Sacha Baron Cohen Deemed "Completely Absurd," Permitted to Mock Away

Thu., Apr. 23, 2009 12:35 PM PDT by Gina Serpe

Any unwitting participants in Sacha Baron Cohen's upcoming Brüno may want to think twice before following in the footsteps of their Borat forebears and getting in touch with their litigious side.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Terry Friedman this week showed some respeck and dismissed a libel suit filed against Cohen and his late, lamented TV series, Da Ali G Show, ruling that "no reasonable person" would take the show seriously.

"No reasonable person could consider the statements made by Ali G on the program to be factual," Friedman wrote in his ruling. "To the contrary, it is obvious that the Ali G character is absurd, and all his statements are gibberish and intended as comedy.

"The actor, Sacha Baron Cohen, never strays from the Ali G character, who is dressed in a ridiculous outfit and speaks in the exaggerated manner of a rap artist. Ali G's statements are similarly absurd."

A woman referred to only as Jane Doe, and whose real name has since been bleeped from Da Ali Show's footage, filed the $800,000 lawsuit against Cohen and his U.S. (HBO) and U.K. (Channel 4) networks over a 2004 episode. She claimed the comedic chameleon, while in character as Ali G, called her a "bitch" and a "minger" along with other, unprintable descriptions.

Ali G unloaded on the woman's supposed faults while interviewing writer and "world-famous hairstylist" Gore Vidal about the U.S. Constitution.

"Ain't it better sometimes, to get rid of the whole thing rather than amend it, 'cause, like, me used to go out with this bitch called [Jane Doe] and she used to always be trying to amend herself," Cohen said.

In tossing the suit, Friedman cited other examples of absurdity from the same interview which were clearly not intended to be taken seriously, including when Ali G asks how much of a role Moses had in helping write the U.S. Constitution.

"Altogether, the program is obviously a spoof of a serious interview program. No reasonable person could think otherwise."

The suit has twice been thrown out by the courts, but was reintroduced recently as Britain's Channel 4, the network where the program originated and therefore the international license holder of the show, expanded its distribution.

The potentially precedent-setting legal decision couldn't have come at a better time for Cohen and his legal team.

Brüno, his latest invitation for legal action movie, is due out July 10.

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