Sacha Baron Cohen Defends Ali G As Racism Debate Follows Movie Return

Sacha Baron Cohen defended Ali G against racism claims, arguing that the joke targeted a white man copying Black culture rather than the culture itself.

In a new TIME essay, Cohen called the character a fool whose borrowed style helps expose powerful people’s bias.

“The fact that Ali G is outdated and problematic is the very reason I resurrected him,” he wrote.

That defense speaks to a dispute that has followed Ali G for years: who is the audience really laughing at?

In 2000, comic Felix Dexter argued that Ali G let white middle-class viewers laugh at Black culture while still feeling free of racism.

NewsCord is a site that uses AI to compare news reports and flag bias. The site also helps readers send protest letters. Its Ali G campaign urges chains to refuse “Ali G: Who Iz I?” rather than sell tickets to what it views as racial mockery. The group has also asked Britain’s film ratings board how it judged the film’s racial jokes.

Its case goes back to Black British comics who spoke out years ago. It also cites complaints about Cohen’s other roles. It treats the new movie as part of that wider record, not a joke that can be judged only by what its creator says he meant.

Terry Gross put that same question to Cohen in 2007: did Borat’s jokes expose hatred of Jews or help it spread?

Cohen argued that Borat’s views were too wild to be taken as truth. The character thought Jews could turn into bugs. His aim, he told Gross, was to show how false such views were, not ask fans to share them.

His Jewish roots came up in their chat, too. “I’m proud to be a Jew,” Cohen said. He kept some customs out of that pride, though he said he was not religious.

But his concern went beyond people who held those views. When a bar crowd sang along with Borat’s anti-Jewish song, Cohen saw a danger in how easily they joined in. They did not have to hate Jews to help hate spread, he argued. They could simply go along with the song instead of speaking up or walking out.

For Cohen, Ali G’s joke lay in the gap between who he was and who he wanted to be. Cohen told Gross that Ali G saw himself as a Black Hip-Hop star from a tough part of town, though his home was a leafy suburb.

The dispute reached Druski’s team-up with Ali G earlier this month, which drew complaints about how the act used Black culture.

“Ali G: Who Iz I?” is due in U.K. theaters October 23.

Photo: DisclaimerBFILFF101024 (20 of 113) by Raph_PH, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Cropped and resized from original.