May 24, 2016

It seems to me Donald Trump handled Ali G perfectly.



I don't know how Sacha Baron Cohen thinks he has something on Trump to tell. This is just unbecoming: "Sacha Baron Cohen Claims Trump Lied About His Famous Ali G Interview/The details simply don't add up."

It made me watch the old clip, which I've embedded. It's funny. Both men are funny and smart. Cohen is stooping now, trying to exploit something that's just nothing and saying things like "I was the first person to realize [Trump] was a dick." The encounter was in 2003. No way Cohen could have been the first person to "realize" (i.e., think) that.

67 comments:

eric said...

He is mad because he wasn't successful in punking trump.

Or being the biggest dick in the room.

Mary Beth said...

The only thing I laughed at was Trump saying, "No, I promise you I won't."

Fernandinande said...

"Sacha Baron Cohen Claims Trump Lied About His Famous Ali G Interview/The details simply don't add up."

No evidence of that in that falsely-headlined lame little article I accidentally read.

"Cohen says Trump actually stuck around talking to a white guy"

A white guy!?! Gasp!

Sacha Baron Cohen is pretty damned lame.

readering said...

Mountain out of a molehill. The "I was the first . . . " is a just trying to be a humorous response to Corden. The "Trump's lying . . ." point cannot be confirmed. Cohen's point is that Trump stayed talking for 7 minutes after the interview, suggesting that he did not "see-through" the Ali G character. But of course, Trump may well have been just curious and polite, having budgeted the time. It's also true that Corden's production company would have a pre-interview with Cohen to go through his Trump anecdote, so it's hardly spontaneous.

Amadeus 48 said...

I thought the white guy with the skull cap and the Sixers jersey that Trump hung around with for 7 minutes after the taping must have been Ali G. But I see Ali was wearing a Flyers jersey, so it must have been his brother Pali G.
Is Esquire the lamest publication in the world or what?

buwaya said...

The white guy point was to allege that Trump was clueless about a white guy assuming the airs of a black rapper and could not thereby see that this was a put on.
On the whole that seems a rather racist assumption on the part of Cohen.

And in fact it seems to be clueless in itself, as there are any number of white and other persons who like to assume these airs, for whatever reason. I never saw the appeal, but so it is.

Anyway, just a small bit of the mud barrage. They will complain about anything and everything. This is all part of the one, comprehensive mud slinging machine.

Virgil Hilts said...

I know Ann doesn't like us to come on and just trash someone, but I have never thought Sacha Baron Cohen was the least bit funny or clever. I could not make it even half way through Borat. His brand of humor is to be a complete asshole and see how decent people will react. I enjoy lots of silly, juvenile humor, even Japanese prank jokes, but his brand of humor is about as low and base as you can get. Its also not hard or difficult to do -- its on the exact same level as Jackass.

traditionalguy said...

Trump spotted the phony in a New York second. He was a lot nicer to him than I would have been. The charade only proves Trump has more class than normal people.

Dan in Philly said...

I didn't read the article but the video reminded me of what Cowen does - abuses the niceties of polite society for humor. When you get to take a scene over and over you might get a few somewhat funny bits, which is about all you get from his movies.
Trump didn't seem to want to play along and didn't have a problem with rudely cutting off the shtick. Bully for him.

Wince said...

How is Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali G schtick not considered "Islamophobic" at this point?

McCackie said...

Don't these Poseur Class type realise that the people no longer care about the conversation going on in their echo chamber. Such exposés only prove the venality of these "elites".

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

$36 million billion says Cohen's just reverting to character.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

How is Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali G schtick not considered "Islamophobic" at this point?

Probably because it's funny instead of just angry.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Trump spotted the phony in a New York second. He was a lot nicer to him than I would have been. The charade only proves Trump has more class than normal people.

That's the intriguing thing. If I'd been through an Ali G stunt I would have either recognized it immediately, or at least not stopped myself from laughing though it. Or cracking a pretty damn wide smile if nothing else.

But from what I remembered reading their set-up is what made the reveal so difficult. He'd get a very professional-looking, extremely well-dressed and well-spoken man to introduce himself to the subject, and then proceed with set design before Ali G walked in. The subjects thought the ringer was who would interview them, rather than Ali G. By the time Cohen walked in, it was too late. We can presume the discussions beforehand were similarly disarming/deceiving.

Gordon Scott said...

Cohen had a shtick. It got old very fast, usually about halfway through a movie. He is well past his sell-by date. He should marry Margaret Cho; both of them have an amazing talent to go too far, and leave the audience wishing for less.

Big Mike said...

Trump certainly is fortunate in his enemies, at least so far.

Achilles said...

In order for Trump to make it as president he has to be able to handle things like this well.

Could you imagine Bernie Sanders getting pranked like this? Or Hillary? There is a reason Democrat candidates are so bad. They do not get anywhere near the scrutiny or crap thrown at them.

bleh said...

I like Sacha Baron Cohen but he's fallen off since 2006 or so. Pretty much everything he's done post-Borat has been awful. Even Borat had its weaknesses. One thing I never liked about him was how he disproportionately went after easy, safe, generally polite targets. He's too cowardly.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Sacha Baron Cohen accumulated wealth like a rock star (currently @$110 million). He's taken mainstream roles, (some, like in Les Miserables and Talladega Nights, were well received), and I thought The Dictator was pretty good and not too safe. I also like the clips I've seen of Grimsby. Maybe that's too British for American tastes. But obviously continuing gonzo reporter characters wasn't going to work. Too many people could recognize him by 2009 or whatever. So what was he to do? That's not his fault. The characters came with their own built-in expiration.

Nonetheless, he did a great service while it lasted. So many of these jerks needed to be knocked off their pedestals, so much politely naive conformity needed to be exposed, so many jokes needed to be told right there on the spot. So it worked. Now it's up to everyone else to not be a dumbass or chasing the slickness of going along to get along.

rcocean said...

"His brand of humor is to be a complete asshole and see how decent people will react"

Yeah, he filmed a lot Borat in the USA, because Southerners try to be polite. If you look really closely at his act, he's a rich, left-wing Englishman putting on a disguise and trying to make fun of average - not very smart -'muricans.

Asshole's in the audience like that kind of humor, sorta like making fun of the people who work at MacDonalds.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Yeah, he filmed a lot Borat in the USA, because Southerners try to be polite.

Polite to confederates, racists, ridiculous traditions, bad leadership, blind followership. All the important things. Be nice to the bad things. Tolerate the intolerant, as well as their own intolerance, and stop thinking. Yep, great values.

rcocean said...

Yeah, I don't know why the Rednecks were polite to Cohen. I would've told him to fuck off.

Gahrie said...

Polite to confederates, racists, ridiculous traditions, bad leadership, blind followership. All the important things. Be nice to the bad things. Tolerate the intolerant, as well as their own intolerance, and stop thinking. Yep, great values.

Pretty much describes the modern Left and their SJW brigades if you switch "confederates" (who by the way, are all dead) with "communists".

Don’t Buy It said...

The scandal here is that people still refer to Cohen as a "comedian," when in fact he has never, ever in his entire life been even a minuscule bit funny, even in his dreams. He's a washed up nobody, grasping for attention by trying to ride a far more successful entertainer. His movies, like his TV appearances, were taste-free festivals of boredom.

buwaya said...

I've spent some time in the South - Georgia, North Carolina and especially Texas. Nobody would mistake me for anything but a foreigner, and I have always been received with warm kindness among those strangers. In general I would rate them the most sympathetic and courteous of your people. The sophisticates of San Francisco are much less friendly.
C.S. Lewis had something to say on the subject.

Gahrie said...

Yeah, I don't know why the Rednecks were polite to Cohen. I would've told him to fuck off.

A true Southerner is polite to you while he's telling you to fuck off.

Michael K said...

Can I have back those six minutes of my life ?

Jeeezusss!

Paul said...

Hilarious!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ofpRxc0GVg

Bill said...

I think Mr Baron Cohen's career has peaked. And deservedly so, since he has a tendency to go after the little people.

Anonymous said...

Oh, Ann, the continuing "look at how people are misunderstanding and/or picking on poor Donald Trump" theme of late is really making me sad. Cohen made his remark about seeing through Trump, as I understand it, in RESPONSE to Trump claiming that he (Trump) was the first person to walk out on the Ali G character. Trump was not the first nor the last to figure out they were being punked, but in typical Trump style, the businessman had to claim to be the first, the best, the greatest. You know, like he was the first to speak out against the Iraq War back when, except that he didn't, or the first to warn against Osama Bin Laden, expect that he wasn't, etc etc etc. Why are you in such a rush to 'defend' the dude?

Lewis Wetzel said...

"blind followership"
They are rebels AND blind followers! Typical incomprehensible hate writing from R&B.

Titus said...

Love Al G.

So I am now waiting for my grindr trick to arrive. This can be a very anxious time. We texted every body part-dick, ass, full bod, face, etc. So you are confident it will work, but you never know.

This one is a little concerning to me. Normally, I want foreign and dark. This one is white and lives in the South End, which is the gay ghetto-and I hate gay ghetto members. But his body and ass were too fierce to pass up. He also told me he is an expert cock sucker.

Which me luck dolls!

toodles.

narciso said...

well there was a certain prescience in that book he authored with david shiflett, and he brought up arguments re iraq's part that jeb, who was part of the braintrust at pnac, had utterly forgotten,

Gusty Winds said...

"Good luck to you folks. Hope you make a lot of money."

Seems like Trump was pretty nice about the whole thing. He left the interview without embarrassing himself, or the other people involved.

What's so dickish about that?

Laslo Spatula said...

buwaya puti said...
I've spent some time in the South - Georgia, North Carolina and especially Texas. Nobody would mistake me for anything but a foreigner, and I have always been received with warm kindness among those strangers. In general I would rate them the most sympathetic and courteous of your people. The sophisticates of San Francisco are much less friendly.


When we all get our shit together and hit Madison together as Althouseapolooza I want to have a drink or three with you.


I am Laslo.

jg said...

Trump comes off beautifully compared to Ali G's usual marks, but Sasha BC couldn't help but show him anyway. Magnificent.

Speaking of dick, the staged and disingenuous (Daily Show esque) but very funny "racist gayphobic redneck" films he produced were created entirely out of dick moves. But also funny.

Interesting how much hostility by outsiders toward what's nearly my own culture I'm willing to tolerate. I'd say other cultures should take a lesson.

cubanbob said...

Trump comes across remarkably classy for Trump in the clip and Cohen comes across as not funny but trying to hard to be funny. Speaking of dick moves by Cohen, I made the mistake of going to see his movie Bruno.

wildswan said...

It was interesting to see how fast Trump saw through the guy and detached himself but also he was nice about it.

wildswan said...

Maybe the whole Clinton campaign apparatus strikes Trump as a set of posturing idiots trying to make a fool out of him but telegraphing their every next move and then lumbering through its delivery. Maybe the whole campaign, not just Hillary, just isn't very good. Maybe they've counted for too long on the media covering for them and they aren't agile or bright. Just vicious and snarky.

Mary Beth said...

I thought Ali G peaked in that Madonna video from 2000. I haven't watched him in anything since then.

Music, music
Music makes the people come together
Music mix the bourgeoisie and the rebel


Hillary needs to boogie-woogie.

Unknown said...

I'm convinced Trump is a Jedi. Today, he mind controlled MSNBC anchor Steve Kornacki into referring to Bill Cosby as Bill Clinton in a report about Cosby's criminal sex assault case.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

Looks to me like Trump treated Cohen exactly the way a busy, serious and responsible man treats a fool. He wasn't worth Trump's time, so after less than a minute, Trump walked and left the fool to play with himself. That's presidential- God knows Obama would have stayed for hours yukking it up and straining to usurp the fool's role.

Earnest Prole said...

Ali G has done dozens of interviews with the world’s smartest and savviest people, and Donald Trump alone is the one who understands instantly he is being trolled and responds appropriately (don’t feed the trolls).

Unknown said...

I truly wanted to post a brief comment to be able to thank you for some of the lovely pointers you are sharing at this site. My incredibly long internet search has at the end of the day been honored with excellent facts and techniques to share with my good friends.

tim in vermont said...

Ali G used to have a show in the UK that I thought was hilarious, but it wasn't constantly about his politics, now he is like Susan Lynch.

tim in vermont said...

Polite to confederates, racists, ridiculous traditions, bad leadership, blind followership. - R&B

Say what you will about conservatives, I have never seen them whipped into line behind a Mussolini wannabee who sells out their values like day old bread the way the Democrats have been falling in to support Hillary.

"I have a great idea! Let's invade Libya!"

Curious George said...

Never found SBC funny. Trump's dismissal without ever saying "no" was classic.

Jeff H said...

Funny. A "man" who spends his entire life pretending to be somebody and/or somebody "else", claiming Trump is...what, being Trump?

Brando said...

Trump's a douchebag but the "Cohen treatment" is generally unfair--sort of like edited Daily Show interviews. People usually are trying to be polite to one of Cohen's characters, and so he uses that to make it shocking (e.g., when Borat says something nasty about Jews, and the people he's talking to play along, they may be flummoxed and not want to be rude on this guy's camera show, but he makes it out like they agree with his Jew baiting). And when he plays dumb Ali G, people get tricked into taking him seriously.

Probably the interviewee I saw who handled him best was Pat Buchanan, who played along and seemed to get the joke, so it fell flat.

JAORE said...

Yeah, he filmed a lot Borat in the USA, because Southerners try to be polite.

Polite to confederates, racists, ridiculous traditions, bad leadership, blind followership. All the important things. Be nice to the bad things. Tolerate the intolerant, as well as their own intolerance, and stop thinking. Yep, great values.

R&B,
I strongly suspect you have never spent much time in the south. Many that have not have preconceived notions that they seek to reinforce with every limited contact.

Or you are such a smug pretentious azzhole that even the fine people here were instantly aware of the fact and acted accordingly.

JAORE said...

Oh yeah, buwaya puti, thank you. It was my experience when I moved to the south as well. If I may I'll join you and Laslo for that drink in Madison.

damikesc said...

The white guy point was to allege that Trump was clueless about a white guy assuming the airs of a black rapper and could not thereby see that this was a put on.
On the whole that seems a rather racist assumption on the part of Cohen.


There are few comedians I have less use for than Cohen. He's made a living making fun of the less fortunate out there (watch his movies and TV and attempt to claim otherwise). He is the epitome of a dick.

Trump has tons of flaws, but his list of enemies isn't one of them.

His brand of humor is to be a complete asshole and see how decent people will react. I enjoy lots of silly, juvenile humor, even Japanese prank jokes, but his brand of humor is about as low and base as you can get. Its also not hard or difficult to do -- its on the exact same level as Jackass.

Agreed. I don't much like making the poor and less fortunate of society the butt of the joke. One of my favorite shows is "Impractical Jokers", where the four friends make themselves do idiotic stunts with the public (such as making a team of two make public presentations written by the other two and try to get the audience to say they found the presentation informative). But the public is never the butt of the joke. The friends having to make total asses of themselves to the public is the joke. The public is just the audience and the foil.

He should marry Margaret Cho; both of them have an amazing talent to go too far, and leave the audience wishing for less.

To paraphrase Ace of Spades, the "funny" part of Cho's act is when she's not trying to tell jokes. Her comedy is fucking terrible.

Polite to confederates, racists, ridiculous traditions, bad leadership, blind followership. All the important things. Be nice to the bad things. Tolerate the intolerant, as well as their own intolerance, and stop thinking. Yep, great values.

So, we're like college students except we produce things society actually needs.

And funny hearing the South held up for "bad leadership" when major metro cities tend to have their pols in jail A LOT for fraud and the like.

A true Southerner is polite to you while he's telling you to fuck off.

A friendly "Aww honey, no" usually suffices.

Say what you will about conservatives, I have never seen them whipped into line behind a Mussolini wannabee who sells out their values like day old bread the way the Democrats have been falling in to support Hillary.

The Left doesn't just whipped into line behind a Mussolini wannabe.

They also got whipped into line behind the ACTUAL Mussolini. Cole Porter wasn't of the Right, after all. Nor did Hollywood have a history, ever, of making right-wing message movies, but they made "The Eternal City"

He was quite popular with the Left here. Hitler wasn't really hated until he turned on the Soviets.

Big Mike said...

@JAORE and buwaya puti, if you're ever around Winchester in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, let me know. You need to have coffee and dessert at Perkins.

Big Mike said...

Woke up with a new campaign meme for Trump -- "Hillary Clinton, she's a dick with a vagina."

jr565 said...

I watched some older Trump recently, and iphe is actually very thoughtful and passive. So, is this current Trump a bit of a Schtick?

Rick.T. said...

damikesc said...

"A true Southerner is polite to you while he's telling you to fuck off.

A friendly "Aww honey, no" usually suffices."
__________________________________

And if they want to tell you to f*ck off and die it's: "Bless your heart."

Mary Beth said...

Forget my last comment in regards to music making the people come together. Hillary has made that irrelevant by changing her slogan again. Now she's "Fighting for us."

mikee said...

Trump is a dick, but he is a dick dedicated to stopping a bigger problem than his dickishness, namely the jackbooted thug Hillary. The likelihood exists for overall improvements to life, the universe, and everything if Trump wins, no matter how big a dick he turns out to be, especially compared to the joy of four years under the jackboot thug heels of Hillary.

LBJ was a huge dick, both publicly and privately boorish, rude, overbearing and demanding. But he could get JFK elected, so JFK chose to run with a known dick as his VP for that benefit.

People will choose a dick to solve some problems, especially problems that involve something worse than being a dick.

Tatter said...

The real story is that the Republican Party hasn't fielded a Presidential candidate so hated since Abraham Lincoln.

It might actually come to civil war.

Brando said...

"People will choose a dick to solve some problems, especially problems that involve something worse than being a dick."

But remember as liberals soon learned with LBJ, even a dick you're using can come back to get you in the ass later.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

Tatter said...
The real story is that the Republican Party hasn't fielded a Presidential candidate so hated since Abraham Lincoln.
It might actually come to civil war.
5/25/16, 9:55 AM

This kind of rhetoric is worthy of David Brooks, Josh Marshall, and Debbie WhatsHerSchmuck. The truth is that Trump, in addition to being a major player in the real estate and construction industry, is a celebrity, a very personable and popular celebrity with a long-running hit television program. He's well known to even the most LIV in the country, and they like him. Hillary Clinton is also a celebrity, however her celebrity results from being the wife of a president involved in tawdry tabloid trash, an opportunistic and ineffective politician, and a public figure constantly enveloped in scummy schemes and accusations of corruption, incompetence, and deception.

As far as a civil war goes, the progressive democrats are utilizing every Stalinist and Brownshirt tactic they know, and now they're throwing rocks at animals- that should be a really popular move with American voters. I welcome a war with such scumbags. As an American Patriot once said, If they mean to start a war, let it begin right here!

tim in vermont said...

If you are dealing with assholes and pussies, a dick is what you need. That's what we are dealing with in the Democrats. South Park explained this.

tim in vermont said...

The Democrats have become the party of hatred, and the rank and file don't even see it.

damikesc said...

The real story is that the Republican Party hasn't fielded a Presidential candidate so hated since Abraham Lincoln.

The Dems, though, did not. But it should be noted that with Lincoln, it was the Dems who started the violence and the war...

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Say what you will about conservatives, I have never seen them whipped into line behind a Mussolini wannabee who sells out their values like day old bread the way the Democrats have been falling in to support Hillary.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/trump-tweets-interesting-mussolini-quote-219932

"I have a great idea! Let's invade Libya!"

Yes, I know Hillary sucks. She's as bad as Trump to my mind just in different ways. Probably worse.

tim in vermont said...

It's a question of the lesser of two fascists.