Britainology 78: Da Ali G Show
*UNLOCKED TO THE $5 TIER BECAUSE NATE IS EXHAUSTED RIGHT NOW AND THE BONUS IS LATE*
For this month's second Britainology, Nate and Milo discuss Sacha Baron Cohen's 2000s comedy program Da Ali G Show, its appearances in America, the type of guy it's supposed to be making fun of, and what their American equivalent would be. Like Proust's madeleine, this discussion also prompted Nate's reminiscences about some guys at his high school who created a rap label in 1999 called Tight Yo Records.
Comments (38)
nate fam how can a north american nah know what a wigga is?? overcomplicating tings as usual
This was nyc and not america, but the beastie boys were 100% a generic white dude hardcore band until they rebranded themselves with MC-sounding names and appropriated all the superficial swagger and fake accents they needed from hiphop. so I recognized the Ali G character for what it was at the time
Nate using Eminem as a shorthand for “white guy pretending to be black” is really frustrating to me as someone who knows even a little bit about his biography.
AGREED.
Ali g walked so chet Hanks could run
I kind of feel like since his subsequent career arc went "Comedy Foreigner (Borat) -> Comedy Gay (Bruno) -> Comedy Blackface (The Dictator) -> Comedy Chav (Grimsby)", you are giving him much too much of the benefit of the doubt in saying that the original character was satirical and only about Tim Westwood. Also, we shouldn't forget that Borat not only portrayed the entire nation of Kazakhstan, who are real human beings, as idiotic bigots, but then did a load of filming in an incredibly poor Roma village getting people's release forms and then adding a voice over saying that they were pimping out their sisters. some of his stuff has been funny but this is a bad person we are talking about.
not so much an arc as a loop, grimsby may be comedy chav but ali G was himself a characature of working class city kids in the 90s, i.e. chavs. Particularly lame when considering his current caked up finances and the fact he is a toff from fucking cambridge Uni. Only punching down, classic zionist behaviour
Coventry mentioned
Listening to Nate engage in Chet Hanks erasure hurts, man
4 month sleep regression getting you Nate?
Ali G always came off to me like a minstrel show but it's okay because we're *actually* laughing at white people. I think after watching Borat there was a similar vibe. Racism disguised behind the veil of satire with a lot of people just laughing at it on its surface. I still find both funny, there's just something icky about it under the surface. I think this fully showed it's head with Bruno, as it was a bit too vulgar/on the nose.
Andrew Tate IS Ali G.
the equivalent Australian phenomenon is almost the entirety of Australian Hip Hop, goofy ass stuff mostly done by white kids who have never actually met a black person, best illustrated by Hilltop Hoods
Let's be real. The equivalent Australian phenomenon was Hey Hey It's Saturday.
Does nobody remember the old Jamie Kennedy movie, Malibu Most Wanted? Basically America's Ali G, imo.
More in “me and Nate are the exact same age” column, I also only have a reference for Ali G as a no-context cameo in a Madonna music video
Covs a bit south east of brum and the black country is immediately west of brum
Don't forget Canada's native white guy who got super famous for sounding Jamaican, Snow https://youtu.be/TSffz_bl6zo?si=ereOxublqAiBAOJe
Except snow was an actual hard man. He wrote that in jail on a murder charge about killing the snitch that put him there. He learned to how to spit Jamaican off his Jamaican mates and worked with mc Shan on the track so it’s not like he’s never been around black culture. But yeah it is cringe watching a white Canadian do reggae. My point is that his accents fake but his rep is surprisingly real.
As soon as Nate said Master P skit, I knew what it was. I had that album on cassette. I recorded it off my friends CD. I listened to it on a walkman.
Micheal Rappoport is the American Ali G
and now he’s the American Sacha Baren Cohen ayyyyyooooooooo
T I G H T Y O ! ~~RECORDS~~
As a 21-year-old gay man when Brüno came out (no pun intended), when I saw it my reaction was that it was cringe but not offensive (at least to gay men). On the other hand, apparently Sacha Baron Cohen got attacked by an angry mob in Jerusalem while in character as Brüno, so maybe he’s just chickenshit. (Yes, yes, comedians complain how courageous they are, but this one really takes the cake for cowardice.)
Tight Yo
Nate, you really, really need to google "Tight Yo Records" in quotes. It produces exactly one result from 2004, "Notre Dame's own gets 'Shagnasty'" "B Shags has now released his debut album, Stream of Conscience, on his very own label, Tight Yo Records, and has a new album in the works tentatively titled Shagglerock." "With the help of producer J. Dizzy, a friend from Indianapolis, and armed with beats downloaded from the Internet, Shags recorded Stream of Conscience by covering his head with a towel to block out any background noise while saying his rhymes into a mic connected to his computer." Incredible names. Apparently B. Shags released 5 albums lmao
I bought the Ali G guide to life book at a thrift store in Australia for a buck or so - heelarious at the time and a total timecapsule of graphic design choices of the era.
You gotta wonder how many people in "Elvis Country" were introduced to Judaism by NoFX. l know at least one person who was. (and honestly that's one of your better case scenarios).
Nate is really showing his ass here by omitting the existence of chet hanks the real life american Ali G and one of the realest motherfuckers out there. Someone who was born into the american ruling class and somehow became the white boy who suprises waiter by ordering in perfect patois.
As a white former boy myself, I find Chet Hanks thoroughly uncanny. I mean, he’s still hot, though.
Is Britainology not just an exercise in making Nate have a series of hyper real Slumdog Millionaire Proustian Reveries?
And just as well! He's very good at it. Won't soon be forgetting the story of the Bo Box.
I feel like People Just Do Nothing is a gentler take on this Type of Guy. It also comes from a place of love, as the actors/writers are big fans of jungle/garage anyway (and Allan Mustafa isn’t a terrible MC). If you’ve not seen it before, the Champagne Steamrooms episode is a great one-shot episode. Captures the excitement of a big night out really well
Brilliant show! Managed to get my London/cockney-born sibling into it also, which I assure you is no easy task when it comes to comedies. There's layers there, I tells ya!
Cursed British facts - started on the same show as Ricky Gervais
Hearing Nate explain the intro skit to Make Em Say Ugh was NEVER on my bingo card
I have a strong positive memory Ali G Indahouse. I was trying to get a copy of Matrix Reloaded off of limewire. But it was mislabeled, and was playing a completely different movie. I tried download three different copies of Matrix Reloaded and they were all the same mislabeled film. I ended up watching it anyways and had the biggest blast as an 18 year old watching Ali G Indahouse.
It sounds like Shaggy could have been an extra in Jarhead