Sacha Baron Cohen defends Ali G as satire ahead of new film

Sacha Baron Cohen has published an impassioned defence of his Ali G character in a lengthy essay for Time magazine, on the eve of the release of his new film, Ali G: Who Iz I?.

The actor and comedian described satire as "more important than ever", while conceding that "along the way, some people, instead of laughing, wince or worse, take offence."

Comparing modern satirists to the traditional figure of the "bouffon", Baron Cohen called satire "the humour of the dispossessed … using biting and at times cruel humour to undermine systemic injustice".

Why is Ali G controversial?

The character, first popularised more than two decades ago, has drawn criticism for mocking black street culture and has been described as a "black caricature". Baron Cohen answered that charge directly.

"Ali G is a white imbecile – a delusional cultural appropriator – who steals the fashion and lyrics from his favourite gangsta rap and dancehall idols, from Compton to Kingston," he wrote. "The joke is on him, and on the predominantly white male establishment who take him seriously."

He framed the character's datedness as the point: "The fact that Ali G is outdated and problematic is the very reason I resurrected him. The world he's returned to is, in many ways, worse than the one he left 20 years ago."

Ali G joins a roster of Baron Cohen's controversial creations, including the Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev, the Austrian fashion presenter Brüno Gehard, and Admiral General Aladeen, a thinly disguised parody of Colonel Gaddafi.

What does the essay say about offence?

Baron Cohen acknowledged that satire can wound bystanders as well as targets. "Yes, satire can offend people other than the intended targets," he wrote, adding that "each of my characters has a specific mechanism to encourage people to drop their guards and show what they really believe, prejudices and all".

He said he made the new film "not only to make people laugh, but also to bring them face-to-face with the danger of fanaticism and conspiracy theories".

Anticipating protests around the release, he noted that his university dissertation studied Jewish and black cooperation during the 1960s civil rights struggle in the United States. "As someone who has opposed bigotry and injustice throughout my life and partnered with civil rights groups, I don't recognise myself in the warped portrayals of me that I sometimes see on social media, lumped in with the bigots I lampoon," he wrote.

Satire's wider target: platforms and politicians

Baron Cohen argued that the information environment has worsened since Ali G's heyday. "20 years ago, Ali G would sit next to world experts spouting absurdities. Today – fed a steady diet of disinformation and conspiracy theories by social media influencers and TikTok news – we have created an entire world where ignorance reigns and truth is inverted," he said.

Pointing to Volodymyr Zelenskyy's path from television comic to president of Ukraine, he suggested that "satire doesn't just needle politicians or regimes – it occasionally helps bring them down". The Trump administration's actions against Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel showed, he argued, that ridicule is "[far from] irrelevant".

Quoting George Orwell's 1945 essay Funny But Not Vulgar — "every joke is a tiny revolution" — Baron Cohen closed with a call for accountability: "Maybe [satire] can even help shame more of our governments into finally making our Silicon Valley overlords – unelected billionaires who decide what billions of people see and believe – liable for the lies, conspiracies, and hate on their platforms that have already gotten people killed and will likely kill many more."

He warned: "We are once again entering an age of 'virtuous' violence, where any atrocity – by racists, Jew-haters, or Islamophobes, the right or the left – can be somehow justified. It is not a place any of us should want to live."

What the essay does not settle is whether audiences will accept the distinction Baron Cohen draws — that the joke targets the appropriator, not the appropriated. The film's reception, and any protests that accompany it, will supply the verdict.