When Ali G first arrived on our screens, characters like him were far more common, says social psychologist Amy Kean. She argues they are no longer “culturally relevant”.
“Ali G, Little Britain, Catherine Tate, all of those comedians and sketch shows, they made the voice the joke,” says Kean, who has written on accentism, drawing from her experiences being teased for her Essex accent.
“I remember going to school in the 90s and people would take the piss out of anyone whose voice wasn’t exactly the same as everyone else’s.”
Baron Cohen has in the past suggested that his character had a knack for pushing powerful interviewees into uncomfortable territory by playing with biases and expectations.
Speaking on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2020, Baron Cohen reflected on interviewing Donald Trump for Da Ali G Show, and recalled how the programme’s producer was a well-spoken Englishman who Trump had assumed would be conducting the interview.
“I remember Donald Trump looking at me, and I’m wearing a sweatsuit,” Baron Cohen said. “His face dropped. He was immediately furious that he was going to have to speak to somebody from a lower-class borough rather than this rather astute Etonian producer.”
Writing for Time magazine in 2020, Baron Cohen said: “By getting people to reveal what they really believe, I have at times exposed the ignorance, bigotry and conspiratorial delusions that often lurk just below the surface of our modern lives.”
Yet, when discussing the upcoming sequel on CBS on Tuesday, Baron Cohen’s “primary objective” appeared less ideological – to “get people to laugh really hard”. Though he added that “smuggled in there is a bit of satire”.
The actor is no stranger to putting himself in potentially dangerous situations for his comedy. In a previous film, he infiltrated a gun rally, disguised as a “right-wing singer”, while secretly wearing a bulletproof vest.
Once members of the crowd realised they were being mocked, Baron Cohen was escorted into a getaway vehicle as an angry crowd “started pounding on the vehicle with their fists”.
Judging by Baron Cohen’s description of the upcoming film, there may be further potential for danger. He told CBS he wanted to examine “conspiracies and lies” and test whether “we, in a matter of hours, could turn intelligent people who believed in the theory of race replacement into murderers”.
Colton Dunn, one of the film’s black writers, questioned why Baron Cohen would put himself in danger, where interview subjects might react violently, if his intentions were racist.
“From my point of view, Ali G is not a racist character. Ali G is a tool to expose racists,” Dunn told Deadline.
“That’s why I signed on. I wouldn’t sign on to work with somebody that I thought was racist, that’s against everything that I’ve done,” he added.