Sacha Baron Cohen announced the retiring of his two most popular characters, the uneducated materialistic and sexually ambitious white rapper Ali G and Borat, the anti semitic sexist Kazakhstany and socially awkward Borat.
Ali G and Borat were the bulk of Cohen’s critically acclaimed but controversial characters in Cohen’s television spots that aired in England before coming over to America on HBO. Cohen grew a very large and very endearing group of cult followers based on these 2 characters. Viewers including myself marveled at Cohen’s creativity to corner real people in real situations unaware that his fake outlandish characters were in act. Below are some clips
Borat buying a home
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TM9JVAywknk
Cohen’s humor was deemed by many to be brilliant and a much needed break in the comedy world while also serving as a comedic social commentary on issues stemming from racism, sexism, drugs, and religion. Most impressive was Cohen’s ability to dupe the likes of many revered politicians, business men, fashion designers, and entertainers into thinking his ridiculous characters were in fact real people.Cohen’s underground success on HBO led to his being the elected commencement speaker at Harvard and more importantly led to his Borat movie deal with Universal. Borat the movie although controversial made a large splash at the box office, in the news, and at the water cooler. In short the low budget believed to be cult audience movie has become entrenched in pop culture, especially for those in the 15-35 age bracket.
Ali G Invents the Ice Cream Glove
Unfortunately Borat’s success proved to be the characters undoing as Cohen could no longer setup sketches on unsuspecting participants. With Cohen’s film career on the rise (Talladega Nights, Sweeney Todd) and a Bruno movie rumored to be in production (Cohen’s third character, a gay anti semitic fashion diva) Cohen decided to put Ali G and Borat behind him and probably rightfully so. Continuing these characters would have been problematic as the real humor is in the reactions, commentary, and opinions that Borat and Ali G painfully coerce out of the unassuming participants.
With that being said, its sad to see them go but I am appreciative of how long and how hard Cohen took these characters and their endeavors. Absolutely brilliant. I hope the rumored Bruno movie will be formally announced soon (probably after its filmed as he Cohen likes to film in secret) and we have last hurrah thanks to one of the most brilliantly comedic minds of our times.
Clip of Bruno at fashion show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzoRD1Qvm10&hl=en&fs=1
