UPDATE: Has Sacha Baron Cohen been banned from the Oscars?
ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Sacha Baron Cohen’s new film, The Dictator, is “the heroic story of a dictator who risks his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed.” If you’ve seen the trailer, you know that it’s probably going to be a wild and unpredictable as Cohen’s previous hit films Borat and Bruno.
Apparently Cohen wants to bring his character, Admiral General Aladeen, to the most dignified award ceremony of the year – The Academy Awards.
The Hollywood Reporter is quoting sources that say Cohen has already expressed his desire to Paramount Studios. In a room of black ties and fancy dresses, Cohen would arrive in full-faux-middle-eastern-military garb. The reason Cohen is attending the Oscars this year is his role in Martin Scorcese’s Hugo, which has been nominated for Best Picture.
The Academy says that they have no knowledge of such plans.
Of course, Cohen strutting down the red carpet looking like Muammar Gaddafi would probably be entertaining – but you have to think that it would infuriate some of the Academy’s old guard. Plus, I can’t even imagine how mad some starlets would be to have their spotlight stolen.
This definitely wouldn’t be Cohen’s first foray into stunts like this (just ask Eminem’s face). Every time Cohen does something like this, it’s highly circulated around the interwebs and it ends up being great publicity for his upcoming project. The Dictator is already being promoted heavily online. For instance, the fictional country from the film, The Republic of Wadiya, has its own website.
There, you can check out Admiral General Aladeen’s biography: “Aladeen righteously declared his father Eternal President of the Republic and called for free elections to determine who would serve as Vice-President under his dead father. Aladeen won with only 99.999% of the vote. After an exhaustive government investigation, it was discovered that the one dissenting vote came from Aladeen himself, who deliberately misspelled his own name as an ingenious test of the system.” You can also learn the history of the country as well as the weather forecast (Sunny with a high of 112 degrees for the next 500 days).
General Aladeen also has his very own verified Twitter account, where you can find gems like this:
As a romantic Valentine’s day gesture, I today allowed the boyfriend of our captured American hiker to watch her pleasure me via Skype
Check out the official trailer and decide if you think Admiral General Aladeen would be a good addition to the red carpet. The film is set to release on May 11th.