Sunday, November 19, 2006

Will the real Sacha Baron Cohen please stand up?




Ah Sacha. Where would we be without you?....Probably exactly where we are now. Still there's hope that future generations will someday make shrines in your honor and worship at your Jewish feet. I wonder if Jew-feet are any different from regular ones? Anyway that's a question for another post.


For the uninitiated (i.e. mormons, eskimoes and Pat Buchanan) Sacha Baron Cohen is the creator and portrayer of such lovable characters as Ali G., Borat Sagdiyev, Bruno and Elmo. Alright the fourth one's not his but what all four have in common is that they are all pretty annoying (unintentional in Elmo's case). What's special about Cohen's work is that it's the very embodiment of what Matt Groening once called 'subvertainment'. Move over Simpsons. Dysfunctional families are so 90s anyway! The problem however is that most people (humorless prudes and probably Pat Buchanan again) don't get the subvert part. They think its just toilet humor which panders to the ever-growing lowest common denominator demographic. However, I and my chosen group of intellectual superiors who see beyond this clever facade, will defeat these neanderthals and someday rule the world. (Laughs sinisterly and strokes white Persian cat).

So on a totally unrelated note, I've noticed that Baron Cohen almost always does interviews in character so I've always wondered whether he's just shy or has a cripplingly serious case of Dissociative Identity Disorder. That is until I came across this link to a video in wikipedia (the unreliable encyclopedia of the future!!) of Cohen with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show, which might help all of you with an interest in Sacha Baron Cohen, or his creations, to make up your minds about him. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dutJ31sIW68). Watch it! If not for any other reason but to see Jews converse in their natural habitat. Television!

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