Ali G Is Back, But Not Everyone's Laughing After New Movie Backlash

Ali G is making his return to the big screen, but the response hasn’t exactly been a warm welcome home.

Following the release of the trailer for Amazon MGM’s Ali G: Who Iz I?, Sacha Baron Cohen’s infamous faux rude boy has once again found himself at the center of a debate over race, satire and whether the joke has fallen flat.

Online criticism of the character has steadily grown, with detractors accusing Ali G of being an outdated and racist caricature. In the trailer, Cohen appears wearing fake dreadlocks and a Rastafarian hat, reviving the same deliberately ignorant character who first appeared on British television in 1998, Variety reports.

Now, a group is trying to make sure audiences never see him in theaters.

NewsCord, a media monitoring platform, launched a campaign urging cinemas to refuse to screen the film, claiming it has been asked to send more than 36,000 emails to theater chains. The campaign argues that Cohen has long used satire as a shield for reinforcing racist stereotypes.

That criticism isn’t exactly new.

When Ali G first became a cultural phenomenon, Black British comedians questioned whether audiences were laughing at the character’s ignorance or simply using him as permission to laugh at Black culture. More than two decades later, British writer and broadcaster Afua Hirsch argued that the character is even more out of step with the times.

“Black people don’t dress like that anymore,” Hirsch wrote, criticizing what she described as the character’s reliance on outdated stereotypes and casual misogyny.

Still, reports that the campaign had already convinced Picturehouse Cinemas to boycott the movie appear to have been overstated. Variety reports that the theater chain’s response was simply a standard reply indicating that the film had not yet been booked, not a decision to refuse to show it.

The U.K. Cinema Association also pushed back against the idea that theaters should serve as cultural gatekeepers, saying cinemas should make programming decisions based on what their audiences want to see.

And apparently, some people still want to see Ali G.

The film has also generated enthusiasm online, with Kevin Durant and A$AP Rocky among those publicly expressing support.

Cohen, for his part, seemed to anticipate the backlash, joking that in an era when one politically incorrect joke can end a comedian’s career, he decided to “play it safe” by bringing Ali G back.

Safe? Probably not. But boring? Definitely not.

See the reactions below.