With this series, the British satirist takes up his hoaxes and sets himself up as the sad buffoon of Donald Trump’s America. But in the era of “fake news”, the effect is no longer guaranteed.
The ad was enticing. Six years later The Dictator, the genius of silly and wicked satire – in the guise of Ali G and Borat -, Sacha Baron Cohen returns to service in Who is America? And Canal + shifted retransmits its new acts of bravery just 24 hours after the broadcast across the Atlantic. Throughout this road trip through Trump’s America, leading politicians, commentators, lobbyists and ordinary citizens are trapped in the British comedian’s traps.
The show just scheduled for July 15 on the cable channel Showtime, Sarah Palin confirmed, indignantly, to be one of the victims of Sacha Baron Cohen. After watching the first of seven episodes of Who Is America?, the cries of goldfish from the former governor of Alaska and running mate of John McCain in the White House seem disproportionate. Who Is America?, which Canal + returns on Sundays at 11:10 p.m., has only a distant scent of sulfur and should not threaten too many careers.
Love with dolphins
Certainly, Sacha Baron Cohen remains the king of costumes. He turns into an ultra-conservative Steve Bannon blogger perched on a walking scooter like he’s disabled. Also metamorphosed into Nira Cain-N’Degeocello, hyperliberal who crisscrosses the country on his motorcycle. We finally find him in the guise of Rick Sherman, ex-convict who has just spent two decades in prison or, more caricature still, in the uniform of Colonel Erran Morad. This Israeli expert in the fight against terrorism will convince several former elected representatives of Congress to support a clip to promote the teaching of weapons handling to elementary school students!
Despite a deluge of hairpieces and excesses, the sketches are impassive. Embarrassment almost always prevails over laughter. Like Democrat Bernie Sanders, speechless in perplexity, Baron Cohen’s headless words are silent. Whether it is a gallerist to whom he shows drawings allegedly made with excrement and sperm or a couple of Republicans whom he makes believe that his wife is having an affair with a dolphin, everyone listens to him. hardly flabbergasted. As was the cruel experience, on the fiction side, the last season ofX-Files, Baron Cohen did not see the era of “fake news” coming. This time when the most improbable suddenly seems plausible. What is a lie worth when the truth is so devalued? What bite can satire have when Donald Trump disowns his intelligence services live under the mocking eye of Vladimir Putin? Not much more …
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