If you tuned in to watch Sacha Baron Cohen’s new Showtime show Who is America?, which premiered Sunday night on Showtime, it may have been for the same reason I did: to see our nation’s leaders made to look like fools. Cohen has a lot of experience in the genre. The second and third seasons of his early ‘00s satirical TV show, Da Ali G Show, focused specifically on American political leaders, as he scored interviews with prominent figures like Newt Gingrich and Pat Buchanan, who the comedian got to confuse WMDs with BLTs. With that CV, it seemed like an opportune time for his return, as U.S. politics have reached a level of absurdity that the comedian couldn’t have predicted in his wildest dreams.
That said: In a time where an openly racist, misogynist, and ableist alleged rapist can become president, political embarrassment and exposure hardly functions as a preamble to accountability and justice. If Cohen exposes leading GOP figures as monsters, will the supporters who put them in power really care? Forgive me if I’m skeptical.
The question subconsciously undergirds the entire first half of Who is America?, which gives the impression that the show will largely deal in pranks without any clear political aim, merely poking fun at his subjects’ politeness to varying degrees of success. In the opening segment, Cohen dresses as Billy Wayne Ruddick, the white American founder of Infowars parody site Truthbrary.org, to interview a polite but unamused Senator Bernie Sanders. Cohen as Ruddick suggests an nonsensical number-swapping solution to bring more people into the 1 percent, which Sanders initially attempts to calmly debate. The segment, offering scant laughs, is generally unsuccessful as Sanders doesn’t seem to fall for the ruse, and fails to say anything funny, embarrassing, or eye-opening.
As the episode continues, the political point of Cohen’s pranking remains hazy. In one, posing as a fictional NPR host, Cohen convinces a wealthy, conservative couple — which includes Jane Page Thompson, a former Trump delegate and current county representative of the South Carolina Republican party — that he forces his pre-teen daughter to free bleed on the American flag, and is currently coping with the fact that his wife may be cheating on him with a dolphin. The segment is a riff on the current trend of bothsidesism plaguing American media, but the resulting conversation does little to critique that, instead focusing more on his subjects’ willingness to politely hear him out.
The same is true in the following segment, in which Cohen poses as a newly-freed inmate who paints portraits with his fecal matter and semen. The gallery owner eventually agrees to provide him with her pubic hair (which she proudly snips off with scissors on camera with her back turned) for one of his projects, but other than delighting in the fact that they unknowingly took an interview with the legendary comedian and allow him to string them along in his trademark way, the segments remain disappointingly low-stakes. Cohen’s focus on shock value sacrifices a fuller examination of the political and class ignorances that may have inspired him to get them on the show in the first place.
— Sacha Baron Cohen (@SachaBaronCohen) July 8, 2018
The show only sharpens in the final segment, in which Cohen poses as Israeli anti-terrorism expert Col. Erran Morad. The comedian gets guns rights activist Philip Van Cleave to film an instructional video for a program that teaches toddlers to use firearms, the result of which ends up feeling like the fake commercials American audiences are used to from satirical talk shows like The Colbert Report, Last Week Tonight, and The Break with Michelle Wolf. “He’s ready to put the naughty men on a very long time out,” Van Cleave says, holding the Gunny Rabbit, essentially a gun with stuffed animal parts glued to it.
With the video made, Morad then turns sets his sights on finding political support for his plan to arm students in pre-school. After an interview with Gun Owners of America director Larry Pratt, in which he gleefully embraces the program and guffaws at Morad’s joke that a man can’t rape his wife, Morad uses Pratt’s endorsement to gain access to congresspeople at the U.S. Capitol, in order to ask for their support. Republican Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, an initial target, doesn’t fall for the ruse. “Typically, members of Congress don’t just hear a story about a program and indicate whether they support it or not,” Gaetz insists.
Cohen uses those remarks as an opening for the several people who did exactly that. Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, California Representative Dana Rohrabacher, South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson, and former Illinois Congressman Joe Walsh all look straight into the camera and read off a script in which they endorse the fictional Kinderguardians program. It’s the show’s most shocking and successful moment, as he exposes these men for not only their extremist, pro-gun use views but also their clearinability to do any due diligence when it comes to the policies and political figures they throw their weight behind. It’s funny, but more so depressing when you remember that these are people with real power.
The remarks Cohen elicits from his conservative subjects are shocking and may very well find their way into the wider political conversation in the U.S. Perhaps constituents will hold these men accountable for the things they are saying, but considering all of the horrible things politicians say without prompting from a comedian, it seems far more likely they won’t. Filmed hypocrisy isn’t so damaging today, as the horrific absurdities of our political system are front and center and unsubtle. Exposure is Baron Cohen’s main weapon in Who is America, but as a parade of disingenuous hucksters in power can simply cry “fake news” to supporters with no ability to tell the difference, it may not be enough.
However, if the premiere of Who is America indicates anything, it’s that Cohen likes to lead up to a bang. Indeed, the most revealing of his interviews — with prominent figures like Sarah Palin and John McCain — are likely reserved for later on in the seven-episode season. That’s a fun prospect, which curdles into reality when you remember these people continue to have power, even when they look stupid. In 2018, the only satisfying outcome would be a real political downfall for the people ruining the country. Cohen, with his talent, guarantees viewers will laugh, but that’s not good enough anymore.
