The Sacha Baron Cohen Poll: Ali G vs. Borat vs. Bruno

I'll be curious enough to stay apprised of who gets clowned on, but I don't think I have any desire to cringe through another round of SBC.

Sacha Baron Cohen pls trick my dad into saying he’s proud of me

— Sophia Benoit (@1followernodad) July 14, 2018

Οὖτις kinda otm here

i liked Ali G and Borat and all that about 10 years ago. but even then the schtick was getting tired. too bad he already made The Dictator

for me im not really hankering for yet another place to promote/own horrible people & be cynical about politics. but for those reasons this will probably be a huge hit.

Is him looking like Freddie Mercury-with-a-shaved-head in the gun clips just a coincidence or a snook being openly cocked at Queen? He looks way more like Freddie than the fella that's actually now in the biopic.

He was actually attached to the biopic for a while iirc

Yeah that's what i mean..it ended badly.

Yes, he died of an AIDS related illness before he could join the fight against badger culling.

i like joe walsh justifying everything with "they flew me out and gave me an award"

my unnecessary take is that this isn't good, based on the clips. the small push that it takes to get someone to agree with opinions close enough to ones they've voiced support for in the past on cable news (+ point out that they don't know wiz khalifa and are dumb enough to record drops for a guy with a prosthetic) or try to out openly evil public and semi-public figures in their 70s and 80s as monsters isn't worth the trouble or funny because you could get a 24 year old defend western civilization youtuber to go in and elicit the same responses, spoken rationally into a galaxy s9 camera, and without some goofy character.

but it's hilarious!

Watched the first Sanders segment and don't know if I'll bother continuing. There's simply no joke in it

I think it improves but I can't remember one section and the middle class dinner isn't overly brilliant just a bit better than the bernie bit. Middle class dinner seems to be self consciously gross.

xp
also this is getting close to a handwaving liberal twitter take but, honestly, the fact that this—it's coming out after being hit over and over again with scenes of gun violence where i can't help but imagine children getting shot in the head and replaying scenes of violence in a country intractably fucked up about gun violence, when i can open youtube and they make sure i get to see steven crowder debunking gun myths etc. so and the fact that it goes after the softest targets (right wing gun nuts that have made a living saying offensive shit), seems out of touch with the culture when in the past few years shit is even more surreal and terrifying than lol a gun for babies in a teddy bear, and really isn't packed with jokes and never gets very funny, it's kinda unpleasant.

imho tricking bob barr into eating breast milk cheese is as political as sacha baron cohen.

"should get" are the two words to end that sentence.

really isn't packed with jokes and never gets very funny, it's kinda unpleasant

Satire's not actually supposed to be "funny," you know.

This sounds as insufferable as expected, it sounds like he's done a Shatner's Bassoon ripoff as well. Fuck this tool!

satire huh so that's what this is.

mods can you delete my last three posts i clearly missed the point

Sacha Baron Cohen's not actually supposed to be "funny," you know.

it's quite possible that his ambitions/aims have evolved...

Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Who Is America” is much more disturbing than the surface-level of officials saying “give children weapons.”

(Brief thread)https://t.co/vmI6pk8pIs

— Ms. Entropy / سيدة الفتنة (@MsEntropy) July 16, 2018

He has evolved beyond "Grimsby".

It’s hard watching satire post-Trump. 2 years or so back, during every episode of Last Week Tonight about the NRA or Drumpf’s bankruptcies or whatever i was like “Wow how can he survive THIS…” and then you’d see it didn’t dent his image one jot somehow.

Outraging liberals IS his image

xp thought it was kind of obvious that the use of the character had as much to do with Israel and the terrorism paradigm as with gun control. I mean he makes a joke about shooting an arab gardener, that's pretty "surface level" but thanks twitter thread

the sanders bit was pretty funny if you watched it with scott steiner's "steiner math" in your head (tbf tho it's always in my head)

Baron Cohen also came from a highly educated university iirc

THe show seems to be doing well enough that it can sponsor the Late Show. I'm not 100% sure what that entails but surprised tehy would have extra budget if its what I thought it was.

But it was tagged as sponsor on one of the last 2 nights.

That's Showtime looking to take the lead from HBO. Between having Billions (better than Succession) and this show (more buzz than any recent HBO comedy), makes sense they'll spend to sponsor it.

I feel like his star fell a lot with the Borat movie, the Bruno movie and various dumb antics, but the Ali G show was legit very funny imo.

Borat movie was his peak, Bruno was when everyone got sick of him

the wrestling-event sequence in Bruno was arguably funnier and more scandalous than anything in Borat - I remember virtually nothing else in/about it, though

super greg is peak

https://youtu.be/V8wrIgbiCgs

xp I meant more his critical star than his popular star. IN the movie he sort of played out the Borat character by turning it into an SNL-style catch phrase guy with some shock humor thrown in. The sketches were much more clever.

Ali G show was one of the best DVD purchases I ever made, honestly

the segment where Bruno keeps making the Spring Breakers spell out PARTY is so classic. dude jumping off the van always makes me lose it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhP0tOm6yt0

I loved this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXuI3DqaCyw

Borat the sketch always sort of toed the line btw laughs at the expense of a foreign caricature vs laughs at the expense of Americans' naivite with respect to and ignorance of foreigners, but mostly leaned toward the latter. The movie really tipped things toward the former imo.

THis seems to be very hit and miss. I found myself laughing at a couple of bits but miss seems to outweigh things.
Californian vacuity seems to be a favourite topic of his, at least i'm assuming both of those women were califonian.
Way too much non-firing sketches anyway.
So wonder how many bad pub impressions it will trigger.

Agreed. First episode was pretty zzz. It's been done better many times before and in this batshit political climate not particularly shocking.

The mosque segment was depressing.

i take back some of my criticism after seeing the jason spencer thing.

party clip frog linked is so good

he he yeah it's great

Haha that Bruno clip.. haven’t seen it since it aired but I can still remember vividly the moment when the dude rips off the mic spoffle. Such a weird instantaneous moment of anger.

Still my favourite in terms of sheer nerve
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iMjFoT7yWE

whoops

Georgia state Rep. Jason Spencer, who attracted nationwide ridicule after yelling obscenities and dropping his pants on Sacha Baron Cohen’s TV show, has submitted his resignation from the Georgia House of Representatives, the office of the House speaker confirmed to The Washington Post early Wednesday.

I guess this is already by default the year's best american journalism then

i was considering adding this to the Looks Like an Onion Headline but Isn't thread...

Georgia State Rep. Jason Spencer to Resign in Wake of Pants-Dropping Debacle

note that "pants-dropping debacle" takes precedence over repeatedly shouting racial slurs and Islamophobic sentiments

that cheese video is agonizing

From BBC:

Mr Spencer had initially refused to quit over what he called a "ridiculously ugly episode".

The four-term representative was defeated in the Republican primary for his seat in May, but had intended to serve his remaining five months in office.

He said in a statement Baron Cohen had taken "advantage of my paralysing fear that my family would be attacked".

"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'," he said.

Mr Spencer apologised to "my family, friends, and the people of my district", adding: "I deeply regret the language I used at (Baron Cohen's) request."

does this mean I have to watch the show now ?
I am not usually a fan of this kind of thing …

v cool that this guy’s able to admit that he’d be so overwhelmed by fear in the event that he was attacked that he’d be of no practical use in defending his family

i assume that his guns will be confiscated by the state for his safety and the safety of others

amazing how far the media contorts itself to avoid calling people racist

Sacha Baron Cohen made an Arizona town seem racist. Now officials are promising change. https://t.co/2ExeY9yILi

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 25, 2018

trying to find that clip yesterday by googling 'kingman az mosque' and it turns out there actually IS a mosque there...