Sacha Baron Cohen‘s attempt to brush off an old character with Ali G: Who Iz I? is not going over without controversy.
Following the release of the trailer for the Amazon MGM Studios sequel, an email campaign began on watchdog site NewsCord, sending more than 40,000 emails urging theaters to “leave the film off its screens” when the movie premieres Oct. 23 in cinemas.
“Ali G: Who Iz I? opens on 23 October 2026. Black British comedians called the character ‘an alibi for racism’ in 2000; 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,’” reads the campaign. “The screens belong to the chains, and a booking is a choice.”
According to NewsCord, UK theater chain Picturehouse Cinemas has responded that they are “not planning to screen the film,” with emails going out to at least 15 other chains around the world.
“Ali G is a cover to laugh at Jamaican culture. The character enforces harmful stereotypes of how a Jamaican man behaves in society,” NewsCord shared on X.
“Ali G smokes weed, is a misogynist, and does nothing meaningful in life. He does this because he thinks this is what a Jamaican does. The world laughs at Ali G. But the real butt of the joke are Black people and specifically Jamaicans,” they added. “This is evident in a number of Baron Cohen’s films, where a race or religion is the victim of the ‘joke.’”
While the legitimacy of the UK AI-enabled watchdog platform has come under scrutiny, backlash to the Ali G trailer could be found across social media, with one person calling out the character as “a racist stereotype.”
Although one fan claimed the criticism against Cohen is because he’s Jewish, another emphasized, “Nope the backlash is because Ali G the character is a racist creation. ‘Is it cos I is black’ is probably his best known catchphrase.”
“Good. I’ve loathed the racial overtones of Sasha Baron Cohen’s ‘Ali G’ character for a long time,” another person wrote. “Over twenty years on, the world has caught-up. By now we should ALL recognise what is, at its core, ‘black face’ is past its sell-by-date and unacceptable.”
Cohen created the character of Ali G for Channel 4’s The 11 O’Clock Show in 1998, playing a British suburbanite imitating urban, British Jamaican culture. Following the Channel 4/HBO sketch comedy show Da Ali G Show (2000-’04) and the 2002 Universal movie Ali G Indahouse, Cohen temporarily retired the character in 2007.
