On Sunday night, Sacha Baron Cohen's new show Who Is America? debuted, following a week of headlines hyping the new series. A master of disguise, it was revealed that during filming Cohen had managed to fool the likes of Sarah Palin and former Vice President Dick Cheney.
The series aims to explore "the diverse individuals, from the infamous to the unknown across the political and cultural spectrum, who populate our unique nation." Cohen interviews his subjects while in disguise as different characters, and during Sunday night's debut (following some shorter segments) his big target was the gun lobby. Cohen, in character as Israeli anti-terrorist expert Col. Erran Morad, very easily got active congressmen to show their support for a new program called Kinderguardians, which would arm preschoolers with guns.
"I needed to find politicians who would fight for the 2nd amendment for toddlers to bear firearms at preschool," Cohen declared. That task wasn't difficult once he had Gun Owners of America's Larry Pratt on board. After that get, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, California congressman Dana Rohrabacher, South Carolina congressman Joe Wilson, and radio host Joe Walsh all agree to film endorsements of the program. Which, again, would give 4-year-olds loaded weapons. And hoo boy, they don't just mildly endorse it, they seem genuinely excited by the prospect of it. He even got gun rights activist Philip Van Cleave to shoot an entire training video. Watch the full clip below:
But... are we even shocked? The series is playing for a 2018 audience, which is very different than, say, a 2015 audience. The reviews are mixed so far. Alan Sepinwall pointed out what will be the show's main problem — "We’re in an era of politics that has proven largely satire-proof... and there’s little Cohen and his writers can get his targets to say that’s notably more ridiculous or offensive than what they would utter aloud without his help. Cohen’s playing Gotcha! with people who have already confessed to far worse, over and over again."
There's also some criticism about Cohen's choice to allegedly not hire female writers. Vanity Fair notes that, "In this moment of heightened focus on inclusion in Hollywood, it's remarkable that according to the screened episodes, there are no female writers on Who Is America’s staff. The first episode, now streaming on Showtime, credits 10 writers and six executive producers; all are men," and one is Kurt Metzger, "a stand-up and former writer for Inside Amy Schumer who had a public, sexist meltdown in 2016 after a colleague was accused of sexual assault."
