Ali G’s grand return has not exactly been met with an overwhelming cause for celebration, at least not from various corners of his home soil in the U.K., where a campaign has been launched aimed at stopping the character’s latest outing from hitting cinema screens.
Following the release earlier this week of the trailer for Amazon MGM‘s “Ali G: Who Iz I?,” a new mockumentary following Sacha Baron Cohen‘s famed faux rude boy, online negativity against the satirical figure and film has steadily grown. Many have taken to social media to accuse Ali G, who in the trailer is seen wearing fake dreadlocks and a Rastafarian hat and discussing his desire to be an “absent” father, of being an “outdated” and “racist” caricature.
On Wednesday, NewsCord — a news comparison and media monitoring platform — started a campaign urging cinemas around the world to refuse to screen the film, emailing major chains with the request on behalf of those who register. As of Friday, it claims to have been instructed to send more than 36,000 emails.
The campaign accuses Cohen of using satire as a “cover for enforcing racist stereotypes,” citing a newspaper report from 2000, just two years after Ali G first hit British TV screens, in which Black British comedians claimed the character was an “alibi for racism.”
