The story of Sacha Baron Cohen

Brut America

He's believed to have crashed a far-right rally and gotten the public to join in a racist sing-along. He's made a career out of pranking people into revealing their own bigotry.   This is the story of Sacha Baron Cohen.

Transcript

00:00When Borat was able to get an entire bar in Arizona to sing

00:04throw the jewel down the well

00:07it did reveal people's indifference to anti-Semitism.

00:11When, as Bruno, the gay fashion reporter from Austria,

00:15I started kissing a man in a cage fight in Arkansas,

00:19nearly starting a riot,

00:20it showed the violent potential of homophobia.

00:25And when disguised as an ultra-woke developer,

00:28I proposed building a mosque in one rural community,

00:32prompting a resident to proudly admit,

00:35I am racist against Muslims.

00:38It showed the growing acceptance of Islamophobia.

00:50People will say I am funny, I will curse them.

00:52Although I do have one joke for you.

00:54Let's hear it.

00:55There is a chair that isn't walking, la la la.

00:59A chair walking.

01:00You have heard this one already?

01:01I did.

01:02Ok, sorry.

01:25I've spent most of the past two decades in character.

01:34In fact, this is the first ever time that I've stood up

01:38and given a speech as my least popular character,

01:41Sacha Baron Cohen.

01:47And I have to confess, it is terrifying.

02:26At times, some critics have said my comedy

02:30risks reinforcing old stereotypes.

02:33The truth is, I've been passionate about challenging

02:37bigotry and intolerance throughout my life.

02:39As a teenager in England,

02:41I marched against the fascist National Front

02:44and to abolish apartheid.

02:46As an undergraduate, I travelled around America

02:48and wrote my thesis about the civil rights movement

02:51with the aim of changing the world.

02:55With the help of the archives of the ADL.

02:58And as a comedian, I've tried to use my characters

03:01to get people to let down their guard

03:04and reveal what they actually believe,

03:06including their own prejudice.

03:24It's right wicked.

04:24We hope very much that we will win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Picture, we will be

04:40insulted if not.

05:10Well I'm not like that guy Sacha Baron Cohen, I just saw that movie film Borat, I mean I

05:26found that in a very offensive stereotype of a foreigner.

05:56There we go, a bit of politics, it's not all gags and big knob comments.

06:20Today around the world demagogues appeal to our worst instincts.

06:26Conspiracy theories once confined to the fringe are going mainstream.

06:30It's as if the age of reason, the era of evidential argument is ending and now knowledge is increasingly

06:38delegitimized and scientific consensus is dismissed.

06:44Democracy which depends on shared truths is in retreat and autocracy which depends on

06:51shared lies is on the march.

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