Sacha Baron Cohen’s new series Who Is America? has certainly lived up to its early promise of being a provocative look into the political state of America following Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential victory.
But three episodes into its planned seven episode run, it still feels like a bunch of brilliant parts that don’t quite add up to a brilliant whole product.
It certainly isn’t hard to expose the ridiculousness of the American right-wing, – Baron Cohen barely has to break a sweat to get them to show themselves up. But amidst Baron Cohen’s earnest efforts to wring humour and cringe out of every situation, some truly insightful gems fall through.
The interview with Dick Cheney during episode two was a particular highlight because it gave us a glimpse at what a truly unempathetic soul he is – between the chuckles at Baron Cohen’s stories about waterboarding to signing a literal instrument of torture (a “waterboarding kit”) without a blink.
It also helped that the jokes were pretty funny, even it they didn’t all land.
But for every eye-opening gem so far, there have been a few not-so-insightful duds, most notably Baron Cohen convincing (now former) Georgian politician Jason Spencer to participate in a pants-less anti-terrorism charade involving racist tirades and downright ridiculous defensive “techniques” involving his bare butt.
Sure the whole segment was funny – but it wasn’t particularly surprising. Spencer isn’t exactly the brightest star in the sky and he’s said some truly dumb things that would make any sane person cringe.
Humiliating Spencer felt too easy for someone of Baron Cohen’s talent and the pay-off felt cheap. Don’t get me wrong, it was immensely satisfying to see Spencer dack himself into unemployment but the whole charade doesn’t really tell us anything we already didn’t know.
Baron Cohen is playing jump rope with the line between hilariously dark yet provoking, and cheap laughs, hence the rollercoaster ride of highs and lows. But it appears that he’s getting closer to the perfect balance between those two points based on episode three.
The episode’s interview with former South Carolina politician Chip Limehouse and rap artist Bone Crusher was a case study on cringe humour. As Baron Cohen asks the duo unsubtle (and ridiculous) questions about race, their reactions are much more telling than their actual answers.
There’s nothing more revealing than when a disgusted Limehouse shuffles his chair away from Baron Cohen as he tells a story about how he slept with a Syrian man.
Even episode three’s big segment – involving two Trump supporters dressing up (one as a 15-year-old girl, the other as a cake) to “trap illegal Mexicans” – was a step up on Baron Cohen’s usual “exploiting the stupid” schtick.
The lead up was a study in building tension in the most cringeworthy yet entertaining way. From getting the men to wear fake vaginas to putting condoms and lube on their hands and faces to protect them from “diseases”, you just know something is about to happen.
We’ve seen racist Trump supporters get their comeuppance, but seeing Baron Cohen go the extra mile in getting them to completely disconnect with any sense of logic and common sense in the service of “trapping” minorities makes the joke really pay off. The schadenfreude of watching the disguised Trump supporters explain to some policemen why they’re wearing fake vaginas and dresses is just so delightfully satisfying.
Don’t worry, the dress is for catching Mexicans. The tiara is mine though.
And of course, there was Baron Cohen’s interview with Roy Moore. Given what we know about Moore’s alleged misconduct with underaged girls, a big stunt wouldn’t have worked.
Instead, Baron Cohen goes straight for the jugular by essentially accusing Moore as a paedophile using a piece of Israeli “tech” designed to detect paedophiles. Watching the Moore spit out “I’ve never had an accusation of such things” before abruptly ending the interview definitely says more than the words coming out of his mouth.
Baron Cohen gave himself a mountain to climb in terms of exploiting the ridiculousness of the American right-wing since the last 18 months have shown that they’re perfectly capable of making themselves look worse than any satirist could.
But he’s managed it, somehow – and if he can keep that balance between exposing some new nuggets of truths from his guests while pulling off some well-earned crude jokes, then Who Is America? is slowly but certainly building up for a big climax.
Put it this way: that much-touted Sarah Palin episode suddenly just got way more interesting.