"Who is America?" From Sacha Baron Cohen – Variety

Sacha Baron Cohen feels like the ultimate star of George W. Bush's comedy.

From the beginning to the mid-2000s, when Baron Cohen was enjoying his climax, when TV's "Da Ali G Show" and the film "Borat" of 2006, a mocking journey through the comic use of the secret documentation of what Americans are willing to say and do behind closed doors. The clbadic act of Baron Cohen capitalized on the widespread mistrust of institutions, politicians and civil society in general; it was an entertainment made for a time when the mood had turned sour, but where to expose, say, the hypocrisies of elected leaders or the prejudices of the white population felt new and potentially useful. For many onlookers of "Who Is America," Baron Cohen's new series on Showtime, such aspects of contemporary life do not have to be exposed – and Baron Cohen's approach , so effective at stripping away the subtleties needed for a time when the intent is barely hidden.

What a pleasant surprise, then, that "Who is America?" Feels at once as richly comic as all that Baron Cohen has done in the decade – more since "Borat" and resonating urgently with our own era. The format of the show – using four new characters from Baron Cohen to expose the nature of contemporary American culture – is particularly effective, upsetting beyond the bolded names that have proven to say that They were taken by the cartoon. The first episode, for example, puts firearms lobbyists in conversation with Erran Morad, a former Israeli colonel played by Baron Cohen. "Morad" travels to the United States to learn more about firearms policy and to share his full support for a particularly libertine understanding of the Second Amendment; At the end of the episode, firearms lobbyists as well as past and present members of Congress endorse its "Kinder-Guardians" program, designed to teach three- and four-year-olds how to shoot.

This is the magic of Baron Cohen at his best: Simultaneously designing bizarre and seemingly outrageous social commentaries, and knowing the culture well enough to be sure his targets will be from the part. The long segment "Kinder-Guardians", culminating as in a bizarre PSA pro-toddler-riflery PSA endorsed by Dana Rohrabacher and Trent Lott, is the creative climax of the episode. An interview between Senator Bernie Sanders and Alex Jones-style "journalist" (played by Baron Cohen, of course) sees a lot of good jokes, but Sanders does not take the floor. comic bait.

This segment looks a little like a half-time half-time, working to make the show "feel right" by making jokes left and right, even when the material is not all actually there. Even with a too long segment confronting a visibly liberal Californian gallerist with Baron Cohen's ex-con based on body fluids. The disgusting gag tires patience and credulity, although his point of view – that liberal people forgive beyond reason – is clear.

It is there that Baron Cohen's nihilism may, for a moment, itch and irritate more than enlighten and entertain. His point of view, that not only the two sides but really all the people, the public figures and the anonymous civilians willing to present themselves in front of a camera, are fallible, stupid and fraudulent. Her gallerist target does not get out of hand, exactly – just naive and too heavy to be seen doing good. These values, hardly the best of humanity, still do not seem quite worthy of pillory. This seems to indicate how much of Baron Cohen's small comedic formula has evolved since his heyday in the mid-2000s that he has enough anger to spare everyone, but it ends up accidentally, and uncomfortably, by getting into a era of freedom … floating contempt. Baron Cohen's willingness to test the limits of tolerance ends up feeling as instant as refreshing on Twitter.

The Gallerist Segment, or another in which a liberal character Baron Cohen reprimands the conservative South Carolinins with the details of his wife's bestiality practice, was strangely more engaging than the thought of a highly segmented mediatized, with Sarah Palin. (The former vice president has long been an attractive subject for comics, but she has been out of the Alaska governor's office since 2009 and has become a marginal political figure since then.) It is time to move on. not exactly successful in two ways; his routine becomes tiring well before the end of the skit, and he also fails to get what he sometimes seems to want above all, the violent reaction, the confrontation that ends in tears or in blood.

But he proves a more important point: The California gallerist and the Trump South Carolina delegate listen for as long as he is ready to talk, and obviously force himself to suspend their judgment. They are less hypocritical or jester than simply patient and polite. (And the gallerist seems to really like the art of Baron Cohen.) Who is America? It's more than its rulers – these are all those idiotic and idiotic people who voted for or against them. These are people for whom you can feel, at times, a flicker of something new from Baron Cohen: Affection. The civility of these people can be wildly misguided and misjudged, but it is there, sitting strangely at the center of the least civilian show on TV. Some traditions, it seems, are difficult even for a comedian as talented as Baron Cohen for the past.