The character of Ali G may not be famed for his intellectual capacities, but he was nevertheless the subject of a research paper that centre director Dr Richard Howells gave at Cambridge University.
“It’s Semiotic, Innit?” explained the often contentious relationship between race, humour and television, and looked closely at how Sacha Baron Cohen, the actor behind the character, was able to get away with his frequently outrageous racial humour.
Interestingly, Baron Cohen himself was an undergraduate at Cambridge, where he studied history before finding fame as Ali G on television and then on film as Borat in the hugely successful (and controversial) Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006).
Richard’s paper was given to the Screen and Media Cultures Research Seminar, University of Cambridge and took place at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH).
Booyakasha.
Culture Media and Creative Industries @ Kings 