Sacha Baron Cohen - Comic Genius or Embarassing Fool

[Donut]

You may know him better as Ali G, the Staines Hip Hop Journalist, or Borat from Khazakstan or even Bruno the effeminate fashion guru from Austria.

It was Ali G who outed Alabama the gayest state in the US. Gay Bruno danced with the cheerleaders at a Crimson Tide game against Ole Miss and had to have a police escort to get him out of the stadium.

Ali G interviewed Buzz Aldrin and asked if he was jealous of Louis Armstrong and did he think that man would ever walk on the sun in the winter when it is cold! And 'what does you say to dem people who says the moon don't exist?'

But I think the best show was never shown in the US, femenist Naomi Wolf stopped it.

"Booyakasha! Ali G left behind the streets of Staines in England to visit the USA. A six-part series started its run on HBO on 21st February 2003. The series is on Channel 4 in the UK from 11th April.

On his travels he meets the former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis and the former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich. He also meets astronaut Buzz Aldrin and asks him: "So what was it like to be the second man to walk on the sun?"

He asks former CIA boss R James Woolsey to cast his mind "back to the grassy knoll" in Dallas and adds: "Now, who really shot JR?"

When Ali G is told by an expert on car crime that Hondas are the easiest to break into, he replies: “So for young kids out there, would you recommend them starting with a Honda?”

Feminist writer Naomi Wolf consulted lawyers after her Ali G interview. HBO are not broacasting the interview.

Naomi Wolf was furious when Ali G boasted to her that he called his girlfriend Julie “bitch” in bed.

He then asked Naomi - who writes women’s rights books - if females would ever fly airliners.

She said they already did, and he cracked: "No, not the people who hand out the peanuts, but sitting in the pilot’s seat." He then joked that if women got equal rights at work, "they’ll want them at home".

The series also features Borat, a TV reporter from Kazakhstan, and Bruno, a gay Austrian fashion guru. Bruno got a self-important fashion designer to admit that his catwalk collection was "humourless", "full of humour", "light as a feather" and "really heavy, sort of dragging you down".

Ali G launched his path to fame on Channel 4 in the UK. In his British TV series Ali G met ex-Labour politician Tony Benn (the one who interviewed Saddam Hussein) and asked him: "So do you think people strike just cos dey is lazy and wanna chill for a day or two?"

When he interviewed Judge Pickles, he asked: "Is it all right to murder someone if they call your mum a slag?"

And he asked George Patton, the head of Northern Ireland's Protestant Orange Order: "Would you marry a Catholic?"

"I have to say, because of my faith, I wouldn't," Mr Patton responded. "What if she was really fit?" replied Ali G.

In the HBO series Borat was looking for an American wife to take home to Kazakhstan. He told the dating service consultant that he could provide his bride with "a television with remote" but that she must have "plough experience".

It seems that TV humour does not cross the Atlantic successfully. MASH, Seinfeld and Friends although aired in the UK have only attracted minority audiences there on minority channels. Even The Simpsons has never been risked on a mass-audience network in the UK.

Most US newspaper critics did not like Da Ali G Show but it seemed some of them did not get the joke. Tom Shales of The Washington Post said: "Cohen in character is clueless as caucasian hip-hop interviewer Ali." In case he reads this the basic joke in the show is the unwillingness of officialdom to question the racial and intellectual credentials of their interviewer. It is probably even more relevant in the US where the right to racial self-definition is widely accepted and consequences can follow from questioning someone's professional competence.

However, not all newspaper critics disliked the show. Alessandra Stanley in The New York Times said the show was "irresistibly, corrosively funny".

The British newspaper The Guardian said: "The American editions of Da Ali G Show may be its creator's most powerful commentary on a culture which is terrified of giving offence to anyone at all."

Ali G also featured in Madonna's music video for the song Music. He also starred in his own movie, Ali G in da House"

[ 06-12-2003, 10:04 AM: Message edited by: Donut ]