THE TRACKSUIT IS BACK
Sacha Baron Cohen has brought the character back in Ali G: Who Iz I?, due in cinemas October 23. Cohen is again playing a white suburban poseur convinced he is a dangerous figure from the streets. He has also defended the return in public, arguing that the character's age and awkwardness are precisely the point.
The Guardian's recent in-character interview put Ali G back in a Staines chicken shop. A yellow Renault 5, questionable jewelry and an apparently indestructible commitment to his own mythology complete the scene. A man has spent decades pretending not to know what he is doing, and he is still astonishingly good at it.
THE ORIGINAL VICTIMS WERE THE INTERVIEWEES
The clever version of Ali G was never simply that a ridiculous man spoke nonsense. It was what respectable interviewees did when faced with him: explain the absurd premise, indulge it, or accidentally reveal something revealing about themselves. The character was a social experiment in who would keep a straight face.
Today, the internet performs variations of that experiment every second, without a crew or a joke. The competing question is whether the costume and borrowed cultural signals have aged into the very stereotypes the show once claimed to expose. The criticism is substantial, not just proof that people forgot how to laugh.
CAN SATIRE OUTRUN REALITY?
Cohen told CBS's 60 Minutes that disguises allow him to draw real beliefs out of his subjects. That method still has a purpose. But the person willing to announce something outrageous on camera is no longer a rare discovery. He may already have a podcast.
Maybe Ali G's best joke in 2026 is that he comes back assuming he is the stupidest person in every room, then finds himself in a genuine competition. The film still has to make that joke work. Nostalgia alone will not.