Sacha Baron Cohen latest project, “Who is America?”

[ErickAA]

I am guessing Cohen picking almost exclusively on conservatives has more to do with political realities of Tv production (and even practical freedom of speech) today than his own personal politics. Obviously showtime isn’t bankrolling anything critical of leftism, and even if it did it and he would be roasted by the MSM and social justice mobs for it.

From a material standpoint You could just as easily satirize Islamic fundamentalism, feminism/#metoo or BLM but the MSM and Hollywood would never allow that. They aren’t in the business of having their own ludacris beliefs being challenged.

For example, I doubt Borat could even be made today because the outrage police would be screaming about islamophobia and antisemitism so loudly.

[Lord of the Fraud]

An Englishman shredding retarded Americans on their own soil is quite fantastic to watch.

That said, we have many retards of our own, which he fully exploited in his early career.

And what's with the sour grapes coming from those who believe he's picking on more Cons than Libs? You joyless cunts.


My favourite scene was when he asked Cheney how great it was to kill 100,000 terrorists and 700,000 potential terrorists, followed by the oversized smile and teeth.

Fantastic.

[BetCheckBet]

I am guessing Cohen picking almost exclusively on conservatives has more to do with political realities of Tv production (and even practical freedom of speech) today than his own personal politics. Obviously showtime isn’t bankrolling anything critical of leftism, and even if it did it and he would be roasted by the MSM and social justice mobs for it.

From a material standpoint You could just as easily satirize Islamic fundamentalism, feminism/#metoo or BLM but the MSM and Hollywood would never allow that. They aren’t in the business of having their own ludacris beliefs being challenged.

For example, I doubt Borat could even be made today because the outrage police would be screaming about islamophobia and antisemitism so loudly.

It's not the characters that are offensive or even funny for that matter. Its the people who respond to them who are. Borat represented the right wing view of immigrants and was designed to show how naive Americans were about foreigners. They are purposely portrayed in a stereotypical fashion to illicit reactions for unsuspecting dupes (often right wingers, although once in awhile observers represent the left). Whether a character is right or left leaning is NOT the issue. The issue is how that character is used to mock others preconceived notions about the right and left.

[ErickAA]

I am guessing Cohen picking almost exclusively on conservatives has more to do with political realities of Tv production (and even practical freedom of speech) today than his own personal politics. Obviously showtime isn’t bankrolling anything critical of leftism, and even if it did it and he would be roasted by the MSM and social justice mobs for it.

From a material standpoint You could just as easily satirize Islamic fundamentalism, feminism/#metoo or BLM but the MSM and Hollywood would never allow that. They aren’t in the business of having their own ludacris beliefs being challenged.

For example, I doubt Borat could even be made today because the outrage police would be screaming about islamophobia and antisemitism so loudly.

It's not the characters that are offensive or even funny for that matter. Its the people who respond to them who are. Borat represented the right wing view of immigrants and was designed to show how naive Americans were about foreigners. They are purposely portrayed in a stereotypical fashion to illicit reactions for unsuspecting dupes (often right wingers, although once in awhile observers represent the left). Whether a character is right or left leaning is NOT the issue. The issue is how that character is used to mock others preconceived notions about the right and left.

You missed the point. In some alternate universe where the movie came out today the outrage police would be outraged at the character Borat, scream islamiphobia and racism and the whole movie would be instantly canned.

The cultural marxists and sjw mobs have made it ok to criticize the right, but not the left, so here we are where a satirical comedian is very limited in who he can criticize, regardless of his personal politics.

Of course the right is learning quick and playing the outrage game themselves. But it doesn’t have the political or social pressure yet to supress criticism the way the left does. So we have the show we have today.

Which is fine. I am just replying to druffs post that him being so one sided is probably not about his personal politics, it is about what a white Jewish British person is allowed to say in society at large.

[BCR]

It's not the characters that are offensive or even funny for that matter. Its the people who respond to them who are. Borat represented the right wing view of immigrants and was designed to show how naive Americans were about foreigners. They are purposely portrayed in a stereotypical fashion to illicit reactions for unsuspecting dupes (often right wingers, although once in awhile observers represent the left). Whether a character is right or left leaning is NOT the issue. The issue is how that character is used to mock others preconceived notions about the right and left.

You missed the point. In some alternate universe where the movie came out today the outrage police would be outraged at the character Borat, scream islamiphobia and racism and the whole movie would be instantly canned.

The cultural marxists and sjw mobs have made it ok to criticize the right, but not the left, so here we are where a satirical comedian is very limited in who he can criticize, regardless of his personal politics.

Of course the right is learning quick and playing the outrage game themselves. But it doesn’t have the political or social pressure yet to supress criticism the way the left does. So we have the show we have today.

Which is fine. I am just replying to druffs post that him being so one sided is probably not about his personal politics, it is about what a white Jewish British person is allowed to say in society at large.

From what I’ve seen his comedy takes aim most often at irrational fear. For instance, not a single Democrat I know would want their town to become the go to tourist spot for Muslim tourism. It’s absurd. Why it connects with the right is that they are fed irrational fear by their news all day every day. Liberal media is agenda driven.

All these skits hit upon irrational fear. I sit in that town meeting, I know it’s a fucking joke the minute he starts talking about building a giant mosque to attract Muslims in Kingman, Az. Only an audience fed irrational fear all day every day wouldn’t recognize that. All Fox News does all day is scare people. They’re coming for your guns. Crime is up whether it is or isn’t. War on Christmas.

I laugh at every town that passes an anti-Sharia law ordinance when they have .000002% Muslim populations. That dude in southern Georgia with the anti-Burka law like it’s commonplace in southern Georgia. Gun nuts who think they are going to lose their weapons when there has never been a more widespread proliferation of weapons. These are all irrational fears that they are told are real threats every day. That’s incredibly easy to satirize. At the root of his comedy is taking aim at people scared of nonsensical things.

What would be be left equivalent? An audience pissed at the notion of losing abortion? The republican nominee is pressured every election to make banning abortion a litmus year for SC appointees. It’s not an irrational fear. They’re running on it.

[Zap_the_Fractions_Giraffe]

What would be be left equivalent? An audience pissed at the notion of losing abortion? The republican nominee is pressured every election to make banning abortion a litmus year for SC appointees. It’s not an irrational fear. .

there's a lot of irrational fear on the left, and left wing media outlets prey on their consumers emotions and fears just as hard as Fox News does to your dad and his friends

[BCR]

What would be be left equivalent? An audience pissed at the notion of losing abortion? The republican nominee is pressured every election to make banning abortion a litmus year for SC appointees. It’s not an irrational fear. .

there's a lot of irrational fear on the left, and left wing media outlets prey on their consumers emotions and fears just as hard as Fox News does to your dad and his friends

Suggest an idea? I’m serious. You’ve always been a funny poster. Like if you wanted to skewer the left, where outside like a Berkeley campus or Brooklyn could you assemble a crowd like that? I could assemble one in every suburb in America on the right. You could find an isolated politician on the left to say something idiotic no doubt. But as I sat here trying to think up the left equivalent to arming children and building mosques in the one of the reddest states in the country, I struggle to think of anything equivalent, but I’m not all that funny. What irrational left fears are commonplace?

[sonatine]

What irrational left fears are commonplace?

- securing our borders is somehow undemocratic
- a responsible immigration policy is somehow undemocratic
- rich people hoard money (instead of using it to fuel the economy via investments etc)
- 'privacy' is a fundamental human right and that its being compromised by Big Data (when in fact it was simply a vestigial holdover from days before asymmetrical warfare, despite them being 100% correct about the corrosive influence of Big Data)
- oh my god dont get me started on the lefts phobias about GMOs

etc etc and if this sounds like i just rattled off trump's campaign platform, its because he hired people at least as smart as me to tell him these were points to hammer the left with. that he managed to fuck up his implementation of each solution in ways that somehow make his answers more caustic and ruinous than the original issues is entirely beyond debate at this point.

[Zap_the_Fractions_Giraffe]

BCR the big one right now is the idea that Republicans are nazis and if Republicans stay in power women, minorities and homosexuals will be stripped of equal rights, imprisoned or genocided

[BCR]

What irrational left fears are commonplace?

- securing our borders is somehow undemocratic
- a responsible immigration policy is somehow undemocratic
- rich people hoard money (instead of using it to fuel the economy via investments etc)
- 'privacy' is a fundamental human right and that its being compromised by Big Data (when in fact it was simply a vestigial holdover from days before asymmetrical warfare, despite them being 100% correct about the corrosive influence of Big Data)
- oh my god dont get me started on the lefts phobias about GMOs

etc etc and if this sounds like i just rattled off trump's campaign platform, its because he hired people at least as smart as me to tell him these were points to hammer the left with. that he managed to fuck up his implementation of each solution in ways that somehow make his answers more caustic and ruinous than the original issues is entirely beyond debate at this point.

The first two are definitely Democratic Party platform mistakes. I want a secure border, and most of the dems I know also do, but you could certainly assemble a crowd pissed off at it in the right town. It wouldn’t be really comedic though, because it’s a nuanced issue, where people would be debating what a secured border means. It wouldn’t be absurdist like most of his comedy is.

Like off that list, the only one I care about at all is the rich people hoarding money question, but even that is more that I’d like to see corporate tax rates tied directly to reinvestment in America.

Like you’d have to have a symposium on reparations only for him to tell the audience the reparations in question are for back rent and and travel reimbursements for bringing peoples ancestors to America and housing them and ask for a check at the end to get on his level of absurdist uncomfortable comedy from the left. Of course, he’d be dead at the end of that one.

That GMO thing must play different in the city. I see that from both sides almost like 9/11 conspiracies where I see people arguing silly things from both sides of the aisle.

[sonatine]

- securing our borders is somehow undemocratic
- a responsible immigration policy is somehow undemocratic
- rich people hoard money (instead of using it to fuel the economy via investments etc)
- 'privacy' is a fundamental human right and that its being compromised by Big Data (when in fact it was simply a vestigial holdover from days before asymmetrical warfare, despite them being 100% correct about the corrosive influence of Big Data)
- oh my god dont get me started on the lefts phobias about GMOs

etc etc and if this sounds like i just rattled off trump's campaign platform, its because he hired people at least as smart as me to tell him these were points to hammer the left with. that he managed to fuck up his implementation of each solution in ways that somehow make his answers more caustic and ruinous than the original issues is entirely beyond debate at this point.

The first two are definitely Democratic Party platform mistakes. I want a secure border, and most of the dems I know also do, but you could certainly assemble a crowd pissed off at it in the right town. It wouldn’t be really comedic though, because it’s a nuanced issue, where people would be debating what a secured border means. It wouldn’t be absurdist like most of his comedy is.

Like off that list, the only one I care about at all is the rich people hoarding money question, but even that is more that I’d like to see corporate tax rates tied directly to reinvestment in America.

Like you’d have to have a symposium on reparations only for him to tell the audience the reparations in question are for back rent and and travel reimbursements for bringing peoples ancestors to America and housing them and ask for a check at the end to get on his level of absurdist uncomfortable comedy from the left. Of course, he’d be dead at the end of that one.

That GMO thing must play different in the city. I see that from both sides almost like 9/11 conspiracies where I see people arguing silly things from both sides of the aisle.

actually you touch upon a great point, which is that you somehow have to make the distinction between the yacht rock liberal dads and the luddite hippies and provocateur-hives like antifa.

i painted with very broad strokes for the sake of a discussion, obviously.

somehow the right seems far more galvanized in its apocolypse caliber ignorance.

[duped_samaritan]

Incredible response. He was just afraid and wanted to learn to protect himself.

Sacha Baron Cohen and his associates took advantage of my paralyzing fear that my family would be attacked. In posing as an Israeli Agent, he pretended to offer self-defense exercises. As uncomfortable as I was to participate, I agreed to, understanding that these ‘techniques’ were meant to help me and others fend off what I believed was an inevitable attack.

My fears were so heightened at that time, I was not thinking clearly nor could I appreciate what I was agreeing to when I participated in his ‘class.’ I was told I would be filmed as a ‘demonstration video’ to teach others the same skills in Israel. Sacha and his crew further lied to me, stating that I would be able to review and have final approval over any footage used.

I deeply regret the language I used at his request as well as my participation in the ‘class’ in general. If I had not been so distracted by my fears, I never would have agreed to participate in the first place.

I apologize to my family, friends, and the people of my district for this ridiculously ugly episode. Finally, there are calls for me to resign. I recently lost my primary election, so I will not eligible to hold office next term. Therefore, I will finish the remaining five months at my post and vacate my seat.

[BCR]

I actually find it scarier that he’s a PA than a politician given how much emergency rooms and such use PA’s as a first line treatment option. You come into an emergency room with a heart problem and are greeted by someone like him that is stone cold stupid

[FPS_Russia]

This whole deal demonstrates the insane power Israel has over our elected reps. Golden rule: You never tell Israel no and that goes for both parties. It's by far they greatest national security threat of our generation. I hope he keeps pwning these spineless traitors lolol. Geez what a disgrace.

[duped_samaritan]

This whole deal demonstrates the insane power Israel has over our elected reps. Golden rule: You never tell Israel no and that goes for both parties. It's by far they greatest national security threat of our generation. I hope he keeps pwning these spineless traitors lolol. Geez what a disgrace.

You would fit right in with all of Cohens characters.

[gimmick]

The first two are definitely Democratic Party platform mistakes. I want a secure border, and most of the dems I know also do, but you could certainly assemble a crowd pissed off at it in the right town. It wouldn’t be really comedic though, because it’s a nuanced issue, where people would be debating what a secured border means. It wouldn’t be absurdist like most of his comedy is.

Like off that list, the only one I care about at all is the rich people hoarding money question, but even that is more that I’d like to see corporate tax rates tied directly to reinvestment in America.

Like you’d have to have a symposium on reparations only for him to tell the audience the reparations in question are for back rent and and travel reimbursements for bringing peoples ancestors to America and housing them and ask for a check at the end to get on his level of absurdist uncomfortable comedy from the left. Of course, he’d be dead at the end of that one.

That GMO thing must play different in the city. I see that from both sides almost like 9/11 conspiracies where I see people arguing silly things from both sides of the aisle.

actually you touch upon a great point, which is that you somehow have to make the distinction between the yacht rock liberal dads and the luddite hippies and provocateur-hives like antifa.

i painted with very broad strokes for the sake of a discussion, obviously.

somehow the right seems far more galvanized in its apocolypse caliber ignorance.

Borders and immigration might be sacred in political rhetoric but as BCR said finding groups of left leaning "common" people that are unreasonable about it is harder.

Having a town hall meeting for say building the biggest ICE training facility in a largely Hispanic area probably wouldn't play as a irrational fear.

Hoarding money thing is also divisive, but i don't know if it's irrational in it's most common contexts. Tax havens are quite real and some of the biggest multinational companies have huge cash reserves. Even then i usually just see this as a strawman in debates for trickle down economics. In the end it doesn't deter that much from domestic investments.

Privacy thing is on both sides and there's some generational differences. For right it's the big brother and for the left it's evil corp. I think it's just partly irrational in the sense that yea it's going on all the time in huge scale, but it's not the end of the world.

GMO as a political tool is likely all left. For a absurd town hall meeting you'd still likely have to go to the 3rd world. It should be hard in US to find common left leaning folk with strong irrational fears about it. It's now 90% for some of the most common crops in the US, so there doesn't seem to be too much resistance in farming community.

GMO related fears are interesting though. It falls somewhere between Big Pharma and AI. There's the doomsday aspect with getting poisoned slowly. Considering some of the biggest players also make pesticides i wouldn't say it's completely irrational. Economical and intellectual property fears are quite real. Large companies and certain monopoly practices make it murkier. Basically it would be so much easier if Pasteur was never allowed to patent yeast.

[sonatine]

actually you touch upon a great point, which is that you somehow have to make the distinction between the yacht rock liberal dads and the luddite hippies and provocateur-hives like antifa.

i painted with very broad strokes for the sake of a discussion, obviously.

somehow the right seems far more galvanized in its apocolypse caliber ignorance.

Borders and immigration might be sacred in political rhetoric but as BCR said finding groups of left leaning "common" people that are unreasonable about it is harder.

Having a town hall meeting for say building the biggest ICE training facility in a largely Hispanic area probably wouldn't play as a irrational fear.

Hoarding money thing is also divisive, but i don't know if it's irrational in it's most common contexts. Tax havens are quite real and some of the biggest multinational companies have huge cash reserves. Even then i usually just see this as a strawman in debates for trickle down economics. In the end it doesn't deter that much from domestic investments.

Privacy thing is on both sides and there's some generational differences. For right it's the big brother and for the left it's evil corp. I think it's just partly irrational in the sense that yea it's going on all the time in huge scale, but it's not the end of the world.

GMO as a political tool is likely all left. For a absurd town hall meeting you'd still likely have to go to the 3rd world. It should be hard in US to find common left leaning folk with strong irrational fears about it. It's now 90% for some of the most common crops in the US, so there doesn't seem to be too much resistance in farming community.

GMO related fears are interesting though. It falls somewhere between Big Pharma and AI. There's the doomsday aspect with getting poisoned slowly. Considering some of the biggest players also make pesticides i wouldn't say it's completely irrational. Economical and intellectual property fears are quite real. Large companies and certain monopoly practices make it murkier. Basically it would be so much easier if Pasteur was never allowed to patent yeast.

oh ive heard nightmares about GMO corn etc but the problem is that for every 1 'omg i have to buy corn seeds now because these seeds dont grow and they are now pollinating crops downwind' story, there are thousands of examples of people casually breeding in resistance to various diseases that prevented famines.

so yeah you end up with this overlapping circle with anti-vaxxers, chemtrail loons, etc, and a lot of those roads lead to like, alex jones at this point. who is obviously right-wing for profit but still categorically right-wing.

but yeah, there are a ton of totally casual left-center soccer moms who will glibly insist on only buying food with non-GMO labels on it then go home and splurge on Guatemalan wasp-nest tampons to 'detox' with at goop.com.

[BCR]

Borders and immigration might be sacred in political rhetoric but as BCR said finding groups of left leaning "common" people that are unreasonable about it is harder.

Having a town hall meeting for say building the biggest ICE training facility in a largely Hispanic area probably wouldn't play as a irrational fear.

Hoarding money thing is also divisive, but i don't know if it's irrational in it's most common contexts. Tax havens are quite real and some of the biggest multinational companies have huge cash reserves. Even then i usually just see this as a strawman in debates for trickle down economics. In the end it doesn't deter that much from domestic investments.

Privacy thing is on both sides and there's some generational differences. For right it's the big brother and for the left it's evil corp. I think it's just partly irrational in the sense that yea it's going on all the time in huge scale, but it's not the end of the world.

GMO as a political tool is likely all left. For a absurd town hall meeting you'd still likely have to go to the 3rd world. It should be hard in US to find common left leaning folk with strong irrational fears about it. It's now 90% for some of the most common crops in the US, so there doesn't seem to be too much resistance in farming community.

GMO related fears are interesting though. It falls somewhere between Big Pharma and AI. There's the doomsday aspect with getting poisoned slowly. Considering some of the biggest players also make pesticides i wouldn't say it's completely irrational. Economical and intellectual property fears are quite real. Large companies and certain monopoly practices make it murkier. Basically it would be so much easier if Pasteur was never allowed to patent yeast.

oh ive heard nightmares about GMO corn etc but the problem is that for every 1 'omg i have to buy corn seeds now because these seeds dont grow and they are now pollinating crops downwind' story, there are thousands of examples of people casually breeding in resistance to various diseases that prevented famines.

so yeah you end up with this overlapping circle with anti-vaxxers, chemtrail loons, etc, and a lot of those roads lead to like, alex jones at this point. who is obviously right-wing for profit but still categorically right-wing.

but yeah, there are a ton of totally casual left-center soccer moms who will glibly insist on only buying food with non-GMO labels on it then go home and splurge on Guatemalan wasp-nest tampons to 'detox' with at goop.com.

Yea I spent a lot of time in the country last year and was shocked how many anti-vaccine GMO is evil types there are. Not as many as in the left, but there’s a whole fucking lot of them. Like the hemp oil cures cancer and everything else holistic is the cure on the right in America is a population I was somehow unaware of.

They’re kind of naturally skeptical culturally of everything that isn’t Jesus, Blake Shelton, or the flag. I kept running into these eccentric people with their hair-dyed blue or green who were definitely right, but not typically right. Like if they were born in a different zip code they’d be punk rockers. I actually like a lot of them personally. Certainly insane at times, but they were more productive people on average that their left counterparts. They’d hold like two jobs and have a sideline business selling organic vegetables or making furniture. They were way more palatable than arguing with some pissed off left GMO person citing dubious studies and certain of everything. They mistrust GMOs because they mistrust everything, but it isn’t their hill to die on.

[sonatine]

oh ive heard nightmares about GMO corn etc but the problem is that for every 1 'omg i have to buy corn seeds now because these seeds dont grow and they are now pollinating crops downwind' story, there are thousands of examples of people casually breeding in resistance to various diseases that prevented famines.

so yeah you end up with this overlapping circle with anti-vaxxers, chemtrail loons, etc, and a lot of those roads lead to like, alex jones at this point. who is obviously right-wing for profit but still categorically right-wing.

but yeah, there are a ton of totally casual left-center soccer moms who will glibly insist on only buying food with non-GMO labels on it then go home and splurge on Guatemalan wasp-nest tampons to 'detox' with at goop.com.

Yea I spent a lot of time in the country last year and was shocked how many anti-vaccine GMO is evil types there are. Not as many as in the left, but there’s a whole fucking lot of them. Like the hemp oil cures cancer and everything else holistic is the cure on the right in America is a population I was somehow unaware of.

They’re kind of naturally skeptical culturally of everything that isn’t Jesus, Blake Shelton, or the flag. I kept running into these eccentric people with their hair-dyed blue or green who were definitely right, but not typically right. Like if they were born in a different zip code they’d be punk rockers. I actually like a lot of them personally. Certainly insane at times, but they were more productive people on average that their left counterparts. They’d hold like two jobs and have a sideline business selling organic vegetables or making furniture. They were way more palatable than arguing with some pissed off left GMO person citing dubious studies and certain of everything. They mistrust GMOs because they mistrust everything, but it isn’t their hill to die on.

I think that to an extent, in a post-Obama America, the path of least resistance for being 'counter culture' is definitely to embrace that sort of fringe right wing holistic theocracy vibe. So your punk reference is basically dead on target. And because these are, at least in spirit, heartland folk with incredible work ethics and strong family bonds, they tend to not suffer the sins of their hippie ancestors, which often extends to an intolerance of 'welfare culture' which the left tends to misinterpret as racism.

And I think a lot of Hillary's problems in 2015/2016 were exaggerated/enhanced by that dynamic.

Related note, season 2 of The Handmaids Tale is incredible and actually does a fairly tremendous job of extrapolating what happens when those fringe theocrats reach a tipping point of influence culturally.

[GambleBotsChafedPenis]

The first two are definitely Democratic Party platform mistakes. I want a secure border, and most of the dems I know also do, but you could certainly assemble a crowd pissed off at it in the right town. It wouldn’t be really comedic though, because it’s a nuanced issue, where people would be debating what a secured border means. It wouldn’t be absurdist like most of his comedy is.

Like off that list, the only one I care about at all is the rich people hoarding money question, but even that is more that I’d like to see corporate tax rates tied directly to reinvestment in America.

Like you’d have to have a symposium on reparations only for him to tell the audience the reparations in question are for back rent and and travel reimbursements for bringing peoples ancestors to America and housing them and ask for a check at the end to get on his level of absurdist uncomfortable comedy from the left. Of course, he’d be dead at the end of that one.

That GMO thing must play different in the city. I see that from both sides almost like 9/11 conspiracies where I see people arguing silly things from both sides of the aisle.

interesting idea that got glossed over...I don't know how exactly it would work (or even if it would work), but in theory it sounds like a fucking incredible idea...I know that you've got entire towns in the Midwest that used to be huge places in the 40s/50s that are ghost towns now...only issue I could see in this whole thing is that it might become untenable to operate in a union environment that would most certainly exist if you brought that sorta capital investment to these places...however it might be offset by a decreased corporate tax rate...I mean you wanna MAGA then come up with an idea to make outsourcing a less profitable idea...

EDIT: shit is really crazy with the union stuff...I remember when id look through P&Ls to see how much we were paying out in union pension funds and all other shit union I was blown away...think a $27K housekeeper would end up costing the company between like $40-45K when all the benefits were attached...could be off on the exact numbers, but think im in the ballpark...