Ali G and his Bling - Bling

The first time I came across Ali G was in Maureen Dowd’s column in the New York Times (Is You Wicked? May 7, 2003). She reported portion of an interview on HBO. In this encounter, the former Secretary of State Jim Baker was interviewed “..by a hip-hop guy wearing fatigues, shades, a skull-cap and bling-bling and talking like a British gangsta/Rasta rapper.” The dialogue that Dowd reported in her column is as follows:

Young Man: Isn’t there a real danger that some one give a message to one of them fighter pilots, saying, ‘Bomb Ira –‘ and the geezer doesn’t heard it properly and bombs Iran instead of Iraq?
Mr. Baker: No danger.
YM: How does you make countries do stuff you want?
B: Well, the way you deal with countries on foreign policy issues…is you deal with carrots and sticks.
YM: But what country is gonna want carrots, even if it’s like million tons of carrots that you are giving over there…
B: Well, carrots – I am not using the term literally. You might send foreign aid – money, money.
YM: Well, money is better than carrots. Even if a country love carrots and, that is, like their favorite natural food, if they got given them -
B: Well, don’t get hung up on carrots. That’s just a figure of speech.
YM: So would you even send carrots? You know, is there any situation –
B: No, no.
YM: What about if there was a famine?
B: Carrots, themselves? No.

Mr. Baker could outfox Al-Gore but not Ali G. Her bottom line was: Ali G is wicked. And to him, that’s a compliment.

As I read this column, I couldn’t help breaking into hearty laughter at this comedic interview. Such lighthearted banter is indeed a heavenly boon in the present uncertain and misery-packed day-to-day life; it’s a godsend indeed.

Ali G has been creating humorous waves on the British radio and television for the past several years and I hadn’t even heard of him. I felt so ignorant and poorly informed but then I am not too much into the pop-culture world really. I felt some relief because it appears that Dowd also didn’t know of Ali G much before she wrote her column. I started surfing the Internet to find out more about this curiously funny comedian. His fact-sheet reads something like this: He was born in 1972 and belongs to a prosperous Orthodox Jewish family in London. He has attended good schools and studied history at Cambridge University. His real name is Sacha Baron Cohen. According to Observer, he is “an observant Jew who keeps kosher.”

Brendan Bernhard raised a rhetorical question in LA Weekly (wysiwyg://78/http://www.laweekly.com/03/16/box-bernhard.ph) , “What is he (Cohen) up to?” and responded, “After having seen five episodes on tape, I’m not at all sure I can answer the question. But maybe in the end, that doesn’t really matter. The beauty of the show is in its faux serendipity and in the host’s quick wit, as in the hilarious interview Ali G conducts with a member of the Drug Enforcement Agency:
It slows down your reactions, slows down your ability to learn, the agent says of pot.
And is there any negative effects? Ali G replies deadpan.”
Such a cleverly feigned dissimulation is Cohen’ hallmark.

He has somehow maneuvered to interview a string of celebrities including Ralph Nader, Edwin Meese, Dick Thornburgh, Newt Gingrich et al, all of whom believed they were appearing on educational program aimed at youth. According to Bernhard, “The genius of Da Ali G Show is that it pokes fun at the ruling classes not for being bastards, but for wanting to be nice. It doesn’t speak truth to power, but slyly persuades power to speak politically correct blather to the powerless. Thus we get to see Edwin Meese rapping (I was attorney general/My name is Meese/I say go to college/Don’t carry a piece) and more painfully …., Ralph Nader: Me name be Ralph Nader/ Me gonna make an appeal/Homies, save the rainforest/Aye, keep it real).”

His comedy is at times ribald and bawdy but it makes you having a good laugh even if some sensibilities get somewhat smeared. For instance, according to Bernhard, “Ali G did infiltrate a police force, or at least a police academy, in the opening episode. And faced with this imbecile, who was supposedly training to be a police officer” had this exchange:
You know what burglary is? …cop asks him, having figured out the new trainee isn’t too bright.
For real, Ali G replies, I have done a couple.
In another interview, which he did for Comic Relief, reported by Paul Kelso and Matt Wells, Ali G faced David and Victoria Beckham. “Dressed in a leather burgundy jumpsuit with the legend ‘Save Africa’ emblazoned on the back above a map of Italy, Ali G introduced the couple to the live audience with the words: Every boy wants to be in his boots and every man wants to be in his missus. Big up for none other than Victoria and David Beckham,” (Media Guardian.co.uk, Saturday, February 10, 2001, The Guardian).

However such callous and abrasive ribbing has also rubbed many people on the wrong side who have tried to pay back somehow. According to Bernhard, “Cohen’s comedy depends on his ability to con people, and after a while you may find yourself wishing the tables were turned. So when, in an upcoming episode, the former Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, bluntly tells Ali G that he’s stupid, and when James Lipton, the host of the Inside the Actors’ Studio, rebukes him for referring to women as bitches and ‘hos’, you may give a small cheer.”

Writing under the caption “What’s on Our Mind: Why it’s time for Sacha Baron Cohen or his so-called alter ego Ali G to stop, Jewish.co.uk addressed Cohen in an open letter (February 18, 2002), “Frankly, we’re bored, the country is bored, the Jewish community is embarrassed and you’ve created, and are milking to the max, an out-of-date and out-of-touch character… As you should know, cheap jokes at other people’s expense does not win you many friends, and as someone who is so obviously Jewish, your continual pathetic and stereotypical humour does not win the Jewish community much respect either.” And according to BBC News (Friday, March 1, 2002, 11:00 GMT), “The character has always provoked controversy….Cohen was accused of racism by some of Britain’s leading black comedians. They claim that he is guilty of ridiculing black street culture. Comedian Curtis Walker said, I find both him and his material quite offensive. I don’’ like the idea of a white guy playing a black guy anyway and when he is playing to a stupid stereotype it is even worse."

But opinions differ and there is a variety of views regarding Ali G and his bling bling. Some blacks believe that racism is not really part of Ali G’s comedy. It’s just an external veneer to make it more appealing and attractive. For instance, in a very recent review (February 18, 2003) on IslamOnline.Net (Who is Ali G?, wysiwyg://www.islamonline…/artculture/2003/02/article0 8.shtm), “..Ibrahim Maigia, a 19-year-old Londoner originally from Mali does not see Ali G as racist…Maigia goes on to note that (by) most British Muslims, Ali G is seen as a ‘relevant parody of society’. …. 20-year-old Ashfaq Bashir of Yorkshire observes that his type of humour is ‘completely unislamic, but hilarious’.” The IslamOnline. Net goes further to say, “…does Ali G’s name court controversy among Muslims? British Muslims seem more apathetic than annoyed. ‘He takes the mick out of everybody, not just Muslims’, says Bashir.”

And the show goes on.