Sacha Baron Cohen isn’t funny – especially when he’s mocking the powerless

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His satire is often a perfect example of what impeccable progressives like Baron Cohen are forever accusing conservatives of doing: punching down.

Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest series Who Is America? isn’t funny. But then, nor was his terrible 2016 movie The Brothers Grimsby. Nor was his rubbish 2012 film The Dictator. Nor, let’s be honest, were his classic original characters Borat, Brüno or even Ali G.

Obviously, they had their moments: the ‘mankini’ — that bizarre, electric green, giant-thong-like swim wear worn by Borat; the classic late-Nineties catchphrase ‘Is it because I is black?’ And sure it must have taken some nerve — even in character — to explain to a clearly impatient and unimpressed Donald Trump his business plan for some anti-drip ice-cream gloves.

Read the rest in the Spectator.

Bono Suggests New Anti-Islamic State Strategy: ‘Send in Amy Schumer, Chris Rock and Sacha Baron Cohen’

Firstly, the West needs to welcome in more refugees from North Africa and the Middle East – lots more – and learn to see them not as a “burden” but as a “benefit.”

Secondly, instead of confronting Islamist terror with the unhelpful language of hate and military hardware, it needs to find a kinder, gentler, funnier way of winning them over – using comedians like Amy Schumer, Chris Rock, and Sacha Baron Cohen.

Bono was delivering his wisdom to the Senate appropriations subcommittee on Capitol Hill.

He said:

“It’s like, you speak violence, you speak their language. But you laugh at them when they are goose-stepping down the street and it takes away their power. So I am suggesting that the Senate send in Amy Schumer and Chris Rock and Sacha Baron Cohen, thank you.”

Amy Schumer and Sacha Baron Cohen are both Jewish – a faith to which ISIS (and Al Qaeda and Boko Haram et al) have not hitherto shown themselves to be particularly sympathetic. On the contrary last year ISIS announced that they were planning a Second Holocaust in which all the world’s Jews would be extinguished. Perhaps Bono is under the impression that Amy Schumer’s wit would grant her an exemption – though up and until now there has been little evidence that ISIS has much of a sense of humour.

Nor do Islamic terror groups respond terribly well to homosexuals like Bruno, the camp Austrian played by Baron Cohen; or even to people who look like they might be homosexuals, such as Borat, when he is wearing his mankini. Their preferred method of dealing with them – in accordance with their scriptures – is to throw them off high buildings or bury them beneath a wall.

Read the rest at Breitbart.