For most Spanish viewers, Ali G was never as funny as it was supposed to be because his humor, at its core, was based on verbal double meanings, on the ingenuity to change the meaning of words and in the confusions between the characters who related to Ali and understood the jargon and those who did not. And all that was lost in the translations, no matter how good will the translators and dubbing actors put in: Iker Casillas. / Wonderful. / Take pillsrecited Ali G in the Spanish version of the film Ali G you suelto (2002) and today it is funnier to read his verses than to see the scene.
Don’t underestimate that intellectual grace: Ali G, the character created by Sacha Baron Cohen in 1998, is an amazing creature for 2023 because it is impossible to know if his humor is for or against the moral codes of our time and that ambiguity is today a treasure. Perhaps for this reason, Baron Cohen announced this week that he will reprise the character in a stand-up tour that will take him to UK theaters, 16 years after he stopped donning his yellow tracksuit.
Who was that Ali G from the turn of the century? A character created for Channel 4, dressed as a lumpen rapper of the time, foul-mouthed, stubborn and a bit of an impostor, obsessed with drugs, women and guns and determined to refer to himself as black. Ali G used the accent and vocabulary of Jamaican emigration and claimed that he was the leader of a gang of criminals from the Staines ghetto, the so-called Da West Staines massif. And that was funny, because Staines is the most peaceful and middle class suburb imaginable.
Ali G’s job and skill was to do absurd interviews, apparently serious but aimed at driving Channel 4 guests crazy. More or less, the same trick that Sacha Baron Cohen took to the extreme with Borat. Donald Trump put up with him for two minutes before running away. David Beckham was asked which of the Spice Girls he would sleep with. AND Gore Vidal was called Vidal Sassoon.
In 2002, Ali G’s popularity reached its peak: HBO produced a tailor-made program for him and The New York Times said it was among the best of the year and compared it to Monty Python. Ali G also appeared in a Madonna video, Music, in which she played the diva’s chauffeur, and filmed her movie. There, the rapper from Staines became a parliamentarian in the House of Lords. When the president of the institution withdrew the word, Ali G exclaimed: “Is it because I am black?”