Sarah Palin Was Fooled For Sacha Baron Cohen's New Show And She's Pretty Pissed Off
Sacha Baron Cohen found plenty of fame by being a chameleon in front of the camera, hiding under the guise of various characters on Da Ali G Show. The HBO series paved the way for his big screen hit Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, and his less popular follow-up Brüno. But since then, Cohen hasn't really delved into his comedic antics used to fool everyday people, celebrities and powerful politicians. Or so we thought.
Recently we learned that Sacha Baron Cohen has a new series coming to Showtime called Who Is America?. The premise of the series is along the lines of Da Ali G Show, featuring Cohen in disguise as various characters and speaking to people like former Vice President Dick Cheney, who signed a waterboard kit during his interview segment. It appears Cheney isn't the only one who was tricked into being part of Cohen's show. Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin ended up in front of Cohen's camera, and she's pretty pissed off about it.
Once news of Sacha Baron Cohen's new series spread online, it sounds like Sarah Palin had the realization that she had become part of the upcoming series. The former governor of Alaska took to Facebook with a post that admitted she had been duped by Sacha Baron Cohen. And then she attacked the comedian for his trickery. Here's what she posted to Facebook:
Yup – we were duped. Ya' got me, Sacha. Feel better now?
I join a long list of American public personalities who have fallen victim to the evil, exploitive, sick "humor" of the British "comedian" Sacha Baron Cohen, enabled and sponsored by CBS/Showtime.
This "legit opportunity" to honor American Vets and contribute to a "legit Showtime historical documentary" was requested of me via a speakers bureau.
For my interview, my daughter and I were asked to travel across the country where Cohen (I presume) had heavily disguised himself as a disabled US Veteran, fake wheelchair and all. Out of respect for what I was led to believe would be a thoughtful discussion with someone who had served in uniform, I sat through a long "interview" full of Hollywoodism's disrespect and sarcasm – but finally had enough and literally, physically removed my mic and walked out, much to Cohen's chagrin. The disrespect of our US military and middle-class Americans via Cohen's foreign commentaries under the guise of interview questions was perverse.
Here is my challenge, shallow Sacha boy: go ahead – air the footage. Experience tells us it will be heavily edited, not pretty, and intended to humiliate.
The challenge is to Cohen, CBS and Showtime: donate all proceeds to a charitable group that actually respects and supports American Vets. Mock politicians and innocent public personalities all you want, if that lets you sleep at night, but HOW DARE YOU mock those who have fought and served our country.
Truly sick.
And as an aside, for further insight into the wealthy corporate enablers of this kind of "joke", I'll add that after great costs on our part in time and resources to contribute to their "documentary" the Cohen/CBS/Showtime production team purposefully dropped my daughter and me off at the wrong Washington, DC airport after the fake interview, knowing we'd miss all flights back home to Alaska. After refusing to take our calls to help get us out of the bind they'd put us in for three days, I wrote this off as yet another example of the sick nature that is media-slash-entertainment today.
Feel good and manly about your M.O., Sacha?
By the way, my daughter thinks you're a piece of ****, Sacha. Every honorable American Vet should feel the same.
It's hard to know what kind of mockery Sarah Palin thinks Sacha Baron Cohen participated in for this interview without seeing any clips. However, on the surface, it sounds like Palin is just mad that she'll be made to look like a fool again. Though that feeling should be normal by now after all the stupid things she said and did as Senator John McCain's running mate in 2008.
Again, without seeing the clip, we don't know what Cohen did during this interview. But if it's anything like he's done before, he uses the guise of a given character to create an interview where he pulls stupid and shocking answers and behavior from his interview subjects. He never uses the character as a way to mock whatever population he's pretending to be part of, but dons the disguise as a way of showing the ignorance and irresponsibility of the person being interviewed. Presumably that's what Cohen was doing with Palin, especially since she ended up walking out of the interview.
Knowing Sarah Palin's political antics, this is her attempt to get ahead of the curve and stir up her conservative compatriots. Notice how she's making it seem like Cohen is making fun of veterans without any video evidence to say otherwise?
Meanwhile, it appears we'll see plenty of other recognizable faces in Sacha Baron Cohen's new series. Matt Drudge from the infamous Drudge Report put out an alert on Twitter to warn other possible targets for Cohen's show, and he named Howard Dean, Alberto Gonzales, Bernie Sanders, Trent Lott, General David Patraeus, and Ted Koppel as people who have also been tricked by Cohen for this series. Notice that there are both Democrats and Republicans on that list, so Cohen is taking shots at both sides of the aisle. This series should certainly be something to behold when it premieres this weekend on July 15, 2018.