around him struggle to decide how to respond. The character might no longer reflect modern-day wannabes who attempt to embrace Black culture, but that mainly suggests Cohen’s schtick may no longer be timely or relevant, not that it’s offensive per se.
Cohen seems to have anticipated the backlash. When he posted the trailer on X, he wrote: “In an age where a comedian’s career can be ended by a single un-PC joke, I thought I’d play it safe and bring this guy back.”
Though even that sentiment feels about five years out of date — a single un-PC joke doesn’t exactly end careers anymore, as several edge-lord comedians like Dave Chappelle can attest.
Reactions to the trailer online have ranged from enthusiasm to criticism of the character, to gripes that Cohen waited too long. A rather large heaping of the protest messages online contain ugly antisemitic sentiment (seemingly unaware of the irony of accusing somebody of discrimination while slamming them for being Jewish).
“Ali G, for decades, has been a racist caricature of black Jamaican, British, and American culture through the voice of a white comedian from England,” wrote one. “Are you just noticing this now?”
“There’s no relevance to the Ali G character today,” wrote another on X. “What would have been funnier and cleverer is if you’d mocked the persona of the 50 year old has been celebrity using a completely outdated character in a desperate attempt to reclaim former glory.”
So far, no cinema chains have seemingly gone along with the boycott (NewsCord falsely reported one was going to ban the film, then retracted the claim). NewsCord did share an email from Danish cinema chain NFBIO giving a defense of artistic expression by explaining why they were going to screen the film despite the protest attempt:
“We understand very well that Sacha Baron Cohen’s satire, characters and means have sparked debate over the years, and that a figure like Ali G etc. can be experienced as offensive, problematic or provocative for the individual.
As a cinema, however, it is a fundamental principle for us to present a broad and diverse film program. Film is an art form that ranges from the broadly entertaining to the sharply satirical and controversial. The cinema is a space for many different types of film and here one will inevitably encounter works that provoke, challenge or repel.
We do not consider it our task as a cinema to exercise censorship or to reject films that are legally distributed and aimed at an adult audience, based on discussions about the film’s moral or satirical justification. Here, Sacha Baron Cohen is precisely an artist who divides the waters: Where some experience that all boundaries are crossed, others see a form of satire where no one gets away with it. However, we see no reason to reject his film — just as we do not reject other films that individual guests or groups may think that we should not show. We trust that our audience is able to orient themselves and make an informed choice about which films they want to see or reject.”
Ali G: Who Iz I? opens Oct. 23 and marks Cohen’s directorial debut. Representatives for the Amazon MGM Studios film had no immediate comment on the backlash. Here’s the trailer:
