LOS ANGELES – “Ali G is still the white cultural appropriator. He is still one of the most stupid people in the world.” Sacha Baron Cohen, who created the urban hip-hop poseur with the absurdly oversize streetwear and a sculpted goatee, explained why he brought back one of his popular characters.
“He still is a fundamentally good person, despite all his sexist comments and inappropriateness. He believes in ‘increasing’ the peace and stopping hatred.”
The satirical character is back, in all his often clueless, always inappropriate glory, in the mockumentary “Ali G: Who Iz I?,” which marks Baron Cohen’s feature directing debut. As planned, the fictional wannabe rapper’s cinematic return had a limited theatrical run and is now streaming on Prime Video.
Amazon MGM Studios posted the satirical comedy’s logline: “After twenty years spent chillin’, tokin’ and bonin’, Ali G is shocked to discover that his long-term girlfriend, Julie (Morgana Robinson), is eight months pregnant.
“Faced with an extra mouth to feed, he gets off his batty and heads to America to reclaim his former glory…but soon encounters adversaries who will ultimately threaten his and his child’s very existence.”
Written by the man behind Borat, Bruno and other outrageous characters with Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Swimer, Dan Mazer and Keisha Zollar, “Ali G…” was shot with real-life political figures and regular folks unaware that they were participating in a mockumentary.
It is jaw-dropping and sometimes horrifying what “Ali G…” shows – what unsuspecting people can and will do that exposes their biases and prejudices.
Michael Aboud, chair of the El Paso County Republican Party in Texas, is planning to sue Baron Cohen, claiming he thought he was participating in a serious documentary on illegal immigration.
In the film, Aboud and several men are shown being trained by Colonel Erran Mosad, a fictional counter-terrorism expert (one of Baron Cohen’s characters), and wearing plastic buttocks and rubber penises over their clothes. The men simulate firing bullets from the buttocks by rubbing the penis props.
The unsuspecting guys even take part in an elaborately shot sequence, a mission involving a prosthetic woman about to give birth and a prosthetic newborn being flown and then dropped from a drone so it would not touch American soil.
Former Republican congressman George Santos also appears, participating in a Holocaust-themed game show where contestants race to put mannequins described as belonging to “undesirable groups” in shower cubicles. The film records Santos saying on camera that next time, he would “try to grab more babies, as they’re easier to fit in the shower.”
These political personalities are claiming that they were misled about the film’s true nature.
“It’s completely shocking,” Baron Cohen remarked in our video press conference. “When you watch the movie, you will be shocked. When we wrote this scene, we couldn’t really comprehend that these people would do what they did.
“That’s why I really made the movie – to say we’re at this really dangerous point in society where a handful of billionaires control what information is being spread. Societies and democracies in particular rely on shared facts. We’re moving to these autocracies that rely on shared lies.”
“I brought back Ali G because he is a problematic dinosaur,” said Baron Cohen. “I wanted to show how society has become so divided.”
The English multi-hyphenate creative added, “It allowed me this opportunity to bring up and bring in these two other characters that I developed on the show ‘Who Is America?’ One from the far left and one from the far right and to show also that we are in this age of ‘virtuous violence,’ where people carry out violence and are hateful because they feel they’re being ethical.”
On his aim to expose prejudices by using satire, Baron Cohen answered, “There’s a great quote from one of our writers, Colton Dunn, who said, ‘Ali G is not racist. He’s a tool to expose racists.’
“It’s interesting that this character, who is a white cultural appropriator, is laughing at two different types of predominantly white people. One, white cultural appropriators who are seizing and stealing mannerisms and sayings from their idols.
“Ali G is this middle-class suburban kid who lives in this very boring place called Staines, now called Staines-upon-Thames because they wanted to distance themselves from me (as Ali G).”
“With art or comedy, you always have a choice, which is, do we make the movie for the lowest common denominator so that every single person in the world understands it?” Baron Cohen asked aloud. “Or do we try and create something groundbreaking, something that we believe is ethical, something we believe creates a tolerant society and exposes prejudice?
“I’ve chosen the latter. That has always led to controversy. If I go back, why did I make this movie ‘Brüno’? Because in 2008, it felt like homophobia was the last legitimate form of prejudice that was acceptable. People were making gay jokes. Gay people were not allowed to marry.
“I risked my life making ‘Brüno.’ It was a movie against homophobia. But some people accused it of being homophobic. When you start delving into a subject and try and fight against a certain form of prejudice, in my experience, you will be accused of that prejudice. You hope that ultimately, you’re doing some good while making the audience laugh hysterically.”
“These characters actually don’t change,” stressed the creator of Ali G, Borat, Bruno and other colorful personas. “The reason they’re funny is the world changes and you see how the world has changed through this controlled experiment of the character.
“And the fact that Ali G is a dinosaur, a relic from another time – I just love the idea of dropping him into today’s world.
“He’s the same but the world has completely changed. There are social and cultural divisions, there’s identity politics and that’s why I have a nemesis who’s trying to actually cancel Ali G.” This nemesis, Dr. Nira Cain-N’Degeocello, a leftist professor, is also played by Baron Cohen.
“So, because he’s such a problematic dinosaur, it felt like this was the perfect time to bring back a character that should’ve been left in the 2000s.”
The British wit shared how his Ali G, who delivers deadpan off-kilter statements and asks absurd questions to people who don’t know they are being pranked, was “born.”
“Ali G originally was called the Youth Wanker,” he began. “I had been hired by a show called ‘The 11 O’Clock Show’ to come up with a character who was this idiotic youth reporter. I’d already developed Borat a little bit for the BBC. And so, in the room, I started improvising this kind of DJ character.
“I’d made an earlier version of him the year beforehand, a guy called MC Jocelyn Cheadle-Hulme, this very upper-class white character who pretended that he was a West Coast gangster rapper and said, ‘Booyakasha, booyakasha, Junglist Massive.’
“So, all the same catchphrases. Ali G was a little bit more realistic. He was more middle class. He was still white.
“The beauty of it was I thought if we have the world’s biggest idiot next to the world expert on something, that juxtaposition I felt instinctively would be funny.”
Baron Cohen maintained that “underneath all the stupidity, Ali G actually wants people to respect each other. Even though some of his praises are disrespectful. He wants to ‘increase’ the peace. He’s actually got a good heart. And it’s something that I hope we get back to.
“In this world of online hatred and division and ‘virtuous violence,’ I hope that we get back to this tolerant society with mutual respect.”
The incendiary wit, who recently graced the Time cover with a story written by himself, titled “Why Satire Is No Laughing Matter,” stressed what motivates him.
“I enjoy nothing more than making people and my fans laugh,” said the satirist. “I’m dedicated to doing that, to exploring the realms of comedy, the extremes of comedy and human behavior, to make them laugh.
“But fundamentally, also, in my comedy, it is satire. The aim is to really bring up discussion points that maybe we haven’t really thought about.
“I once sang a song as Borat, called ‘Throw the Jew Down the Well,’ and everybody started singing along in a bar in Arizona. It showed that maybe there was an undercurrent of antisemitism.
“So, comedy is a way, and satire is a way, of shining a light on maybe subjects that we haven’t really discussed as a society before. My aim really is to maybe make a slightly more tolerant society and to fight for the tolerant society that you and I had the privilege of growing up in. Not saying it was tolerant to everyone but a lot more tolerant than it is now.”
For films like “Ali G…” to work, only Baron Cohen, actress Morgana Robinson and the crew must be in on the prank.
“Every single person in the movie is a real person who’s not in on it, other than two people, who are A$AP Rocky and his partner,” he deadpanned. “I’ve forgotten her name (Rihanna). She sings about umbrellas.
“Real people are taking part in this movie and the specificity of the genre meant I really needed to be fully in control of every shot.”
According to Baron Cohen, in the elaborate ending sequence that involved the drone, childbirth and a race to the Mexican border, “There are about 400 beats to that eight hours. So, 400 moments that all have to work perfectly. If one of them doesn’t work perfectly, the real people who are in the scene will smell a rat and it’s done.”
Screening people who are not aware of Ali G was “a huge process,” said the provocative comedian. “This movie took a few years to make. Why? Because it’s incredibly ambitious. We keep on shutting it down when the scene doesn’t work. Also, we have a large team that finds people who do not know who I am.
“So, for example, there is a scene with an English doctor. They had to interview 1,600 doctors until they found somebody who didn’t know who Ali G was.
“Obviously, in America, Ali G is far less known. But in England, Ali G became so famous that even the Queen Mother became a fan and apparently said, ‘Booyakasha,’ at a Christmas dinner to the Queen. That’s according to Princes Harry and William.”
Next on Baron Cohen’s plate is a surprise – he will make his West End debut in “The Popinjay Calendar,” Quentin Tarantino’s playwright debut, which will open in March 2027.
Described as a swashbuckling comedy set in Europe in the 1830s, the play finally makes the collaboration of Baron Cohen and Tarantino happen. The duo planned two film projects that didn’t materialize for several reasons.
“Amazingly, Quentin came and visited me in my office,” Baron Cohen recounted how the play collaboration started. “He had me read this play. For some reason, he offered me the lead role, which I couldn’t believe.
“I am spending about 10 hours a week learning sword fighting. So, that’s before I do anything else. You’ve got to understand I’m going from one extreme to the other. I’m going from doing an eight-hour scene where I’m improvising.
“From that to I’m doing a Quentin Tarantino play now where he is extremely specific about every word. But already, I can see it’s somewhat of a collaboration. So, I’m super excited.”
He reflected, “I’m 55 years old now. This is something that’s completely different and I’m working with somebody who is as inspirational as him, who I’ve always wanted to work with.
“It is really exciting. We actually talked about a movie like this 20 years ago, ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel.’ Then, I was in ‘Django Unchained.’ We almost shot a scene. I had to go off and do ‘Les Misérables.’ So, that never happened. So, it’s super exciting to work with him now.”
Ruben V. Nepales is an LA-based journalist whose honors include nine first prizes from the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards and the Los Angeles Press Club’s Southern California Journalism Awards. He authored “Through a Writer’s Lens,” which won first prize in nonfiction at the 2020-2021 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards. In 2004, he became the first Filipino voter of the Golden Globe Awards. He is a member of the Golden Globe Foundation, one of Hollywood’s biggest philanthropic organizations.
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