who is america?

[alasdairm]

who is america? is sasha baron cohen's new tv show. he's made a career of coaxing politicians and celebrities into awkwardly making buffoons of themselves.

is he duping people into saying things they would never normally say? or is he simply facilitating their revelation of real, disturbing beliefs?

it's fascinating, highly-entertaining and, at times, deeply disturbing tv...

alasdair

 

[spacejunk]

Wow - that was fucking brilliant.

Dick Cheney comes across as a bloodthirsty psychopath. Funny that...

And the bit at the very end - when that creepy guy introduces himself, and his job title - wow. Just wow.

I must admit, i had pretty much given up on baron cohen; i had lost interest in his brand of humour - but he's so good at finding sources of tension and contention, which makes trump's america the perfect platform for his awkward humour.
I think it's pretty damb hilarious

 

[SheWasLvL18]

Today he got a Georgia Representative to scream the n-word repeatedly lol

 

[alasdairm]

^ yep, that guy is an elected official in georgia. he claims that he "was not thinking clearly nor could I appreciate what I was agreeing to". he has rejected calls for his resignation.

i assume you're a chris morris (the day today & brass eye) fan, sj? if not, i think you would enjoy both.

alasdair

 

[Cream Gravy?]

"I'll touch you, I'll make you a homosexual! USA!!!"

Haven't laughed that hard in a good while

 

[mal3volent]

I loved the Ali G show, but for some reason this hasn't really clicked with me yet.

Sounds ridiculous, but I think his old show was a lot more subtle than this. It's a little too over the top or something.

 

[aihfl]

Jason Spencer had to resign his Georgia House seat over that.

 

[Noodle]

I laughed at loud at that.

He dropped his pants?

What a dropper...

 

[aihfl]

The latest punk-ee:

Daniel Roberts was getting ready for bed on Sunday night at his home in Fort Mill, S.C. He had to be up early for his day job, as a truck driver for a construction company based out of Charlotte, N.C.

Then he received a Facebook message from a friend, who was asking: Why was Mr. Roberts being featured on the fifth episode of Sacha Baron Cohen’s prank Showtime series, “Who Is America?” He had no idea. He also had to dig deep to remember who Mr. Cohen was to begin with.

Unbeknown to Mr. Roberts, he had taken part in one of the more embarrassing segments of the show thus far. In it, Mr. Cohen posed as Erran Morad, an Israeli antiterrorism expert who was pretending to offer on-camera training segments to help Americans fight Islamic terrorism.

Mr. Roberts is the founder and president of Youth Shooters of America, and his 13-year-old daughter has gained some renown as a competitive shooter, having started when she was just 6 years old. Mr. Roberts has appeared in cable news segments to defend gun rights, including a particularly heated discussion with Piers Morgan, where Mr. Roberts said he hoped nothing would change about gun laws after last year’s mass shooting in Las Vegas in which 58 people were killed and several hundred injured.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/...lights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

 

[spacejunk]

such a fucking great show. i'm not a fan of 'humiliation' comedy usually, but most of the people he targets deserve everything they get IMO

 

[Tranced]

Weird how Sarah Palin was never featured?

The last episode of this was absolutely brutal. Spoiler:

NSFW:

Where the guy pretended to be a trans lesbian on a protest and fitted a tracking device to the protestor and thought he'd triggered a device which caused a heart attack? "I've never done this before, I'm feeling a little queasy". Honestly man, he thought he killed a guy. Then he clearly developed feelings for cohen and wasn't sure if he would be able to leave his wife and kids?

Seriously, I find this show pretty funny but that's life ending, character destroying suicide material right there. I really feel for the guy. Okay, yeah he actively/willingly did something very dark, but these are extraordinary circumstances and cohen is effectively coming across as a very powerful authority figure. They get wrapped up in some kind of fantasy situation in front of a tv crew and suddenly they've 'done' something messed up.

Anyway, good TV but I still feel for the guy. Very dark but very intriguing.

 

[F.U.B.A.R.]

Yeh, what I've seen of this show is funny as fuck - especially that NRA guy and Jason Spencer. But what I find hard to believe is that Baron Cohen's latest character looks so artificial that surely they should be immediately suspicious?

 

[spacejunk]

Weird how Sarah Palin was never featured?

Litigation probably. A damn shame.

But what I find hard to believe is that Baron Cohen's latest character looks so artificial that surely they should be immediately suspicious?

I dunno, given the state of american politics, i think they'd be suspicious if he didn't look artificial.
Trump looks like a melted candle that's been shit out by a golden retriever and stuck in its fur, then given a facelift.
Bunch of fucking freaks the lot of em.


I agree about how dark this show is, but to be perfectly honest - i think anyone that gets caught up in fascism deserves everything they get.
Sure they're ignorant, and they've been conned by some slimy reality tv used car salesman - but they're also mean-spirited pieces of shit.
I'm a very compassionate person, but i don't have any sympathy for any of them.

I get what you're saying, but i don't see it that way. People need to take responsibility for their own actions, especially when it comes to getting involved in right wing extremist politics.

 

[Tranced]

Yeh, what I've seen of this show is funny as fuck - especially that NRA guy and Jason Spencer. But what I find hard to believe is that Baron Cohen's latest character looks so artificial that surely they should be immediately suspicious?

Yeah, he looks fucking bizarre. But I guess that in America (and even the uk now) you see a lot of people with very odd plastic surgery that leaves them looking fake, and you become desensitised to it.

I agree about how dark this show is, but to be perfectly honest - i think anyone that gets caught up in fascism deserves everything they get.
Sure they're ignorant, and they've been conned by some slimy reality tv used car salesman - but they're also mean-spirited pieces of shit.
I'm a very compassionate person, but i don't have any sympathy for any of them.

I get what you're saying, but i don't see it that way. People need to take responsibility for their own actions, especially when it comes to getting involved in right wing extremist politics.

Do you feel any empathy towards them at all? See, I've just got a huge issue, generally, with any kind of institution (and especially corporate), screwing any normal person over. I can't quite separate from the fact that what we have here is essentially a corporate news network ruining somebody for their own monetary gain. The guy is perhaps a bit stupid, easily manipulated, or capable of bad things (human), but the network has still used him as a pawn in their game; and for that, I feel a lot of empathy towards him. Especially when you also take into account psychological phenomena such as the milgram experiment, which show a fundamental and extremely inherent liability in human nature. Plus, he mentioned he had a wife and kids - this kind of thing takes it's toll on more than just the person being staged.

 

[Asclepius]

"I'll touch you, I'll make you a homosexual! USA!!!"

Haven't laughed that hard in a good while

What an utter idiot.

 

[|~~ANT~~|]

He's obviously just paying people to do stuff live, like reality TV... He's manipulating them, according to a script and editing it selectively... Now I assume that's all he ever did. But, either way, Bruno and Borat and even Da Ali G Show were much better than this... I'm not sure what his technique is. If he pays them so much that they will do anything he says... or if he ups the pay in the bits he cuts out so they agree to do/say what he wants.

It's exploitative and maybe that's okay because the target is right wing people that the puppet masters on the left have labelled as the bad guys, but it's kind of a fucked up show. Comedy doesn't excuse it from doing what it's doing... At one point in my life I would have loved this show. Now it is a guilty pleasure.

 

[spacejunk]

Do you feel any empathy towards them at all? See, I've just got a huge issue, generally, with any kind of institution (and especially corporate), screwing any normal person over. I can't quite separate from the fact that what we have here is essentially a corporate news network ruining somebody for their own monetary gain. The guy is perhaps a bit stupid, easily manipulated, or capable of bad things (human), but the network has still used him as a pawn in their game; and for that, I feel a lot of empathy towards him. Especially when you also take into account psychological phenomena such as the milgram experiment, which show a fundamental and extremely inherent liability in human nature. Plus, he mentioned he had a wife and kids - this kind of thing takes it's toll on more than just the person being staged.

Not really. I can empathise with most people, but i don't have a great deal of empathy for fascists.

I don't think my grandfather's generation did either. They didn't vote for the bastards, they dropped bombs on them and shot them. If they hadn't done that, the world would be a different place today - and not in a good way.

I think the current battle to rid the world of the world of this latest revival of fascism will break some hearts and ruin some lives, but i think that is a necessary thing to do to protect society from their abhorrent agendas, and protect our freedoms from their authoritarian rule and pseudo-scientific worldview, like the frankly stupid racism they've dredged up from the dustbin of human history.

If people want to throw their humanity away and become trump-esque fascists, i don't have any sympathy for the backlash they cop for that.

I don't shed a tear for hitler's minions and nor will i shed any for the people who fuck their lives up in trump's potty politics revolution.

 

[spacejunk]

when i watched this show i did feel a little conflicted - because, as i posted earlier in the thread, i'm not into 'humiliation entertainment'.
i loathe reality tv - much of which is based on that - and don't think i've ever sat through an entire episode of any reality tv show ever. not a lie - i avoided big brother, x factor, the apprentice (*shudder*) and ignored the genre for the 20-odd years its been around.

the show was uncomfortable viewing, for me - but i feel his targets were mostly 100% justified.
killer cops, racists and haters copped the worst of it - and that is what i applauded.

i'm a very empathetic and compassionate person, which is why i have such a strong dislike for bigots - especially grandstanding career bigots, and creeps like roy moore. i do enjoy seeing nasty, entitled bastards get shammed and embarrassed.
difficult viewing or not, i do find it satisfyingly amusing. weaponised humour

i think it's interesting how some people are happy to paint all muslims as potential terrorists - or at least dehumanised as followers of a a dangerous, evil ideology - yet white male right wing terrorists somehow deserve compassion and empathy?

if you' re ok with killing innocent people for ideological reasons, you're definitely in questionable territory.

i suspect that many people fail to apply the same standards - of what is, and what isn't a terrorist - to different people, depending on their political motivtions, their nationality and their ethnicity.
presumably this is why neo-nazi terrorists are often referred to as "mass shooters" - or written off as "mentally ill".

to me, a terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist.

Isn't fascist one of the labels that people on the left use to justify being heartless?

no.

I'm not sure who the fascists are, you're talking about. Are you using the right word?

i'm talking about neo-nazis, white supremacists - people like that.
clear enough? it is a word with a specific definition, which i use accordingly.

Is Trump a fascist?

yes.

Are all his followers fascists?

all? no, of course not.
but a reasonable number undoubtedly are - and arguably all are complicit in fascism - or ignoring the reality of what is going on, and cheering on an administration that is dismantling democracy right in front of them.

What's your definition of fascism?

my definition is the standard definition of the term. right wing, authoritarian, oppressive use of government power.
here's a handy checklist of things to look out for when assessing "are we dealing with fascists here?"
obviously, the trump administration ticks most boxes.

 

[spacejunk]

nobody said you could not respond, did they?

or banning you?

mods just want to keep the conversation somewhat on topic - so just try to keep it about the tv show, and not just politics, and you'll be fine.
i get tired of reading complaining about islam when they really have nothing constructive to say about it.
frankly i think they islam is the current bogeyman for a lot of really ugly reasons.

ie divide and conquer.
ith the rise of the so-called "alt right" in the last couple of years, the internet is flooded with ignorance, hate and bigotry.
when people come to bluelight with that shit - i debate it. to me it's not interesting to discuss - but i do like to offer people opinions that they probably never hear.
maybe it plants a seed, maybe it doesn't - but i kinda think it's wrong not to contest expressions of prejudice. it's one of my beliefs, i guess you'd say. and yeah, the racism and nastiness that has bubbled up recently has become impossible to escape.


'who is america' ridiculed people from both sides of politics, but baron-cohen's gloves came off when it came to the right wing bigots, and people preaching violence.
maybe i'm a cold-hearted lefty or whatever, but that's what i enjoyed about it.

he used their hate against them. he used their myopic bigotry to humiliate them, which i think is the point of biting satire and black comedy.
what better setting could there be for a black comedy than the fascist take-over of the 'beacon of democracy'?

i mean, sometimes the whole thing feels like a sick joke, but unlike trump, sasha baron-cohen's cruel sense of humour is actually very clever. and unlike trump, he punches up, not down.
for people like me who are sick of the prejudice and hate that has poisoned our culture in recent times, i think it is therapeutic to see a comedian burn people with their own toxicity.

 

[spacejunk]

where has baron cohen is spread "prejudice and hate" on this show? i mean, besides featuring white supremacists and egging them on?

i don't think he was proving political points - i think he saw a culture that includes a lot of rabid hate, and sought to exploit it for lolz. there wasn't any preaching, that i saw - except with the hilarious NPR character.
you don't think that guy was satirising liberals?