"Who is America?" Sacha Baron Cohen's Coarse, Crude and Sometimes Shiny – Life & Culture



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When Sacha Baron Cohen became known as rapper Ali G in the late 1990s, fooling list B celebrities with his silly interviews, another British provocateur was heading for the jugular: Chris Morris "Brbad Eye" was a good television, where celebrities and politicians solemnly declared a danger completely disguised for society. In an episode about drugs in Britain, he found a disturbing number of familiar faces to denounce the dangers of the fictional and narcotic "cake", even going so far as to ask a conservative politician to ask questions at that time. subject to Parliament.

"Brbad Eye" and the dangers of the drug "Cake"

I can pay Baron Cohen's new comedy Showtime no bigger compliment than to say that there is a particular skit in "Who is America? " "Brbad Eye." But I was also disappointed that the 10-minute segment at the end of the first episode – in which "Col Terminator" Israeli Col Erran Morad travels to Washington, pushing his idea to arm 4-year-old children Children's Gardens – was the only sketch that really deserved the huge lengths to which the comedian and his team went to trick the Americans into appearing on camera.

There were two interesting things about the announcement earlier this month that Baron Cohen was back in his first TV show since 2004: first, as David Bowie showed and Beyoncé and Jay-Z in recent years, it's surprisingly easy to keep high-profile projects under wraps if you really want to; and, secondly, are weird segments for crazy batshit websites like "InfoWars" so prevalent nowadays that it has become easier than ever to fool politicians to appear on screen for a show completely. random?

Sacha Baron Cohen as Colonel Erran Morad, the Israeli "terrorist terminator", who wants to arm the school k

"Who is America?" Nails his colors to the mast in opening credits, as JFK and Reagan are shown presidential addresses, while Donald Trump is shown mocking a journalist with a disability. Folks, there is no more subtle. The hero of Baron Cohen's comedy was Peter Sellers, and while the Jewish comedian shares the ancient character's incredible ability to transform himself into a variety of characters, he also shares his love of one. Rude joke. In other words, the show oscillates between the satirical brilliance of "Dr. Strangelove" and the scatological humor of the "Pink Panther" films of the past few days, for a sometimes frustrating watch.

Of the four sketches in the opening show, I would call one as a timely yet timeless comedy masterpiece; a very funny piece, albeit morally dubious, that flatters the world of art; an excessive joke that has some car-accident appeal to it; and a big disappointment.

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The latter is the interview of "Bernard Sanders", in which the founder of Truthbrary.org, Billy Wayne Ruddick, explains to Senator Vermont puzzled how the 99% can join the 1% to become the 199%. The mustachioed, blond and corpulent "reporter" is also asking Sanders for the Affordable Care Act: "ObamaCare is not working," he says. "I mean, I know it personally.I was a healthy man, then ObamaCare came in. I was forced to see a doctor and suddenly I got three diseases." Sudden movement of Sanders's eyes as if searching for the nearest exit door.

The problem here is that it's never clear who is the target of the joke. It's certainly not Sanders, who escapes with his dignity intact and concludes with honest admission, "Billy, I have no idea what you're talking about, I do not do not really do it. " And someone like Billy is almost a joke because the type of character on which he is based is already a travesty.
Firearms advocate Philip Van Cleave with Colonel Erran Morad (Sacha Baron Cohen) in his new show "Who is America?" new show 'Who is America & # 39; "srcset =" https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.6273685.1531736071!/image/1626042174.jpg_gen/derivatives/size_468xAuto/1626042174.jpg 468w, https://www.haaretz.com/opopoly_fs/ 1.6273685. 1531736071! /image/1626042174.jpg_gen/derivatives/size_640xAuto/1626042174.jpg 640w, https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.6273685.1531736071! /image/1626042174.jpg_gen/derivatives/ size_748xAuto / 1626042174.jpg 748w, https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.6273685.1531736071! /image/1626042174.jpg_gen/derivatives/size_936xAuto/1626042174.jpg 936w, https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.6273685.1531736071!/image/1626042174.jpg_gen/derivatives/size_1496xAuto/1626042174.jpg 1496w "height = "" />

SHOWTIME



The next sketch shows an NPR wearing a sweatshirt, a ponytail ("A cis kind, a white heterobadual man – for which I'm sorry") cycling through the America in order to "cure the fracture" – which is not exactly the most difficult target to reach. To do this, he visits the opulent home of a Trump couple in South Carolina who suffer from the white privilege. As they dine, he introduces more and more outrageous ideas (including his young daughter Malala, newly bleeding menstruates on a United States Flag as a sanitary napkin). The Republican couple endure all this with a remarkable bloody, which ultimately raises the question of knowing what the heck they believed to adhere.

Maximum rawness arrives in a segment in which a former British con presents his unique art forms to the fine art consultant in a posh gallery in Laguna Beach. These works, he explains, are the result of a "dirty demonstration" that he organized in prison, giving a whole new meaning to the term "artistic movement". Just as I wanted to hate this skit, I found myself laughing all the time. Only God knows what Christy the consultant will feel by watching herself make a rather personal offer in the end. I can only hope that she sees it as a kind of video installation art.

The moment of genius finally arrives with the most irresistible new character, the Israeli character of Colonel Morad (the show is worth seeing alone to hear Baron Cohen's Israeli pronunciations of "NRA" and " Congress ").

Sacha Baron Cohen as Colonel Erran Morad, the Israeli "terrorist terminator", who wants to arm the school k

"The NRA wants to arm teachers. It's crazy! You should arm the children! Black, black-clad, black-haired, Erran, who appears to be modeled on a GI Joe figure, hires gun rights activist Philip Van Cleave to his cause for a cartoon titled "Kinder Guards: how to protect your preschool child ", which must really be seen to be believed.

But the real stroke of genius comes when the character of Baron Cohen crosses the Capitol and meets Republican MP Matt Gaetz, who expresses his reluctance to say on TV that he supports giving firearms to children of 3 and 4 years old. "Generally, members of Congress do not just hear a story about a program, then they say they support it or not." Trent Lott, Dana Rohrabacher, Joe Wilson, and Joe Walsh express their immediate support for The "Kinder Guardians Program." ("A 3-year-old can not defend himself from an badault rifle by throwing a Hello Kitty holster," is Wilson's particularly scary comment.)

  Republican MP Matt Gaetz with Truthbrary.org Founder Billy Wayne Ruddick (Sacha Baron Cohen) in his new show

SHOWTIME



Of course, this shows us that – as Morris has demonstrated 20 years ago Some time ago, you can ask a politician to say anything on the screen if you are presenting it in the right way to his electorate and make sure he does not think about it too long. Yet, the most worrying aspect is not that the careers of these politicians will not be shot down despite the fact that they would charge such nonsense, but that there are people in this moment who are probably thinking, "Kinder Guardians? Good idea!"

"Who is America?" Finally proves that there is a very thin line between satire and White House politics these days.

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