| CAMBRIDGE For Class Day, a class act, not By Justin Gest, Globe Correspondent, 6/6/2004 I'm not sure how I'm going to explain Ali G to my mother. On Wednesday, Mom is coming to Harvard's Class Day, traditionally a moment for families and friends of outgoing graduates to gather under the shade of Harvard Yard's canopy and be tickled and touched by the humor, charm, and poignancy of the selected speakers. The job of these speakers is not only to address a collection of raucous college kids at this event, but their often more conservative parents, younger siblings, and proud grandparents as well. Which is why this year's choice of Ali G is, well, ''a lit-uhl batty, mate," as the British comic might say. Ali G is the alter-ego of 32-year-old Sacha Baron Cohen, a Jewish white boy from the London suburbs, who, after graduating from Cambridge University, created the identity of his wannabe gangsta' rapper double. Zipped into a baggy, bright yellow tracksuit, with a do-rag on his head and plenty of ''bling" around his neck, Ali G calls himself a ''hip-hop journalist." Befuddling his subjects with a combination of apparent stupidity, self-assurance, and crudeness, Ali G has embarrassed and offended the likes of former House speaker Newt Gingrich and former attorney general Edwin Meese and built a multimedia franchise estimated by the London Evening Standard to be worth over $50 million. In one past show, Meese tenderly rejected the idea that a death-row prisoner could avoid execution by choosing an all-you-can-eat-buffet as his final meal and filling his plate day after day. But perhaps, the greatest problem with the choice of Baron Cohen to advise graduates about life is that he is evidently not comfortable with who he is. Notoriously publicity-shy, he refuses to give interviews or be photographed out of character. Baron Cohen's creative partner and producer Dan Mazer recently told the Evening Standard that Baron Cohen is ''uncomfortable talking about himself and worries about what people might ask him. . . . It's difficult when you're famous. There's pressure to be funny and he worries about not being funny enough." Some undergraduates may not even know who he is. Ali G has enjoyed success in Britain with such hit television shows as ''The 11 O'clock Show," ''Da Ali G Show," and his movie, ''Ali G Indahouse." However, his recognition in the States is based mostly on selected clips downloaded off the Internet and passed around by teenagers and 20-somethings over e-mail. Last January, HBO signed Baron Cohen to tape ''Da Ali G Show" to run after midnight, but he remains under many people's radars. It's not that he isn't funny. It's just that it's probably going to offend my mother and go right over my grandparents' heads. When I asked my mom if she had heard about Ali G, she said she read about him in The Harvard Crimson, that ''he was a rapper or somebody." Deep down, I'm sure she's really excited though. Justin Gest, a freelance writer, will be wearing his own yellow track suit under his academic gown when he graduates Thursday with the Harvard class of 2004. This story ran on page S5 of the Boston Globe on 6/6/2004. © Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company. |