Excuse me while you blush
SCREEN SCENE WITH GUY DAVIS
MAYBE it’s toughness or maybe it’s cynicism, but I like to consider myself hard to rattle.
I’ve seen some pretty graphic and disturbing stuff on screens over the years, and there’s not much in the way of what’s called “adult content” that unsettles me.
But there is one particular thing that has always set me on edge, and indeed does so to this day. It has me covering my eyes and ears. Reaching for the remote control. Running from the room in the most extreme cases.
It’s embarrassment. The embarrassment that occurs when a fictional character makes a fool of themselves. Or even worse, when an actual human being does so.
I couldn’t tell you why this is so — I’m sure there’s some deep-seated psychological reason for it, and I’m quite happy to spend the rest of my life smothering it with a pillow, which is of course the best way of dealing with such things.
But I do know I’m not alone. Just the other night, a friend of mine confessed that he felt such sympathy for the unwitting victims of pranks and practical jokes that he couldn’t enjoy them in the slightest.
As with so much in life, though, there are grey areas to this.
Let’s say that a person at the receiving end of a prank is someone in the public eye, someone with a high profile, and that they should perhaps be wary that they might be targeted by makers of mischief.
Or let’s imagine that the less appealing traits of a person — prejudice, bigotry, callousness — are put under the spotlight as a result of a prankster’s actions.
It can still result in a full-body cringe by many viewers, I’m sure (and I’m certainly counting myself in that number), but it’s all for a good cause, right?
I’m thinking about this because provocative English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, perhaps best known for using outrageous characters like Ali G and Borat to tease out the true feelings of the people he encounters and interviews, is back with a new pay-TV series titled Who is America?
Most new shows carpet-bomb the public with marketing to generate interest. Who is America? has done something far more effective in the lead-up to its premiere tomorrow (3pm on streaming service Stan) — it’s managed to get the targets of Baron Cohen’s deception to do the work for him.
To the best of my knowledge, Baron Cohen has once again assumed a variety of disguises and alter egos to get various highprofile Americans to drop their guards and reveal their actual viewpoints and opinions, probably in ways that will have spin doctors working overtime to repair ruined reputations.
Naturally, it’s expected that Baron Cohen has current US President Donald Trump in his sights, although Trump’s involvement has not yet been confirmed.
But former Governor of Alaska (and onetime nominee for Vice President of the United States) Sarah Palin has indeed confirmed that Baron Cohen managed to deceive her … and she went public to express her displeasure.
“I join a long line of American public personalities who have fallen victim to the evil, exploitive, sick ‘humour’ of the British ‘comedian’ Sacha Baron Cohen,” Palin wrote on her official Facebook page earlier this week.
Apparently disguised as “a disabled US veteran, wheelchair and all”, Baron Cohen subjected Palin to “a long interview full of Hollywoodism’s disrespect and sarcasm” before Palin pulled the plug, “much to Cohen’s chagrin”.
Is it a dirty trick on Baron Cohen’s part? Yeah, sure.
Is it justified when it gets people with the power to sway public opinion to reveal their worst traits? Yeah, sure.
Will I be tuning in for Who is America? if it does this on a regular basis, even if it’s embarrassing as hell? Yeah, sure.