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Donald Trump killed the humor. As a presidential candidate, he always amused us, with his daring lies, his clumsy xenophobia, his absurd demands. So absurd that laughter was the only defense.
But since Trump raged in the White House, the grotesque has become commonplace and absurdity becomes the official policy of the US government. Extremists reign, minorities suffer, the world order falters, and apart from Trump and his accomplices, Russia and China still laugh at most. Everyone is stuck in laughter.
Why the new television satire of Sacha Baron Cohen "Who is America?" Unfortunately, it's so dull. The seven-part comedy series, which the British apparently secretly filmed for a year, aired on Sunday at the US TV station Showtime in Germany, and is available from Tuesday night at Sky.
But this time you wait – at least in the first episode – in vain on the Fremdschämspaß from before. Or even a glimmer of self-knowledge, with which the creator of these illusory creatures like "Borat" and "Ali G" then revealed the illusions of others – even Trump, whom he had in prehistoric "rock trade" affair
. Although Cohen attacks these delusions again and does the same elaborate camouflage with four different "personas", in which he slips and with which he tries to provoke his counterpart.
The enemies become friends
Already, some victims have protested as expected, from the forgotten Sarah Palin to Roy Moore, the fundamentalist of Alabama, who has condemned his predilection for high school girls. Cohen intelligently calculated this pre-PR free. But America has changed since "Ali G" (2000-2004), "Borat" (2006) and "Brüno" (2009). His radicalism is no longer subtly camouflaged, but he is openly exposed, free of any personal or political shame.
This is mainly due to Trump's shamefulness. It allowed almost no one to hear more when neo-Nazis parade through the streets, when children are in detention centers, when the White House denounces journalists as traitors, when friends become enemies and enemies become friends, according to the mood of the chief tweeter
What can someone do like Sacha Baron Cohen? He became famous for the adventurous disguises that led his counterpart to reveal their most secretive sensibilities – fanaticism, racism, sexism, or simply stupidity. What can he do if these sensibilities are no longer secrets, but their pride?
This is already seen in the first episode, the only one that Showtime also the TV critics have shown. Disguised as a leader of the right, Cohen first tries to engage the Socialist Bernie Sanders in a scandalous debate.
Cohen is in a wheelchair. But when Sanders tackles his "handicap", he says that he just sits in to save the force. At the latest Sanders should see through the Kalauer. Maybe he has that too, in any case ticking his sleepy eyes again and again towards the camera, as if he wanted to whisper: really now?
Next, Cohen visits Progressive with Pussyhelm, a Trump-is-the-best couple in South Carolina. They sit at an opulent dinner table, burning candles, America is great again. But instead of expounding their sentences, Cohen speaks only himself: his parody of Altlinken with a constructed guilt complex is neither new nor enlightening. Then the one-sided conversation slips into unappetizing topics and ends before someone has eaten a mouthful.
Painted with excrement
Even more unpleasant is Cohen's cartoon of an ex-boyfriend with artistic ambitions who is trying to shoot pictures of a gallerist in the company, which he wants to have painted behind the scenes. bars with his own excrement. Especially since Cohen's latex mask, like all his costumes this time around, is too crude to be credible.
Only the last segment has a bit of bite. It is American cannisterism: as an "Israeli colonel", Cohen wants to supply firearms to American toddlers and persuades some politicians and lobbyists to support him. These are the usual suspects who join them, like the Republican Dana Rohrabacher or the conservative radio host Joe Walsh
The latter is carried away by the slogan: "In less than a month, a student first year can become a first grenadier "(Translated freely:" In less than a month, we can make a sniper on an Abc shooter "). But after the recent school massacres, satire and tragedy get confused, and the scene leaves an unpleasant aftertaste.
Maybe the next episodes will be better. Palin is still a guarantor of the involuntary comedy, but too far from the window at the same time. Even racist Sheriff Joe Arpaio, just pardoned by Trump, and ex-vice president Dick Cheney are on the hit list, Cheney has signed, according to preliminary announcements, a "Waterboarding Kit". But none of this is funny, because the situation is too long, too explosive and too scary.
Where was Sacha Baron Cohen when we needed him?
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