When Ali G first arrived on our screens, characters like him were far more common, says social psychologist Amy Kean. She argues they are no longer "culturally relevant".

"Ali G, Little Britain, Catherine Tate, all of those comedians and sketch shows, they made the voice the joke," says Kean, who has written on accentism, drawing from her experiences being teased for her Essex accent.

"I remember going to school in the 90s and people would take the piss out of anyone whose voice wasn't exactly the same as everyone else's."

Baron Cohen has in the past suggested that his character had a knack for pushing powerful interviewees into uncomfortable territory by playing with biases and expectations.

Speaking on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2020, Baron Cohen reflected on interviewing Donald Trump for Da Ali G Show, and recalled how the programme's producer was a well-spoken Englishman who Trump had assumed would be conducting the interview.

"I remember Donald Trump looking at me, and I'm wearing a sweatsuit," Baron Cohen said. "His face dropped. He was immediately furious that he was going to have to speak to somebody from a lower-class borough rather than this rather astute Etonian producer."

When discussing the forthcoming sequel on CBS on Tuesday, Baron Cohen's "primary objective" appeared less ideological - to "get people to laugh really hard". Though he added that "smuggled in there is a bit of satire".

In a new essay in Time this week, external, Baron Cohen argued that his characters have always been "vehicles to expose prejudice, bias, and stupidity", and that in the case of Ali G, "the joke is on him, and on the predominantly white male establishment" he aims to expose.

"The fact that Ali G is outdated and problematic is the very reason I resurrected him," Baron Cohen wrote.

"The world he's returned to is, in many ways, worse than the one he left 20 years ago. All the prejudices my characters are designed to expose haven't just lingered - they've metastasized. They're fueled by the greatest propaganda machine in history - social media - and now by its monstrous child, AI."

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