'Who Is America?': What Critics Are Saying About Sacha Baron Cohen’s New Series | THR News - video Dailymotion

Hollywood Journal

The reviews for Sacha Baron Cohen's new Showtime series ‘Who Is America?’ are in — and it appears the comedian's satirical take on America's divided landscape has left critics with mixed feelings.

Transcript

00:00Do you think the liberals are using these school shootings to further their anti-tragedy agenda?

00:07They're trying.

00:08Sacha Baron Cohen's new series Who Is America? premiered Sunday on Showtime,

00:12leaving critics with mixed feelings about the renowned comedian's satirical take on

00:16America's divided landscape. The lead-up to Sunday's premiere was filled with speculation,

00:20fueled to some degree by a public reprimanding from Sarah Palin, who was unwittingly interviewed

00:25by Cohen disguised as a veteran. Palin was not the only political figure to be pranked by Cohen.

00:29The first episode shows Cohen in character, convincing multiple real-life Republican members

00:34of Congress to participate in a PSA encouraging Americans to support a program called

00:39Kindergardians that teaches four-year-olds how to shoot guns. According to The Hollywood Reporter's

00:44Daniel Feinberg, Cohen's punchlines failed to land because it's 2018 and shame is dead.

00:49In his review, Feinberg writes,

00:59He adds,

01:02Shame is the missing ingredient in Cohen's Who Is America and, unfortunately, it's not an ingredient

01:08that proves merely incidental. It's the difference between shocking and not shocking, between

01:12hilarious and simply fleetingly funny. Rolling Stone's Alan Steppenwolf agrees, writing,

01:17We're in an era of politics that has proven largely satire-proof. Look how badly SNL has struggled

01:22to come up with a take on Donald Trump beyond, he's an idiot. And there's little Cohen and his

01:26writers can get his targets to say that's notably more ridiculous or offensive than what they

01:30would utter aloud without his help. Ben Travis from IndieWire muses that while he finds Cohen's

01:35jokes to be hit or miss, the show could potentially end political careers.

01:38If you live in a district represented by any official who appears on the series, it's pretty

01:42critical you see what they're willing to do when given the platform. Their words are enraging

01:47and their actions gut-churning, as are some of the other subjects' behavior, says Travers.

01:51With all this in mind, it's hard to label Who Is America Essential Entertainment? It's hard

01:56to call it entertainment, either, since there aren't many laughs to be had. At the same time,

02:00if this actually changes people's minds, give Cohen a Peabody. At least he's trying.

02:05The Los Angeles Times' Robert Lloyd describes Who Is America as a mixed bag, some of it

02:09successful, some of it irritating, some of it funny when it is also irritating, some of it

02:14not irritating, but not particularly funny either. And according to Vox's Todd Vanderwerf,

02:18the media hype surrounding the show isn't justified. Vanderwerf writes,

02:22The cycle repeats itself in aggregations of video clips and breathless reports of how people

02:26were tricked into participating in Baron Cohen's new series, and so on and so forth. But make no

02:31mistake, the biggest jupes are anyone who watches.

02:34Who Is America airs on Showtime Sundays at 10 p.m. To read more on this story, head to THR.com.

02:39For The Hollywood Reporter News, I'm Lyndsey Rodrigues.

'Who Is America?': What Critics Are Saying About Sacha Baron Cohen’s New Series | THR News

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended