Sacha Baron Cohen is above satire

This is not the first time that his "victims" Sacha Baron Cohen are threatening a lawsuit. But with his new television series Who is America? The regret of a scandalous Republican Roy Moore on the hunt, is a strong proof that his satire-plus also at the time of the 24- the reality ball of contemporary American politics is still relevant.

The first episode of his new seven-part series for the American channel Showtime was broadcast Sunday night for the first time. He immediately caused a storm of indignation. It was in particular one of four new types that the British comedian had invented: the Israeli colonel Erran Morad, armed with weapons, who would have come to the United States to seek support for a program weapons for preschool children. This fact is not even as shocking as you would like even after President Trump tweeted earlier this year that it would be a good idea to arm teachers in response to the Parkland school shootout. , in Florida.

Scenes from Who is America? :

What Are the Blatant Targets of Arms Lobbyist Philip van Cleave (President of the Viriginia Citizen's Defense League) in a Movie of instruction showing "puppy pistols", "uzicorns" and other "gunnimals". And how Larry Pratt (former director of Gun Owners of America) and his controversial Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher argue that they think the children's arm is a good idea. These people want to say what they say.

Penalty for Mannequin

Sacha Baron Cohen, born in London in 1971, has made a name since 2000 with his satirical television programs, and later films on white rapper Ali G and The Le Kazakh reporter Borat Sagdiyev. The criticism immediately came to him in the spirit. That he would exploit and normalize the prejudices. That people could not see the limit between the joke and the reality. That the satirical subtext is too complex and ambiguous. The Kazakh government began an anti-campaign campaign after the liberation of Borat: America's cultural learning to make the glory of the glorious nation of Kazakhstan (2006); and Baron Cohen paid fine tourists who paraded through the streets of the Kazakh capital Astana in his Borat-mankini. Parody and reality blend harmoniously.

Ali G and Borat have become such cultural icons that it is hard to imagine that people continue to kick in their bold accents, their sumptuous costumes and their tactics. silly interview. But that's exactly what's happening now.

See also: Borat actor quarrels weapons lobby USA with a new guy

It must be said that after seeing Morad the other new characters, the former prisoner Rick Sherman who pooped and pissed -Paintings done, or the überdemocrat Nira Cain-N Degeocello ("I am white, man and I am ashamed") make little impression. Only the interview that the Billy Wayne Ruddick Jr. based on the famous firefox Alex Jones. ("I'm against Obamacare, because I got sick when I went to see the doctor") with Bernie Sanders is disconcerting. But especially because of the stunned look of Sanders who can not believe that he is facing so much stupidity. Republicans may be the main target of Baron Cohen, he attacks without any personal or political agenda. Its sole purpose seems to expose hypocrisy.

The flight technique

The method of Sacha Baron Cohen is simple. Create an absurdly naive character and do it in an irreproachable disguise, in addition to the grimace and matching facial pros in a Bananasplit-like talk-show setting, posing uncomfortable and politically incorrect questions to the showbiz stars and politicians. other personalities. It's a flying technique. Someone as a documentary filmmaker Michael Moore does it with an open mind. But Baron Cohen can go further because he is not an audience figure. He keeps his privacy on the outside of the cameras as much as possible. Even the promotion for his films he prefers in the character . We should have known that he was meditating on something because in recent years he had made some small movies and voices after a deathly silence.

President George W. Bush was his ideal target: incompetent but not entirely selfless politician. Political satire was once considered the highest form of humor. Dangerous. Démastifiant. But is that kind of satire really risky now that after the arrival of Trump, American politics itself seems to have become a form of satire? Focused on the discredit of the elite and the creation of true false realities? Make entertainment racism, sexism and homophobia? And clickbait a new currency?

Ali G interviews Donald Trump:

We could already see it coming when the Baron Cohens was an extremely entertaining film [19459004Thedictator (2012) no longer has the drawback of the satire of the Borat guerrillas. Why Roy Moore and, among others, 2006 Republican runner Sarah Palin, are they really angry? Because they came in or because they let themselves be exposed? Is it indignation or shame?

Expect also one of the next episodes: ex-vice president Dick Cheney who signs a "waterboard kit". You just have to get up. And you see on his face what happens to someone who does such a thing. To know: nothing at all. It may not be more satire. But the lie detector of the camera.