Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G Comeback Is Already Facing a Growing Boycott Campaign for Being “Outdated” and “Racist” Caricature

Comedy revivals rarely arrive without some degree of scrutiny, but few characters carry quite as much built-in controversy as the one making his return to the big screen this fall. Created in an era with vastly different cultural sensitivities, this particular comeback was always going to invite a reckoning with how audiences view it decades later.

That reckoning has arrived faster and louder than many anticipated, with backlash building steadily in the days since the character’s first trailer hit the internet.

Backlash is growing against Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G following the release of the first trailer for ‘Ali G: Who Iz I?,’ with critics accusing the character, seen wearing fake dreadlocks and a Rastafarian hat while discussing his desire to be an “absent” father, of being an “outdated” and “racist” caricature. According to Variety, media monitoring platform NewsCord launched a campaign urging cinemas worldwide not to screen the film, accusing Cohen of using satire as a “cover for enforcing racist stereotypes,” and claims to have sent more than 36,000 emails to major chains as part of that push.

The campaign has drawn on decades-old criticism of the character, citing a 2000 newspaper report in which Black British comedians argued Ali G functioned as what one described as “an alibi for racism,” allowing audiences to laugh at Black street culture while maintaining a sense of political correctness. NewsCord’s messaging has argued that behaviors and slang once tied to Ali G’s portrayal no longer reflect how Black culture is represented, calling Cohen’s approach a “crude compound” of outdated and offensive elements.

UK exhibitor Picturehouse Cinemas confirmed it currently has “no current plans” to screen the film, a statement that circulated widely online as an apparent win for the boycott campaign. However, Variety’s reporting clarified that the exhibitor’s response was actually standard practice regarding unreleased titles, and that no formal decision banning the film has actually been made.

Cohen himself appeared to anticipate this reaction when he shared the trailer earlier this month, writing that in an era where a comedian’s career “can be ended by a single un-PC joke,” he thought he’d “play it safe” by bringing the character back, a comment widely read as a pointed jab at the very criticism now surrounding the film’s release. Ali G originally debuted on Channel 4’s “The 11 O’Clock Show” in 1998, conceived as a satirical portrait of a white suburban man from Staines who adopts the slang, clothing, and mannerisms he associates with Black British and Jamaican culture.

Reaction online has split fairly sharply along familiar lines. Some social media users have compared the character’s portrayal to blackface and cultural appropriation, while others have defended the revival as a return to a beloved, deliberately provocative comedic tradition, with one user simply writing that “this world needs more Ali G.”

‘Ali G: Who Iz I?’ marks Cohen’s feature directorial debut and reunites him with Amazon MGM Studios following the success of 2020’s Oscar-nominated “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.” The film is currently set for a global theatrical release on October 23, with its actual plot details still being kept under wraps ahead of launch.

Whether this growing backlash meaningfully affects the film’s box office rollout or simply becomes part of the ongoing cultural conversation around Cohen’s brand of provocative satire remains to be seen as the release date approaches.

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