Sacha Baron Cohen rolled into Los Angeles on Tuesday night in full Ali G regalia for the premiere of his comeback mockumentary Who Iz I, and if you thought the years had softened the outrage machine, think again. A petition is already circulating in the UK to ban the film from British cinemas, which is the greatest gift any comedian has ever received. Cohen knows it.

He brought along "Me Julie" for the red carpet, and the photos look like 2002 never left. The tracksuit, the wraparound shades, the gold chains, the beanie. The man commits. Say what you will about Sacha Baron Cohen, and I have said plenty over the years, but he disappears into these characters like few working performers can. Other actors get the Oscars. Cohen gets the petitions, and I suspect he prefers it that way.

And oh, the petitions. Some group of professionally offended people in the UK has decided that a comedy character from two decades ago needs to be kept from the public, presumably to protect the public from laughing. The petition claims the film is offensive, which, yes, that is what Ali G has been since the first time he asked a confused politician about "respek." The character was built on making people uncomfortable. That was the point then and it is the point now.

What the petition crowd never understands is that banning things is the surest way to fill theater seats. Every person in the UK with a pulse and a sense of humor is now aware of Who Iz I who might have scrolled past it on a streaming menu. Cohen did not buy this publicity. It was handed to him free of charge by people who learned nothing from every other time someone tried to censor a comedian and made that comedian richer.

I have my preferences among Cohen's creations, like anyone who has watched him work for two decades. Ali G has something the others do not: pure, stupid joy. The character is an idiot who thinks he is brilliant, and Cohen played him with a sweetness underneath the ignorance that made you laugh with him as often as you laughed at him. The remake culture has given us nothing but reheated nostalgia for five years. At least Cohen is bringing back a character who was actually funny the first time.

I have not seen Who Iz I yet, so the grade is incomplete. But I will say this: a comedian willing to put the tracksuit back on and dare the world to cancel him has more nerve than every studio executive in Burbank combined. The people trying to ban him are doing his marketing for free, and the joke is on them, as it always was.