Taking advantage of the emerging market to make fun of Trump, shows like "Our Cartoon President" and "Saturday Night Live" have capitalized off of Trump's lack of popularity. The various skits, exaggerations, and humor that these shows and others employ do reflect a greater appreciation for satire, but in my opinion, they do not truly stand out beyond the horizon of what niche they fill –– making fun of the president.
In an age where political satire is becoming increasingly popular, a show that truly stands out from the crowd is "Who Is America?"
With season 1 already fully released on Showtime, "Who Is America?" takes a pointedly different stance from other satirical programs. The first difference is that, while other shows involve teams of writers and have comparatively little creative independence from their networks, there is one person who was at the forefront of the project and served as the helm that guided the show's unconventional format and success, and that person is Sacha Baron Cohen.
The basis of the show's humor (and the backbone of many forms of satire) is in the exposure of completely illogical and nonsensical absurdity. A master impressionist, Cohen skillfully navigates interviews while completely embodying various personas –– without breaking character once.
And, in a move that would surprise anyone unfamiliar with the show, Cohen does not just interview regular people, he also carries out his impressions during interviews with some of the most controversial and prominent political figures of the day. The icing on the cake are the varying degrees in which guests become aware of the situations they've entered with Cohen, with many of them never realizing the true satirical nature of the interview.
One character of Cohen's making is that of a Finnish YouTuber by the name of "OMGWhizzBoyOMG", whose interviews are formatted in the manner of a toy unboxing review. What makes the character so funny –– and the situation so hilariously unsettling –– is the addition of a completely unexpected guest.
Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, is one such interviewee. The combination of a millennial caricature conducting an interview with a controversial figure (who has no idea he's being duped), all while talking in third person as a knockoff Littlest Pet Shop toy, makes for an absolutely absurd five minutes of television.
However, the clear star of the show is the persona of Erran Morad, a former agent of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and a self-labeled anti-terrorism expert. This character conducts his interviews under the guise of providing counter-terrorism advice to interested parties, varying from politicians to average citizens.
The character's strength lays in Cohen's ability to entice his guest to speak without a filter. Often times, the contrast between the viewer's ability to identify "red flag" questions (i.e., "They tried to stop four-year-old children from having access to guns?") and the interviewees' willingness to continue the interviews with seemingly little awareness not only provides viewers with a source of humor suspended in disbelief, but also leaves them questioning about the reality of our current political landscape.
When I first watched the Erran Morad interview with Larry Pratt, the Executive Director of Gun Owners of America, I experienced a mix of incredulity. "Wow, I can't believe he actually supports that" is not a sentence that was derived out of hearing outrageous ideas that could have been published in The Onion; the fact that the ideas brought up were supported with conviction from multiple representatives with influence over countless lives goes beyond content that can be forgotten easily.
I found myself asking: "How did these people manage to accrue so much power and support for their blatantly irrational views?" This is not to impose the notion that there are no consequences for those who engage in Cohen's interviews on "Who Is America?"; the conduct of Georgia state legislator Jason Spencer, which included reciting a number of racist and offensive slurs while dropping his trousers, announced his resignation shortly after the episode he appeared on aired.
This is the main difference between the satirical shows I have experienced so far and "Who Is America?" –– only the latter will keep you thinking. While other shows like SNL rely on formulaic setups with oft-predictable punchlines intended to get the audience on their side, this is not what true satire is.
The hallmark of a fine work of satire is its ability to expose the hypocrisy in a situation or issue, and then elevate it to the point where it cannot be ignored. Satire is not supposed to be formulaic; it is supposed to get the viewer thinking. "Who Is America?", with its unusual format and Cohen's refusal to shy away from scandalous situations results in a political satire that is not only meant to entertain –– it will keep you ruminating on the state of America for quite a while.
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