Sacha Baron Cohen's "Kinder-Guardians" segment was horrible and skin-crawling, but it likely won't have an impact

Vulture

Who Is America?'s segment on preschoolers using guns was unquestionably distinct from the rest of the episode, says Kathryn VanArendonk. At that moment, she says, "the show suddenly feels barbed and bracing in a stomach-twisting way. It taps into an undercurrent of not just idiocy, but indictment. Not just shock, but real threat. It almost feels like a protest. Except it also raises the same questions as every other comedy that gets lauded for 'destroying' or 'eviscerating' or 'crushing' its target. If Baron Cohen’s goal with the Kinder-Guardians segment is portraying a specific, harmful, outrageous stupidity, then … so what? We already live in a world where the idea of giving guns to preschool teachers is apparently debatable. Is giving the gun to the kids actually absurd enough to shake up popular opinion? Does Baron Cohen’s comedic reach have more cultural sway than John Oliver or Jimmy Kimmel? Is that even the intent? Whatever else Who Is America? may be doing, it’s also proving a potentially inadvertent point: The distance between Baron Cohen’s shock comedy and the world we live in has gotten much smaller since the last time he put on a mustache and traipsed around the country."

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