Ali G Demands Respek, Innit?
No one is quite sure who Ali G is supposed to be. His exact ethnicity and taxonomy are uncertain. “Is it cos I is black?” he asks with innocent irony. It is precisely for his ambiguity that he is so alluring.
He is primarily known for his portrayal of three (well, four if you count his real-life persona, Sacha Baron Cohen) very distinct characters.
Ali G is a cutting edge mash-up of culture. His name, Ali, is Arabic in origin and means “greatest,” or “supreme being.”(‘massiv’ in his own words). We find out in the film Ali G Indiahouse (2002), Ali is actually short for Alistair Leslie Graham. He satirizes wannabees that adopt street culture. His street slang, sounding like a combination of rasta, gangsta, and rappa, highlighted by a British accent, gets him in with the youth as he parodies pop culture and also media cliché. Among other notable interviews, Ali G debates semantics with Noam Chomsky and asks the linguist, “How many words does you know?”
Borat is the daft and homely Kazakhstani journalist who was sent by his country to investigate American culture. At a republican club meeting in Arizona, Borat asks for ten minutes of silence for Tishniek Massacre, then, at the slightest disruption, starts the whole thing all over.
Bruno is the flamboyantly gay broadcaster and fashion extraordinaire from something akin to Austrian MTV. He enjoys getting frat boys all riled up for the camera, and then confessing they are on Austrian gay TV.
In real life, Sacha Baron Cohen is actually an extremely articulate British actor/comedian/writer, who studied history at Cambridge. He is also a practicing Jew, and once wrote a thesis on the role of the Jews in the American civil rights movement. Borat, on the other hand, sang a song at a cowboy bar containing the lyrics, “Throw the Jew down the well/So my country can be free/You must grab him by his horns/Then we have a big party.”
The president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has taken extreme offense to his country’s portrayal, and last year threatened Cohen with legal action. Borat’s response was, “I’d like to state I have no connection with Mr. Cohen and fully support my Government’s decision to sue this Jew.”
Cohen got his big break for Da Ali G Show on channel 4 in the UK with The 11 O’Clock Show (1998-2000). However, when public recognition reached a point of saturation, Cohen moved on to audiences in the United States, getting his show aired on HBO. The show has now reached the end of its second season, and its reps will not let on where things go from here. Much of the information regarding the show is protected by a code of silence.
In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel who describes the show as “making already confused people more confused,” Sacha says, “The important thing is that everyone who’s on the show really believes that they are with an idiot.”
Cohen’s second feature film is slated for released in November 3, 2006. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
The most common critiques Cohen receives are that he is not funny, and that he reinforces misogynistic and racist stereotypes. However, he is all about respek when he says, “That television can be used as a positive force,” followed by Ali G’s motto: “Becoz black, white, brown, or Pakistani we all come from de same place - de punani.”
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