Ali G creator branded 'dangerous'

Ali G creator Sacha Baron Cohen is to be investigated by broadcasting watchdogs after complaints that he sang an anti-Semitic song.

Viewers complained after his character Borat was seen encouraging drinkers in a country and western bar to join in a song entitled Throw The Jew Down the Well on Channel 4 last Friday.

The clip has already caused controversy in America because of the lyrics which included: “In my country there is a problem/And that problem is the Jew/They take everybody money/And never give it back.”

And the chorus goes: “Throw the Jew down the well/ So my country can be free/ You must grab him by the horns/ Then we have a big party.”

Cohen is an active Jew, and the sequence was designed to highlight the anti-semitic feeling in parts of America.

But the US-based Anti-Defamation League said it received hundreds of complaints when the show aired on cable channel HBO.

The organisation has written to Baron Cohen to complain about the sketch, which they said was 'dangerous'.

In the letter, the group said: “We are concerned that the irony may have been lost on some of your audience – or worse, that some of your viewers may have simply accepted Borat's statements about Jews at face value.

“Many viewers of this particular episode have told us they found the segment distasteful, and even dangerous.”

A Channel 4 spokesman said: “Sacha Baron Cohen's humour is ironic and actually highlights bigotry and ignorance.”

But bosses at the Country West Dancing and Lounge in  Tucson, Arizona where the segment was filmed denied their customers were anti-semitic.

Supervisor Carol Irizarry told the Jewish Jorunal in Los Angeles: "[Baron Cohen] definitely misrepresented the bar. He didn’t show the whole song," she said, claiming the crowd were set up through earlier funny verses about Borat throwing his wife’s cooking down the well, which were not aired.

The Kazakhstan embassy in America has  previously complained about Borat “portraying of Kazakhstan as a land of Stone Age people who mistreat women and hate Jews".

Published: 20 Aug 2004