Da Ali G Show is funny television.  It skewers politicians and fashionistas, notices American elitism, pokes fun at people who think too much of themselves.  It makes you laugh and gives you some catchphrases you can repeat with your friends.

But it is also cheap TV.  It makes you writhe in your seat.  It embarrasses and confuses people who are skewered for no good reason; not every guest on this show is a lying Ted Haggard.  It takes hospitality, however misguided and regional, and makes the people who serve it feel wrong and weak.  It relies on people’s hopes that their jobs will validate them as people and professionals and makes them feel like imbeciles.

Da Ali G Show features three characters.  The first is the title character, Ali G, who is a British gangster wannabe who has a talk show host in the United States.  He makes a lot of drug references and is stupid.  The next is Borat, a traveler from Kazakhstan, who tells guests on his show that he is making a video a about American tourism.  He often references having sex with his sister and makes anti-Semitic remarks.  The last is Brüno, a gay Austrian fashionista, whose show supposedly speaks to the fashionable Austrian youth.  

Like most reality television, much of the show is edited to create a certain perspective.  For example, in one episode Borat went into a bar in Tucson and sang an anti-Semitic song with lyrics that included, “Throw the Jew down the well so my country can be free”.  The patrons at the country western-themed bar were portrayed as clapping their hands and singing along. 

In actuality, the Jewish Daily Forward investigated the incident and found that bar’s patrons, including one Jewish woman, thought the song was supposed to funny, not serious.  The Anti-Defamation League protested the segment, but HBO said that the show was supposed to point out people’s prejudices, comparing it to the legendary All in the Family.  The bar’s patrons’ participation wasn’t in good taste, but the Tucson bar was not as happily anti-Semitic as the show edited it to be.   

Another controversial interview was one between Borat and Republican politician James Broadwater, a Congressional candidate.  Borat told Broadwater that their interview would be played in foreign countries to talk about American politics.  Borat goaded Broadwater into saying that Jews would go to hell if they didn’t follow Christianity.

If anything, this example proves that the media is too powerful. Along with Brüno,  who often gets the fashion media to compare style choices to the Holocaust, Da Ali G Show illustrates that the American media is far too influential on politics and culture in general. Politicians, fashionistas and the general public are far too willing to say what they think people want to hear when they have a camera in their faces.  

Also, there is something underhanded in the way that Baron Cohen criticizes American prejudice.  Number one, the character of Borat is not versed in American cultural habits, so oftentimes people in his sketches do not think he knows enough to stop him. It’s paternalism, not prejudice. They don’t seem like they want to embarrass him for his cultural mishaps.  They also want to look like gracious, kind (and rich) hosts to those viewers back in Kazakhstan.  If Americans are anything, it is Americentric, so more than prejudice, these sketches illustrate American carefree, ethnocentric complacency. 

I used to love Da Ali G Show, but now I don’t.  It simplifies issues that are much, much more complicated than Baron Cohen intends or allows.