{"id":898443,"date":"2026-10-29T06:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T06:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/898443\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T06:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T06:38:11","slug":"palestine-activists-pushed-boycott-of-sacha-baron-cohens-ali-g-sequel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/898443\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestine Activists Pushed Boycott of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G Sequel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOne of the most intriguing things about Sacha Baron Cohen<\/a>\u2019s satirical sequel Ali G: Who Iz I?<\/a> \u2014 out in limited theatrical release, to mixed reviews<\/a>, and now streaming on Amazon Prime Video \u2014 occurred off-screen.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film\u2019s first trailer debut on Aug. 25 triggered plenty of online backlash about the iconic character, which has long functioned as a Rorschach test. The British commentator Afua Hirsch argued<\/a>, \u201cBlack people don\u2019t dress like that anymore. Even white people imitating Black people don\u2019t talk like that anymore. Sexualizing black women and casually mocking working class women is not accepted anymore. Baron Cohen\u2019s so-called \u2018humor\u2019 is a crude compound of all these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCohen anticipated the outcry, reposting<\/a> the trailer with the observation, \u201cIn an age where a comedian\u2019s career can be ended by a single un-PC joke, I thought I\u2019d play it safe and bring this guy back.\u201d Then, after the fallout amplified, he posted a promotional clip of a progressive academic character from \u201cthe Campaign for Ethical Comedy,\u201d also played by Cohen, who urged a boycott<\/a> of the project: \u201cI\u2019m sure you\u2019ve heard of our five C\u2019s: Consider, contextualize, consult community, and obtain consent before you laugh \u2014 that\u2019s right, do the work before you smirk.\u201d The comedian-provocateur has in the past made it clear that Ali G\u2019s mannerisms and aesthetics are meant in part as a critique of white British youth who adopt exaggerated versions of Black American and Black British cultural styles.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne notable element of the activist boycott campaign against the film has been a U.K.-based online media activism platform called NewsCord. It published an op-ed<\/a> characterizing Cohen\u2019s work as \u201cblackface\u201d and focuses most of its advocacy efforts on coverage of the conflict in Gaza<\/a>. NewsCord\u2019s past campaigns have included demands for the \u201cimmediate release of Global Sumud Flotilla Participants,\u201d who it announced<\/a> were \u201ckidnapped in international waters by the Zionist entity.\u201d The U.S. Treasury has designated<\/a> the flotilla\u2019s leaders as Hamas-affiliated operatives.<\/p>\n

\n\tNewsCord claims<\/a> that its campaign has sent about 55,000 emails to pressure exhibitors to refuse to screen the film. Its system provides users<\/a> with personalized templates to mass-send letters with the help of<\/a> a \u201cspecialized language model.\u201d NewsCord\u2019s Ali G action page<\/a> features an automated checklist to easily direct complaints to businesses ranging from Cineworld and Odeon in the U.K. to Landmark and Cinemark in the U.S. The platform noted that Picturehouse, a small London-headquartered chain of British cinemas, had informed NewsCord that it wasn\u2019t planning to screen Ali G: Who Iz I? \u201cThat is the outcome every letter asks a chain for,\u201d NewsCord wrote, explaining Picturehouse was now \u201coff the send list.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Oct. 23, as the film premiered in theatres, the platform heralded victory<\/a> in its campaign. It pointed to Amazon\u2019s limited final exhibition plan (the studio called it<\/a> a \u201cstunt release\u201d), while misleadingly contending that a total of \u201c55,000 people emailed cinema chains\u201d through its platform.<\/p>\n

\n\tNewsCord was incubated by the nonprofit Tech for Palestine, which describes its mission<\/a> as \u201ccultivating a garden of projects and services that shut down genocidal speech.\u201d The organization\u2019s agenda to influence Wikipedia pages pertaining to the Israel-Palestine conflict and related topics has been criticized<\/a> by Tel Aviv University\u2019s Institute for National Security Studies as well as<\/a> the U.S.\u2019s Anti-Defamation League.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn October 2024, Tech for Palestine\u2019s founder and CEO Paul Biggar wrote<\/a> that Israel was \u201castroturfing IMDb\u2019s review system to manufacture consent for genocide,\u201d and offered detailed instructions to \u201ccounteract the inflated popularity\u201d of four documentaries about the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre in Israel \u2014 including We Will Dance Again<\/a>, which aired on Paramount+ \u2014 by downvoting existing reviews and taking other measures against IMDb. The related activist enterprise Boycat, an app incubated by Tech for Palestine, has urged boycotts<\/a> of Disney\u2019s 2025 films Snow White, starring Gal Gadot, referencing her support of Israel, and Captain America: Brave New World, due to<\/a> \u201cits inclusion of Sabra, an Israeli superhero originally portrayed as a Mossad agent, played by Shira Haas, an actress with ties to the Israeli military.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCohen, a Brit, is one of Hollywood\u2019s most prominent Jews working on-screen. He\u2019s told<\/a> of being discovered early in his career as a performer for his parody of a sweaty Hasid, courted controversy<\/a> when his bigoted character Borat sang \u201cThrow the Jew Down the Well,\u201d and more recently he played<\/a> the legendary Israeli Mossad agent Eli Cohen in Netflix\u2019s limited series The Spy. Cohen gave a widely-circulated keynote address<\/a> to the ADL in 2019, in which he discussed how \u201cas a comedian, I\u2019ve tried to use my characters to get people to let down their guard and reveal what they actually believe, including their own prejudice,\u201d before explaining how he thinks the internet has become \u201cthe greatest propaganda machine in history,\u201d which is now spreading \u201cthe oldest conspiracy theory in history \u2014 the lie that Jews are somehow dangerous.\u201d (He has also reportedly<\/a> been forceful with TikTok over its allowance for antisemitic rhetoric on its platform.)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhile we expected some pushback for resurrecting a character from a different time, we were really disheartened to see firsthand the attacks on Sacha because he is a Jewish public figure,\u201d says Monica Levinson, an executive producer on Ali G: Who Iz I?, in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. She\u2019s collaborated with Cohen on previous projects, including Borat andBr\u00fcno. \u201cThe coordination, messaging and scale of the attack has been astounding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNewsCord and Tech for Palestine didn\u2019t respond to THR\u2019s inquiries. When THR asked Cohen about the boycott campaign of the Ali G sequel during an interview prior to its release, he replied<\/a>, \u201ca lot of the stuff on social media is orchestrated, and not necessarily orchestrated by people who really believe in what they\u2019re saying,\u201d adding, \u201cI\u2019m not surprised that prominent Jews are being targeted. I knew that this was going to happen. The level of organization is surprising, but this is a trend of Jews being portrayed in certain ways and trying to be silenced.\u201d<\/p>\n