The Comedy/ Horror of 'Who Is America?'

by Nicholas Lemieux

Roy Moore "interviewed" by Sacha Baron Cohen
disguised as Colonel Erran Morrad

A case could be made that the career of infamous British comedian character artist Sacha Baron Cohen has been going through a steady decline throughout the 2010’s. A powerhouse in the 2000’s, his trademark really (emphasis on that) dark black comedy built him a steady following whilst his bizarre fictional commonly quoted personalities, such as Ali G, Borat and Brüno, became one of the biggest trends in popular culture. Nowadays Cohen has seemingly taken a backseat from his offensive characters, most of whom he has now retired, and has since gone on to become a straightforward actor in films such as Madagascar, Les Miserables and Alice Through the Looking Glass. His few personal film projects, such as The Dictator and Grimsby, have nowhere near recaptured the charm and acclaim of his original work. However, on July 8th 2018, just out of the blue, American premium channel Showtime announced a new programme filmed completely under wraps Guerilla style, set to premier within just the next following week, created by and starring Baron Cohen in his first television project since Channel 4’s Da Ali G Show.

The official press release for Who Is America? described it as exploring “the diverse individuals, from the infamous to the unknown across the political and cultural spectrum, who populate our [America’s] unique nation”. In a way, the basic premise for Who Is America? is not dissimilar to Da Ali G Show. Both shows involve Baron Cohen dressing up as quirky, over-the-top characters and interacting with unsuspecting people in a documentary style, who are not aware of the fictional aspect, provoking reactions from them with some insane troll logic and setting them up for self-revealing ridicule.

Who Is America? primarily focused upon the politics on the country, and indeed it is often the politicians who are the butt of the jokes. Due to the show’s secretive nature, a whole new roster of characters was introduced by Baron Cohen with the intention of pranking the interviewees. These absurd personalities included Billy Wayne Ruddick Jr., PHD, a Deep South Trump supporter and paranoid conspiracy theorist (his thoughts on the chemicals in the water turning the freakin’ frogs gay remains unclear); Dr. Nira Cain-N'Degeocello, an extremely liberal gender studies lecturer, who seeks to heal the divide between the right and left following the divisive presidential result of 2016; and my personal favourite character, Sergeant/ Brigadeer/ Colonel Erran Morrad, an Israeli counter-terrorism expert, formerly of the Mossad, who now seeks to provide the US with rather unorthodox tactics against terrorists, immigrants and paedophiles.

Airing over the course of last summer, straight from the beginning it was clear this show was pulling no punches: One of the more shocking scenes including Cohen, in character, convincing several politicians into endorsing a programme to arm children as young as four years old with guns to protect them from school shooters, under the idea that since toddlers are “pure, uncorrupted by fake news or homosexuality”, they would easily be trained in the course of action, turning a first grader into a “first grenader”. He even got one of them to engage in a nursery singalong called “head, shoulders, not the toes, not the toes”. And that was just episode 1!

As the series went on, the sketches started to become increasingly bizarre, amplified by how these are not fictional characters being interviewed; these are very much real people and their real thoughts- enlisting three anti-immigrant men to hold a fake Quinceanera to lure out perverted Mexicans, only for them to almost be arrested by police officers assuming the men, dressed in drag and hiding with cameras in the piñata, to be luring out underage girls; convincing a so-called food critic to eat what he is told is human flesh, “ethically sourced” from the body of a Chinese dissident, who then proceeded to give it an awarding review and afterwards thanked the dead man’s parents for the meat, claiming their son tasted “superb”; one particularly terrifying sketch involved Cohen pitching the building of a mosque to a town council in a very redneck town in Arizona, the response being extremely hostile Islamaphobia and racism, one man explicitly claiming “black people aren't welcome here either, but we tolerate them”, and ending with threats of bringing out guns. On a scripted Cringe Comedy, this wouldn’t be groundbreaking, but the fact that these are real people and these are their genuine reactions is thoroughlychilling.

The programme instantly became a controversial topic due to its nature, with some accusing the show of unethically deceiving the people involved in order to make a mockery of them. Roy Moore, whose sketch involved Cohen pulling out a paedophile-detecting device on him, recently filed a lawsuit against Cohen for $95 million, on claims of alleged fraud, defamation, and emotional distress. There have even been political consequences as a result of this show; Jason Spencer, a Republican state representative from Georgia, featured prominently in a sketch in which he spoke in a stereotypical racist Asian accent, repeatedly yelled the N word at the top of his lungs, and bared his buttocks at a terrorist dummy whilst screaming “America!”. Within a week, it was announced that he would be retiring from his office.

It’s clear that after its one season of seven episodes, it’s highly unlikely Who Is America? will be returning for a second season, unless Sacha Baron Cohen were to introduce a whole new roster of disguises, given the fact that people will be much more alert to what is going on now. Still, at the end of the day, Who Is America? remaind an intriguing experiment to TV and also presents much social commentary, especially regarding the politicians of America and how far some will go just for money or their own genuine agendas. Who knows what Baron Cohen’s intention for this programme was? Given the fact that a majority of the politicians mocked on this show were far-right, was it to further a political agenda? Or was it just to have a laugh? Either way, the show, uncomfortable and cringe-worthy as it was, was still a blast to watch, easily ranking up there high with SBC’s previous work. Although I can’t help but feel that its intended US audience will be unable to stomach the first ten minutes.