Who Is America?
Who Is America? is an American political satire mockumentary-style television series created by Sacha Baron Cohen that premiered on July 15, 2018, on Showtime. Baron Cohen also stars in the series as various characters and executive produces alongside Anthony Hines, Todd Schulman, Andrew Newman, Dan Mazer, and Adam Lowitt.
Premise
Who Is America? explores "the diverse individuals, from the infamous to the unknown across the political and cultural spectrum, who populate our unique nation".Cast and characters
portrays the following characters:- Billy Wayne Ruddick Jr., PhD, a far-right conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed citizen journalist who publishes his investigations on his website TRUTHBRARY.org
- Dr. Nira Cain-N'Degeocello, a liberal lecturer on gender studies at Reed College, co-principal at Wildfields Poly-Ed, and a Democratic activist who wishes to "heal the divide" in America between conservatives and liberals. He has a partner named Naomi, a son named Harvey Milk and a daughter named Malala.
- Rick Sherman, a recently released British ex-convict who used his limited resources in prison to create art, music, and culinary dishes. His artistic medium is bodily fluids and excrement, his club music is made up of sounds he recorded while incarcerated, and his cooking is similarly prison-themed. Sherman attempts to share his work with prominent people in his given field of choice in hopes of promoting his creations to a wider audience.
- Erran Morad, an Israeli anti-terrorism expert, member of the Israeli military, and former agent of Mossad. He demonstrates the use of unconventional tactics and technology in the fight against such enemies as terrorists, immigrants, and pedophiles. For example, he showcased a recent instrument that can detect a pedophile. He believes that the National Rifle Association's plan for arming school teachers does not go far enough to curtail gun violence and proposes a new program, "Kinderguardians", where children ages 3 to 16 are armed with guns embedded inside toy animals called "Gunimals". His military rank changes with each episode. He also worked in the army as a seducer for at least 3 years.
- Gio Monaldo, an Italian billionaire playboy and fashion photographer from Milan with his own television series on Italian network Canale 5 titled La Vita Diamante di Gio. His charitable causes include the West African Ebola virus epidemic and child soldiers.
- OMGWhizzBoyOMG!, a Finnish YouTuber with an unboxing show in which he interviews guests while opening new collectible toys. Despite his childish and goofy presentation, he frequently makes comments suggesting his support for fascism.
Episodes
Production
Development
Although Baron Cohen's career began with his prank interviews on Da Ali G Show, he found that his increased fame from Borat and Brüno made it more difficult to continue without being recognized. Following the release of Brüno in 2009, Baron Cohen reached out to visual effects artist Rick Baker to ask if it was viable for him to wear realistic prosthetics to continue duping interviewees, only to learn the technology was not advanced enough at the time. Baron Cohen revisited the idea of continuing his prank interviews after the 2016 election: he wished to channel his anger at the election of Donald Trump by returning to his old style of comedy and interviewing the people within Trump's circle. Subsequently, he reached out to Baker's protégé Tony Gardner, who worked on Johnny Knoxville's prosthetics for the 2013 hidden camera prank film Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa. Gardner served as the head of the makeup effects department for the show.On June 29, and July 3, 2018, Showtime released two short videos promoting a series set to premiere on July 15, 2018. The videos claimed that the network could not yet reveal the title of the series, its premise, or who it was that created it due to a non-disclosure agreement. Over the following days, early speculation among various news sources pinpointed comedian Kathy Griffin as being the possible star of the new series. On July 5, 2018, following the release of a mysterious video from Sacha Baron Cohen on his Twitter account the previous day, it began to be reported that the series would actually star Baron Cohen and that it would resemble his previous series Da Ali G Show.
On July 9, 2018, it was announced that Showtime had given the production a series order for a first season consisting of seven episodes and that it was set to premiere on July 15, 2018. The series was created by Baron Cohen who was also set to executive produce alongside Anthony Hines, Todd Schulman, Andrew Newman, Dan Mazer, and Adam Lowitt. On August 26, 2018, Baron Cohen suggested in a tweet from his official Twitter account that the show would not return for a second season. The following day, Showtime confirmed that the series had ended. However, on the subsequent day further reports indicated that Showtime had not formally canceled the series and still maintained a desire to produce more. By December 19, 2018, Baron Cohen was again reiterating in multiple interviews that the series would not return for a second season citing the loss of the element of surprise and inability to dupe potential guests following all of the press the series had received since it premiered. However, those same articles noted that Showtime had yet to formally end the series.
Filming
To gauge how strong Baron Cohen's disguises would need to be, a test interview was shot in February 2017 at the Warrior One Guns & Ammo gun shop in Riverside, California. For this interview Baron Cohen simply wore a beard, hat and glasses for his disguise. The store owner was reportedly told by the show's crew that they were filming a documentary about a Hungarian immigrant wanting to buy a gun. However, when Baron Cohen entered the store dressed in character, the store owner immediately recognized him and said, "You're Borat!" After being identified, Baron Cohen walked out the front door. The experience from this interview made Baron Cohen realize he would need much more elaborate prosthetics in order to hide his identity. On August 3, 2017, Baron Cohen was reported to have been filming in Augusta, Georgia, in character as "Dr. Nira Cain" on the local The Austin Rhodes Show.In February 2018, Baron Cohen reportedly filmed a segment with O. J. Simpson in a hotel room in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was later reported that Baron Cohen's intention in the piece was to elicit a confession from Simpson regarding his alleged involvement in the 1994 murder of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman and he reportedly paid one of Simpson's lawyers to arrange a meeting. Simpson was told that Baron Cohen, in disguise as his Gio Monaldo character, was a middleman for a sheikh. Simpson was reportedly further told that this sheikh was willing to pay a seven-figure sum to have him explain what happened on the night of the murders but only after first sitting down with Monaldo. The interview was one of a handful of segments filmed with hidden cameras.
Baron Cohen later revealed in an interview with Deadline Hollywood, that the series had almost secured an interview with U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson. Baron Cohen and the crew of the series had been in Washington, D.C. for three weeks filming with various political figures including Bernie Sanders when they approached Carson and his staff with an interview request. Following Carson's agreement to be interviewed, a room at the Mandarin Oriental hotel was booked for filming. Baron Cohen arrived at the hotel room in character as the OMGWhizzBoyOMG character and made it past Carson's Secret Service detail. However upon Baron Cohen's arrival and right as filming was set to begin, a White House press representative became suspicious and proceeded to pull Carson out of the interview. In the same interview, Cohen claimed that, while in-character as Gio during filming at the Las Vegas hotel, he falsely told a concierge that he had molested an eight-year-old boy, to which the concierge reportedly responded by advising Gio on methods of covering up the assault and getting in touch with other children for sexual purposes. According to Cohen, the purpose of the child molestation claim was to investigate how powerful individuals such as Harvey Weinstein are able to thoroughly cover up long histories of sexual misconduct, in light of the ongoing Me Too movement. Cohen claims that the interview footage was cut from the show for being "too unsettling for the audience" and was instead turned over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, only for the bureau to decline investigating further.