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Sunday, October 13, 2024

Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘Who Is America?’ an Embarrassing National Barometer Of A Nation | Habakkuk 2:16

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King James Bible:

  • Hab 2:16 | Thou art filled with shame for glory: drink thou also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered: the cup of the LORD’S right hand shall be turned unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on thy glory.
  • Psa 64:8 | So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves: all that see them shall flee away.
  • Isa 14:11 | Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.
  • 2Th 2:3 | Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

The TV series “Who is America?” by Sascha Baron (likely an Edomite/Amalekite himself) was a complete hitjob. Utter humiliation of the United States, viewed all around the world. In all my years I’ve never seen such a protracted, embarrassing portrayal of this country and all the rot underneath (worm referenced in Isa 14:11). On one hand I am shocked it was released publicly, on the other is not surprising because it’s release is a part of biblical prophesy, revealing the true colors of Babylon and the Edomites. Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘Who Is America?’ Is an Embarrassing Barometer of a Nation | Source: StudyBreaks n his new Showtime series, Sacha Baron Cohen wanted to know, “Who Is America?” and promptly set off to find out. The faux-inquisitive title can be answered quite plainly once you’ve finished the first episode: a bunch of easily duped half-wits, apparently. The most succinct way to describe the series is that it follows Baron Cohen, transformed into a different character for each segment, as he interviews, exposes and humiliates Americans. Using sophisticated prosthetics and an impressive array of accent-work, Baron Cohen disguises himself as a myriad of personalities, most of whom are caricature-like offspring of the current cultural climate in the United States. There’s a gender studies professor who apologizes profusely for being a white, cisgender male; there’s a far-right wing lunatic who runs a conspiracy theory site; there’s a former Mossad agent whose thick Israeli accent and hyper-militarization commands respect and reverence from American conservatives.

But the characters serve as mere catalysts for the real entertainment: a rotation of unsuspecting guests who believe they’re being interviewed by a professional, when in fact they are being tricked by the man most famous for “Ali G” and “Borat.” In this regard, “Who Is America?” is relentless. Baron Cohen is able to coax astounding behavior from his guests, often with very little effort on his part. Sometimes, when his guests make themselves look horribly stupid without his help, Baron Cohen throws a brief, giddy smile at his crew members. No demographic is left unprotected. Indeed, from across all spectrums — the unknown and the well-known, the well-off and the poor, the paranoid and the pretentious, the intelligent and the idiotic — “Who Is America?” reveals people to be utter dunces. The series is of utmost significance to these times, not just due to the political and cultural range of the interviewees, but because it exposes how easily manipulated Americans can be so long as they believe the person they’re speaking to is on their side.

The show is almost difficult to watch because it’s just too easy: easy to lure people to give into their worst instincts, easy to reveal how far people will go to push their own agendas, easy to trick people into filming a bogus segment where they show their asses (literally, in the case of since-resigned-and-disgraced Congressman Jason Spencer — you’ll have to watch to understand). “Who Is America?” is tragedy disguised as comedy, and part of Baron Cohen’s intent is to demonstrate how little prodding it takes for people to humiliate themselves in the name of maintaining a reputation or pushing a doctrine. Viewers have to laugh at the unbelievability of it all, but this stops just as soon as they realize that it doesn’t have to be believable for it to be real. That’s where the show teeters into horror-comedy territory. Each character has something different to reveal about the American population, and so it is appropriate that Baron Cohen’s conceptualization is mostly, but not totally, political. He makes a fool out of an art gallerist whose performative intellectualism and pretentiousness reach a boiling point without much interference; he convinces a B-list reality TV star to cash in on philanthropy-as-fashion, and she hardly bats an eye as she reads from a script promoting the training of child soldiers. The setups are so ludicrous that you couldn’t possibly imagine the interviewees going along with them, and some of them don’t (journalist Ted Koppel, for example), but many of them are people so driven by greed and starved for power that they’ll say and do anything for both.

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