The Republicans Sacha Baron Cohen Humiliated Look Even Worse Trying to Explain Themselves
One of the most embarrassing moments from Episode One of Showtime's Who Is America? involved gun-rights activist and president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Philip Van Cleave, who filmed an advertisement for a program that taught Kindergartners how to use machine guns disguised as toys.
There he was, alongside Sacha Baron Cohen disguised as an Israeli anti-terrorism expert, instructing children how to load a pistol and use it to kill. He also advertised the uzicorn for girls! And the starter gun for infants 24 months and under. It was absolutely fucked up, yet this guy played along the whole time, advocating for weapons marketed for children.
Well, at some point after Van Cleave filmed this, he must have realized it was a prank, because back in April he posted on Facebook explaining what had happened. Van Cleave says he was allegedly playing along so he could do some detective work to figure out what was actually going on:
I decided that I would play along with the scheme so I could find out who was behind this and where this was going. I figured if I was right about this being a set up, I could blow the whistle and get a warning out to the gun-rights community across the country to protect as many people as possible and maybe derail this attack. If it turned out to be nothing, then no harm, no foul.
It's a hilarious argument because-assuming he actually was working to stop these "attacks"-he fundamentally failed at that, considering Baron Cohen duped dozens of Republican gun activists.
What's interesting about Van Cleave's 1,400-word account of the experience is how impressive the entire Who Is America? production sounds. He writes with admiration about the professionalism of the shoot:
We went step-by-step with a ready, and seemingly logical, answer every time I balked at some crazy part of the training. They seemed to have thought of every thing that a person might question. All I can say is that these people were extremely good at deception and manipulation. And no matter how stupid the things the interviewer and I were doing (we were side-by-side the whole time), no one else cracked a smile or laughed once, and I was watching. The professional actors were keeping up the appearance that this was a serious project ... everything was elaborately and expensively staged; every contingency planned for, with explanations that make unbelievable things seem plausible (fake documents and videos about how Israel handles security in their schools, for example). The interview moved along at a pace, designed not to give the “mark” time to reflect on where things are going. The craziness factor very gradually got more extreme, like cooking a frog by slowly heating up the water so he doesn’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late. It’s a con game, a sting, plain and simple.
It all sounds truly brilliant. But also requires the subject to be a narcissistic dummy. Take a look at the way Cohen and Showtime convinced radio host and former Republican representative Joe Walsh-who once threatened with violenceBlack Lives Matters advocates (whom he called "punks")-to participate in an equally crazy appearance advocating arming children. As Politico reports:
In Walsh’s case, Cohen’s team used fake identities and dummy websites, and concocted media opportunities over the course of several months. It also leaned on flattery, intrigue and the disarming use of the word “Liberty” to reel the former congressman into a TV appearance in which he endorsed arming young children with heavy weaponry.
In October, Politico reports, "a woman calling herself Ashley Winthrop emailed Walsh on behalf of the made-up production company First Liberty Pictures and invited him to be interviewed for a 'docu-style series' about terrorism to be broadcast on Israeli television."
For a number of months Cohen's team communicated with Walsh's wife Helene, who handles his schedule. Cohen's team even emailed the Walsh's a fake website for the show yerushalayimtv.com, which was all in Hebrew.
“Since we don’t read Hebrew, we could not verify ourselves,” Helene Walsh told Politico. “We should have done more homework."
It was only after Joe Walsh taped the interview that they decided to have someone read Hebrew look at the website and confirm that it's fake.
Imagine being such a narcissist that you'll say or do anything as long as someone treats you nice and points a camera at you. Also, imagine being a camera person or crew member on Who Is America? and not laughing or covering your face in horror while Joe Walsh advocates for teaching children how to learn “a rudimentary knowledge of mortars.”
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