Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Baron Cohen (born 13 October, 1971) is a British comedian notable for his highly successful comedy characters Ali G (an MC and gangster wannabe from Staines), Borat (a Kazakhstani reporter) and Brüno (a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion reporter).
Background
Baron Cohen[1] was born in Staines in Surrey into a middle-class Jewish family, the second of three sons of Gerald and Daniella Baron Cohen. His father owns a menswear shop in Piccadilly and is originally from Wales, while his mother is a native Israeli of Iranian (Persian) heritage.
Baron Cohen attended Saint Columba's College, an independent Catholic school in St Albans, Haberdashers' Aske's School, a private school in Elstree, and went on to study history at Christ's College, Cambridge. At Cambridge, he also acted in plays such as Cyrano de Bergerac and Fiddler on the Roof. He was also an active member in the Jewish youth movement, Habonim Dror, where he was an outstanding ga-ga-ball player, winning the Habonim UK ga-ga championship on multiple occasions. Contrary to popular myth, Sacha Baron Cohen never appeared in a Cambridge Footlights Review. However he was apparently a member as he is listed on the Footlights Alumni webpage. Baron Cohen wrote his Cambridge History thesis on Jewish involvement in the American Civil Rights movement, focusing especially on the 1964 murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Cohen is a cousin of University of Cambridge Professor of Developmental Psychopathology Simon Baron-Cohen[2]. Cohen is engaged to Australian model-actress Isla Fisher.
Early career
In 1994 Channel 4 was planning a replacement for its series The Word and put out an open call for new presenters. Baron Cohen sent in a tape of himself in the character of Kristo, a fictional television reporter from Albania (who later became Borat, from Kazakhstan), that caught the attention of one producer who kept him in mind. Baron Cohen marked time by working for a Swindon-based television company.
Ali G and rise to celebrity
Baron Cohen shot to fame when his character Ali G started appearing on The Eleven O'Clock Show on Channel 4. Da Ali G Show began in 2000 and won the BAFTA for best comedy series the next year. In 2001, Ali G appeared in Madonna's music video "Music". In 2002, Ali G was the central character in the feature film Ali G Indahouse, in which he became elected to the United Kingdom's Parliament and had to foil a plot to bulldoze a community centre in his hometown. The show was taken to the United States in 2003, where it aired on HBO.
Other characters created by Baron Cohen include Borat, a naïve television reporter from Kazakhstan with a fervent hatred of Jews, an extreme hatred of gypsies (Roma people) and a misogynistic attitude. Baron Cohen's third alter ego is Bruno, a gay Austrian fashion show presenter, who often lures his subjects into unwittingly making provocative statements and engaging in embarrassing behaviour, as well as leading them to contradict themselves, often in the same interview. This was once done by Bruno asking the subjects to answer the yes or no questions by saying either "Ach-Ja" for yes or "Nicht-Nicht" for no.
Notable interviewees have included writer Gore Vidal, real estate mogul Donald Trump, Egyptian millionare Mohamed Al Fayed, US politician Newt Gingrich, political commentator Pat Buchanan, linguist Noam Chomsky, former UN Secretary Boutros Boutros-Ghali (whom Baron Cohen, in his Ali G character, referred to as "Boutros Boutros Boutros Boutros-Ghali"), British ex-politician Neil Hamilton and journalist Andy Rooney. He is a supporter of Comic Relief, has hosted interviews (as Ali G) with, among others, footballer David Beckham and his wife Victoria, for the benefit of the charity.
Baron Cohen guest starred in the Season 5 finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm with Dustin Hoffman as a guide to Heaven, played the lemur king, King Julian, in Dreamworks children's movie Madagascar (2005), and co-starred as Jean Girard, the gay French NASCAR driver, the racing rival to Will Ferrell in the comedy Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.
He has presented the MTV Europe Music Awards twice, first on November 8, 2001 in Frankfurt, Germany, as Ali G, and then on November 3, 2005 in Lisbon, Portugal, as Borat. He delivered the 2004 Class Day address at Harvard University as Ali G, the day before the commencement ceremony. In the 2006 MTV Movie Awards, Baron Cohen's character Borat introduced Gnarls Barkley's performance of "Crazy". The audience, unfamiliar with Cohen's sense of humour, booed him when he started making anti-Semitic comments, and Borat's appearance was cut from subsequent re-broadcasts.
Borat
A feature film, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, based on the Ali-G Show character, is in post production and will be released on November 1, 2006. The film is about a journey across the United States in an ice-cream van in which the main character is besotted by the idea of marrying Pamela Anderson. It is stated to be an unscripted mockumentary, but with some interviews with various American citizens that poke fun at many aspects of American culture.
Controversy
In an interview with Neil Hamilton in 2000 Baron Cohen, as Ali G, offered Hamilton what was allegedly marijuana, which Hamilton accepted and smoked, creating some minor controversy in the British media.
Baron Cohen has had some troubles because of the racist or prejudiced comments his characters make (see Da Ali G Show). HBO spokesman Quentin Schaffer has replied to the criticisms in America with, "Through his alter-egos, he delivers an obvious satire that exposes people's ignorance and prejudice in much the same way All in the Family did years ago." [1]
The government of Kazakhstan threatened him with legal action after the MTV EMA ceremony in Lisbon, and the authority in charge of the country's country-code top-level domain name removed the website that he had created for his character (www.borat.kz) for alleged violation of the law - specifically, registering for the domain under a false name. The New York Times (among others) has reported that Baron Cohen (in character as his Borat persona) has urged them on, stating "sue this Jew!" [3] He was, however, recently defended by Dariga Nazarbayeva, a politician and the daughter of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who stated "We should not be afraid of humour and we shouldn't try to control everything, I think."[4]
Identities confused in the media
It is not unprecedented that one of Sacha Baron Cohen's characters was mistaken for a real life person distinct from Cohen. When he hosted the MTV Europe Music Awards in Lisbon in character, the central Hungarian news wire agency, MTI, reported that the host was "Borat Sagdiyev".[5] As most printed newspapers and televisions take MTI as their official source, the misinterpretation of the character spread rapidly in Hungary, with some sources, like TV2 emphasizing that a Kazahstani news reporter hosted the awards, while others, like Index.hu, noticed and pointed out the error.[6]
References
- ^ Baron is not a title of nobility, but the first part of his compound surname, an anglicization of Baruch
- ^ Empathizing with Simon Baron-Cohen's cousin, August 04, 2004
- ^ "British comic responds to legal threat against 'Borat'", CBC, Friday, Nov. 25, 2005.
- ^ "Daughter of Kazakhstan's president defends Borat", CBC, Friday, April 21, 2006.
- ^ MTI reporting from MTV Europe Music Awards
- ^ Index.hu article on the reporting error
See also
- Simon Baron-Cohen - Sacha's cousin and renowned British psychologist known for his study of autism.
External links
- Sacha Baron Cohen interview with NPR's Robert Siegel
- Boyakasha.co.uk: The ultimate Ali G / Borat website
- Official Borat Homesite (created after the original site, www.borat.kz, was taken down by Kazakh authorities)
- Unofficial Borat Homepage
- Sacha Baron Cohen at IMDb
- Yahoo biography
- ThrowawayyourTV.com Sacha Baron Cohen Video Archive
- Borat's Myspace