Rep. Matt Gaetz says he was taken in also. But Gaetz is such an Ali G fanboy, he says he can’t wait to see it.
I suspect the pre-airing dust-up and public angst by the duped will turn out to be funnier than the actual interviews.
I’m not about to pay for a Showtime subscription in order to find out.
Borat (and occasionally Ali G) was funny, but the Cohen act seemed to be getting stale a long time ago.
Cohen’s interview with Noam Chomsky (doing his Ali G character, I believe) was the same. Chomsky is a great example of a brilliant academic who is patient and non-judgmental even with idiots. I no longer remember the substance of the interview but it was mildly amusing only because of Ali G’s antics. Whatever reaction he was trying to provoke from Chomsky didn’t happen. Unlike these other assholes, Chomsky came across as having the politeness and patience of a saint.
Ali G with his main man Norman Chomsky
“Norm” talks about the interview (this was recorded just a few weeks ago, eh)
There was the time that Ali G interviewed Donald Trump. It was over ten years ago and very short. Trump realized almost immediately that the whole thing was a goof.
This is why… well, one of the reasons why… they are freaking out. Cohen got Joe Walsh, Dana Rohrabacher, and Trent Lott to argue on behalf of a first responders course on high-powered weapons for toddlers.
:eek:
Talk about “bad optics”!
Trent Lott actually calls it the “Kinderguardian program”.
Seriously, my completely racist and ageist voting strategy of #NoOldWhiteGuys is looking more and more rational.
The thing is that the agreement themselves were probably pretty much bolierplate releases, used in all interviews. I doubt that they said anything about “You agree to be made fun of in a spoof interview”. So even if they had read them and had a lawyer look over them I doubt that there would have been any red flags raised.
Also Larry Pratt, Executive Director Emeritus of Gun Owners of America reading a script: “Children under 5 have elevated levels of the pheromone Blink-182, produced by the part of the liver known as Rita Ora. This allows nerve reflexes to travel along the Cardi B pathway to the Wiz Khalifa 40% faster.”
Esquire’s article, Sacha Baron Cohen Didn’t Return to Humiliate Republicans. He’s Here to End Careers, opens with a reference to the point in the episode where Pratt laughs about the idea of a man raping his wife. That’s how they characterize it. Twitter is less generous in interpretation.
“That won’t be on the video, right?”
I disagree with Esquire’s headline. The base of support of these folks are pretty far in the tank. One of the puzzling features of representative democracy is that conservatives will enthusiastically support showman and pressure ops with extremist views, while at the same time professing more moderate beliefs in quieter moments. There’s a little of that with Bernie supporters, and there are reasonable points to be made about the Overton window. But there’s also a bright line distinction between those who happily support the cray-cray, and those who support wholly defensible ideas that differ a little from their own, all the while subjecting their political predictions to the test of experience.
Anyway, I think those whose careers rely wholly on a modern conservative base are safe and secure.
This is so reminiscent of Chris Morris in the “cake” episode of “Brass Eye”
It is NSFW of course and the opening section where he hassles a poor drug dealer for “yellow bentines” and “Triple-Sod” is wonderful.
I was thinking the same thing, and that the Republicans should be glad it wasn’t Morris interviewing them. Getting Neil Fox to say “There’s no evidence for it, but it is scientific fact” was one of the greatest television pranking moments of all time.
That phrase is in constant use in my house.
And don’t forget “Shatner’s Bassoon”, ah, too many gems to mention.
I understand why he so rarely gives interviews but it would be interesting to know where Baron Cohen gets his influences. He’s about my age and I reckon he must have been steeped in Morris/Iannucci growing up.
I agree it seems highly unlikely the releases would say anything that would raise much suspicion even read carefully by a lawyer. Their case I would think, if any, would be about the basically false pretense of the interview as it was described orally. Whether there’s anything they can do about that practically, I don’t know.
With shoe on the other foot and not an exact analogy (left-right jib jab analogies almost never are exact) a lot of people see wrongdoing in the conservative sting videos against Planned Parenthood etc. The difference is not IMO ‘it’s a joke’ or not. Cohen’s comedy has a political/social point and that part of it is not a joke. There might be a difference in technical violation of laws or not in specific cases, but it’s overly legalistic IMO to focus just on that. In both cases the basic point is to misrepresent oneself to get ‘the other side’ to make themselves look bad. Whether it’s in a (supposedly*) humorous or non-humorous setting is secondary IMO.
*the only Cohen thing I’ve even seen besides snippets of Ali G is Borat. I laughed, but had a bad feeling about it afterward and lost interest in him.
I think you’d find that you’d have a hard time making a good argument that the language that was used was NOT an accurate description of the show; those statements are carefully crafted.
The difference is in punching up and punching down, IMO. Cohen is punching up; O’Keefe is always punching down.
It’s not even that - Cohen is putting politicians in a position to embarrass themselves for entertainment purposes; the premise may be a hoax but it’s an interview on camera as advertised. O’Keefe is heavily editing his videos in order to deliberately misrepresent the activities of an organization with a view to influencing public funding for that organization. It’s the difference between the left hitting you in the face with a pie and the right placing bear traps on your doorstep - they’re both unwanted by the targets but only one can be harmlessly laughed off.
No, it’s definitely that. Your subsequent points are also valid and relevant, but the main difference is in up and down.
Cohen interviews the politicians or pundits directly. His humor comes from, as you say, our reaction to someone’s genuine reaction to what is clearly, to us, an absurd situation.
O’Keefe sets up the absurd situation, but his subjects are not the people in charge or the people who’s opinions fostered the creation of whatever organization he’s attacking: he attacks the little people, who have no defensive posture even possible.
When someone is interviewed by Cohen, they can walk away or end the interview. We laugh because people’s desire for fame or to spread their ideas seemingly over-rides whatever good sense should have, in our view, told them this was not what they thought it was.
O’Keefe goes into people’s places of work, leaving them no option but to deal with the people in front of them: it’s their job. He’s basically taking people who are forced to act a certain way and then asking us to laugh or be upset at his forcing them to act that way despite his setting up obstacles or red flags, or to feel that it’s somehow scandalous that they threw him out (since they cannot leave themselves). That’s punching down.
Worth noting, perhaps, that Cohen was sued by a number of individuals over the “Borat” movie, with generally unsuccessful results. Borat - Wikipedia
In general, a lot of lawsuits these days seem to be filed by people who have a vague sense that if they’ve been mistreated in some manner that they’re entitled to compensation of some sort and can recover this by suing. I imagine this is fostered by any number of highly publicized lawsuits in which people win Big Bucks based on mistreatment of a level and type that’s not all that different from what these victims say they’ve suffered. But the devil is in the legal details here, and the finer points of tort law which escape the lay eye can make all the difference.
I agree with this 100%.
I disagree. The fact that Cohen is quite simply putting his interviewers in bizarre circumstances that are as they seem to be – absurd – for the sake of humor, versus O’Keefe literally fabricating vast amounts of his work for the sake of a conservative agenda, explains 95% of the difference between the two.
O’Keefe punching down is a minuscule reason why he is a contemptible criminal and liar.