So You’ve Been Publicly Humiliated

“In the eye of a hurricane / There is quiet / For just a moment / A yellow sky”

⁠— Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hurricane (Hamilton, 2015)

When I first started this project, I was mostly interested in the rhetorical processes behind how Sacha Baron Cohen was rhetorically fooling people to reveal the depths of their personalities. Through exploring the show, it became apparent to me that the ramifications of revealing who we are to mass audiences are complex in physiological, sociological, and psychological ways. I mean, sure, I’m not out here trying to arm kids with guns, but how am I or any of us supposed to react when we expose vulnerable sides of ourselves and make people cringe? 

My parents can tell you that the making of this project was difficult for me because I felt like every time I sat down to work on it I was spending an incredible amount of time feeling that I had to take in everything I was learning all at once. I felt that I needed to live up to false expectations of some fake moral code I created. I thought to myself, “I would never be convinced to dress in a bikini with a hazmat suit to support some fake charity...would I?” I have always been one of those people who overthinks my relationship to pop culture and the systematic influence that it has on some people. For example, when I was a teenager, I read this book by Chuck Klosterman called Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (2003) strictly because Seth Cohen (Adam Brody) on the show The O. C. read it. Readers can dissect the psychological issues of that anecdote on their own time, but I bring this book up because Klosterman writes a passage that really fits with the turmoil of trying to negotiate our virtues: 

Though I obviously have no proof of this, the one aspect of life that seems clear to me is that good people do whatever they believe is the right thing to do. Being virtuous is hard, not easy. The idea of doing good things simply because you're good seems like a zero-sum game; I'm not even sure those actions would still qualify as “good,” since they'd merely be a function of normal behavior. Regardless of what kind of god you believe in⁠—a loving god, a vengeful god, a capricious god, a snooty beret-wearing French god, or whatever⁠—one has to assume that you can't be penalized for doing the things you believe to be truly righteous and just. Certainly, this creates some pretty glaring problems: Hitler may have thought he was serving God. Stalin may have thought he was serving God (or something vaguely similar). I'm certain Osama bin Laden was positive he was serving God. It's not hard to fathom that all of those maniacs were certain that what they were doing was right. Meanwhile, I constantly do things that I know are wrong; they're not on the same scale as incinerating Jews or blowing up skyscrapers, but my motivations might be worse. I have looked directly into the eyes of a woman I loved and told her lies for no reason, except that those lies would allow me to continue having sex with another woman I cared about less. This act did not kill 20 million Russian peasants, but it might be more “diabolical” in a literal sense. If I died and found out I was going to hell and Stalin was in heaven, I would note the irony, but I couldn't complain. I don't make the fucking rules.

I wanted to include Klosterman’s commentary, here, because he is right. None of us make the rules, but we decide how our own rules operate. We may find that our judgments of others are often determined by our impressions of their intention. In other sections, I’ve discussed how “terministic screens” (the influences in our lives that have determined how we see the world) frame our moral compass. They also frame how we determine morality within others. In the passage, Klosterman points to the intimacy of how shame intertwines with our individual ideas of morality. In his work, A Grammar of Motives (1945), Kenneth Burke notes a thought that I suggest we can tie into Klosterman’s assessment: 

So universally felt is the Grammatical principle behind the defining of essence in terms of death, or tragic end, that in our pseudoscientific days, when the cult of questionnaires has developed its own peculiar function, perhaps one might come closer to an accurate classifying of "personality types'' if he worked out a system of "tragic" categories. Surely, for instance, the person who chooses to end his life by violence thereby distinguishes himself from those late Romans who preferred cutting their veins and bleeding to death in a warm bath. 

Burke says essentially the same thought as Klosterman (irony of deadly endings included), but adds that our personalities influence how we determine a spectrum of categorical shame. Our personalities are intimately connected with our terministic screens meaning that no one is going to have the same spectrum or even the same categories of shame. In my section of this project called “The Anecdote,” I suggest that comedy, in definition, exists in opposition to tragedy. This opposition is magnetic in structure because, as humans, we cannot negotiate tragedy without comedy and vise versa. This magnetism is indicative of the consubstantiation between tragedy and comedy. I state this confidently because beyond anyone’s rhetorical intentions, we cannot know the experience of true comedy or true tragedy without having lived experiences. 

Humiliation intimately connects to these experiences when the comedic anecdote fails to reflect how we see ourselves and when the tragic anecdote is a result of our own actions. How we cope with humiliation demonstrates how we understand shame by allowing us to locate ourselves on our own spectrums of shame and determine what we must do in order to move on. 

We might recognize how our individually restricted “shame guides” clearly separates the actions of Corinne Olympios (posing for charity) from the actions of Jason Spencer (screaming derogations). Olympios had pretty solid pragmatic intentions based on the information she had at hand. Yes, there were ulterior motives involved for her. The intent to pose for charity provides an easy way to maintain relevance in Olympios’ world of social media. Still, the idea that other people would be inspired to then also sponsor a charity is rather compelling. Alternatively, Spencer revealed that he is motivated by hatred and xenophobia. Would Olympios have screamed derogatory terms for charity? Who’s to say? Again, none of us make the rules, and readers are welcome to disagree with me. 

It seems to me that a lack of questioning motives is where Baron Cohen’s guests are caught being the most exposed. Subsequently, when audiences lack understanding of the guests motives we expose ourselves by the guests we choose to defend and the ones who we appreciated witnessing suffer. These rationalizations may occur solely internalized within ourselves, but they nevertheless occur. When we take the time to reflect on why we rationalize an anecdote in a particular way, we may be better able to address our own vulnerabilities and biases. 

Vulnerability drives Baron Cohen’s work because these moments of realness separate his reality television from traditional reality television. Instead of the guilty pleasure we may usually lean towards when we watch reality television for the drama, Baron Cohen’s show might make us feel actual guilt—an intense lack of pleasure. I would suggest this guilt is somewhat collective of viewers because we see people who we believe should not be falling for his performances. Baron Cohen’s victims often reveal that they have little to no perception of the hegemonic power structures Beth Bonstetter names when she cites the dynamics we need to grasp in order to even find comedy in satire. I dare to say that much of the guilt we might experience when we watch Who is America? comes from knowing that many of Baron Cohen’s guests failed at humanity. We might feel like we missed a way to help them not fail. Then again, how do we know anyone is who they say they are unless we witness their moments of vulnerability? In her work, Bonstetter refers to Kenneth Burke to discuss how the names we ascribe to situations determines the way we frame them, she states:

 In Attitudes toward History, Burke explains that in order to cope with the injustices of life, humans define and name their relationships with “‘the human situation’” as “friendly or unfriendly” and then prepare themselves either “to welcome them” or “to decide how far [they] can effectively go in combating them.” Naming these relationships has consequences, however. Names “suggest how you shall be for or against” certain situations. “Call a man a villain,” says Burke, “and you have the choice of either attacking or cringing. Call him mistaken, and you invite yourself to attempt setting him right.” How people define situations also defines how they react to them. Burke calls this naming “frames of acceptance” and “frames of rejection.”

We have to remember that we are all constantly approaching different scenarios with different terministic screens. While Burke’s acknowledgement that we define situations is important to how we interpret the reactions of Baron Cohen’s guests, I find a certain injustice within Burke’s absolution of villainy. Most of Baron Cohen’s victims probably see him as the villain. Likewise, who are we to say that we believe in any of the presidential nominees when all we witness are television personalities. We might read their strategies and observe their resumes, but Baron Cohen blatantly teaches us that appearances are deceiving. For all I know, we may all be the villain in someone else’s story. Perhaps here is where we might shift to understanding how we define situations and react to them—restructure Burke’s frames that we innately rely on for making deductions of others. For instance, I would make a fabulous villain, I would kill at that role (someone please cast me on Survivor).

 Alternatively, it may not be ideal for particular personalities to justify their roles in certain situations. I think we can/should all agree that there is no justification for a white man in a significant position of power to repeatedly yell the “n-word” as a way of diverting terrorists. I cannot even begin to wrap my head around how Jason Spencer justifies those actions with himself. How do we set him right, Kenneth Burke? Force him to resign? Sure, but is there any real lesson there? I absolutely think he should not continue to hold a political position, but how do we actually show him what he did was wrong, and how do we convince his supporters who continue to justify his actions. I suppose a start lies in the preservation of Who is America?’s medium. Anytime Spencer tries to make a comeback, we will always have the ammunition to take him down because the preservation of his performance is also the preservation of his corruptness. Then again, the only reason this ammunition continues to exist is because Spencer refuses to take responsibility. 

While shame has the power to manifest itself within us, I would suggest that ignominy has the power to perpetuate this shame into self destruction. Sometimes, it may be a good idea to reevaluate certain parts of ourselves, but when our shame is exposed, the pressure to publicly compensate can be harrowing. In undertaking this project, I read a book by Jon Ronson called So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed (2015). While Ronson has many thoughtful comments regarding shame throughout the book, he has a particular passage regarding the resurgence of public shaming that alludes to a new wave of call-out culture. Ronson states: 

We were at the start of a great renaissance of public shaming. After a lull of almost 180 years (public punishments were phased out in 1837 in the United Kingdom and in 1839 in the United States), it was back in a big way. When we deployed shame, we were utilizing an immensely powerful tool. It was coercive, borderless, and increasing in speed and influence. Hierarchies were being leveled out. The silenced were getting a voice. It was like the democratization of justice. 

Historically, limited accessibility meant that societies were restrained in exposing their grievances with others. With social media’s domination of western culture, now no one is off-limits. Following the aftermath of his appearance on Who is America?, Jason Spencer turned to Twitter to respond to his performance: 

I was told I would be filmed as a “demonstration video” to teach others the same skills in Israel. Sacha and his crew further lied to me, stating that I would be able to review and have final approval over any footage used. I deeply regret the language I used at his request as well as my participation in the “class” in general. If I had not been so distracted by my fears, I never would have agreed to participate in the first place. I apologize to my family, friends, and the people of my district for this ridiculously ugly episode.

It seems odd to me that Spencer apologizes to everyone except those he actually offended. When saving face is no longer an option, it seems to me that Spencer had every opportunity to actually offer amends to those his actions offended. The communities he offended deserved better. 

Who is America? calls for us to question our “shame guides” as we shift them to fit who we want to hold accountable. Whereas Spencer’s blatant xenophobia calls for a more intentional apology, but we may consider whether Olympios needs to make amends for falling for a schtick that had her call on people to sponsor child soldiers.. I would suggest that it is fair for us to hold a politician who chooses to represent constituents to a higher degree than a reality star. Maybe some of my readers disagree, but that points to how our different terministic screens led us to these separate conclusions. Ultimately, when we leave the hurt we have caused with our language unacknowledged and unaddressed, we perpetuate ignorance. So while none of us may make the rules, we may agree that as long as the element of accountability exists, we owe it the betterment of ourselves and each other to learn from our humiliation and reflect on what we need to change to avoid perpetuating ignorance. 

Spencer’s tweet sheds light on the connections between humiliation, shame, and apologies.  In his book, Ronson observes: “An apology is supposed to be a communion—a coming together. For someone to make an apology, someone has to be listening. They listen and you speak and there’s an exchange. That’s why we have a thing about accepting apologies.” Spencer asked forgiveness from the wrong people. His assessment of his wrong doing is repeatedly blamed on Who is America?, and he lacks ownership over his shame. I keep using this word “shame” generally with a slight acknowledgement that we all have our own understanding of what shame means. However, I want to point to Ronson’s observations of shame: “It may be somewhat paradoxical to refer to shame as a ‘feeling’, for while shame is initially painful, constant shaming leads to a deadening of feeling. Shame, like cold, is, in essence, the absence of warmth. And when it reaches overwhelming intensity, shame is experienced, like cold, as a feeling of numbness and deadness.” Many of us have felt this experience of shame before, and we identify this reference of shame with our own terministic screening of the feeling. I would suggest that how we determine forgiveness involves knowing that the individual felt shame and is seeking forgiveness for their wrongdoing, not just to release themselves from the physiological and psychological burdens of shame.   

I bring these assessments to a close by referring once more to Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. Klosterman states: “Life is rarely about what happened; it’s mostly about what we think happened.” When we think that we messed up to the point that we feel shame, we have to acknowledge that feeling not only with ourselves but to those who we want to see us for who we really are. What I mean to say is that we don’t have to make amends with the whole world when we mess up. In fact, a tweet is probably the worst way I can think of apologizing to someone or a group of people. Sometimes, words may not even be what we need in response to our shame. Sometimes, we have to take action. 

American Politics often stir an inclination towards toxic individualism. This toxicity can be overcome by simply demonstrating a compassion for other people. We have to put the work in whether it is monetary contributions, activism, volunteering, or creating a whole television show exposing the toxicity within others so that they can be aware of their shortcomings. Of course, I’m joking about that last one, but holding people accountable IS the first step towards addressing what we should be ashamed of and acknowledging the personal changes we can make to do better. The perpetuity of Baron Cohen’s Who is America? is indicative of Baron Cohen’s thoughtful performances. The show’s existence will continue to hold many of its victims accountable.