“Black people don’t dress like that anymore. Even white people imitating Black people don’t talk like that anymore,” she wrote, calling Mr Baron Cohen’s comedy “a crude compound of all these things.”
However, Phil Clapp, chief executive of the UK Cinema Association, has pushed back against the boycott effort. “Cinemas are there to engage and entertain the widest possible audience. They are not there to act as censors or arbiters of public taste,” he told Variety.
In typical style, Mr Baron Cohen seems to be embracing the controversy, and even addressed complaints in a recently released trailer.
Bringing to life another of his alter egos, Mr Baron Cohen portrayed Borat Sagdiyev in the promo clip. In it, Borat announces to viewers that he has watched the film and is “disappointed to discover that it is not racist.”