This column comes with a pre-emptive apology, as perhaps most of mine should, for using language inappropriate to a family newspaper, creating images in the reader’s mind that may be unwelcome at the breakfast table, or indeed anywhere else, and for doing so repeatedly, paragraph after paragraph, from start to finish, until you are dulled to the word, bored, sad and not even remotely amused. But I’m going to do it anyway.
Probably because I’m an asshole. Much like Sacha Baron Cohen is an asshole. Although unlike Sacha, I labour under no illusions about my assholeishness and am fully resigned to my status. Sacha, on the other hand, is so sure that he is not an asshole that his “representatives” have been trying to stop publication of a memoir by the Australian actress Rebel Wilson in which she claims that he is one. It’s classic Hollywood. Just the sort of classy bantz Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn got up to.
Indeed, Wilson claims that Baron Cohen is more than just an asshole. She claims he is a “massive asshole”. Which, to be fair, is no laughing matter. I think I am right in saying I am widely perceived only as “a bit of an arsehole” (to anglicise the trope) due mainly to wearing silly costumes on television and adopting mad positions in print because all the sane positions are already taken.
But, on the plus side, Wilson has not gone so far as to call Sacha a “total asshole”, which sits at the far right of the assholeishness spectrum, alongside both “complete” and “utter” asshole — and, indeed, “complete and utter asshole” — and is a very serious accusation indeed.
This story has perhaps gained the traction it has because of Wilson’s initial decision not to name Baron Cohen, but merely to reveal that her forthcoming memoir would contain tales of “an asshole” with whom she once worked, followed by the later revelation that “now the asshole is trying to threaten me … He’s hired lawyers … but the book WILL come out”, before finally revealing: “The asshole that I am talking about in one chapter of my book is: Sacha Baron Cohen.”
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I mean, gosh, it’s almost as if Wilson has identified that memoirs by actresses in which they make egregious accusations against men in the industry sell better than ones that don’t and then decided to implement the textbook “three-stage reveal” from the PR manuals about how to set up such an accusation for maximum impact and sales.
Obviously, post MeToo, it is accusations of serious sexual misconduct and bullying that sell best and, of course, some awful behaviour has been exposed and some monsters have been taken down. And hurrah for the brave women who bravely came forward and all that. But, in the absence of such behaviour from Baron Cohen, Wilson has just gone with a general “asshole” accusation and hoped it will do to get the booksellers drooling and stimulate those all-important pre-orders.
Alas, she seems to have based all her allegations of assholery merely upon Sacha’s having asked her to do things for a role in a film called Grimsby that involved the partial nudity, silly outfits and comedic sex-adjacent posturing that are the very cornerstones of his entire oeuvre. Nudity, silly outfits and sex-adjacent japery are what he thinks is funny. Because as well as being tall, handsome and unquestionably a genius, Sacha Baron Cohen is one of the world’s biggest assholes. Which is why all his characters are assholes.
Ali G is an asshole. He is a white man who pretends to be black and looks, talks and acts, like an asshole. That is the whole premise. That is all it is. And millions thought it was hilarious. Millions of assholes.
Then came Borat, another asshole. A sort of racist Mr Bean who could only have been conceived by a fellow asshole. Whole countries, most notably Kazakhstan, were furious about Borat but Sacha, being an asshole, didn’t care. Other assholes such as Brüno, the gay Austrian fashion journalist, and the hilarious “embarrassing sibling” protagonist of Grimsby, failed to register. For even assholery has its limits.
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What did Rebel Wilson think she was getting into? An art movie? A serious film? It’s worse than assholes you get making those. It’s people like Roman Polanski. So Sacha asked her to take some clothes off and the script had a finger-up-the-bum scene. Had she seen Borat? It’s Sacha in a “mankini” with his balls up round his ears and a naked man sitting on his face for an hour and a half. No point signing up for a Baron Cohen movie and expecting Some Like it Hot.
What I don’t understand is why he would fight the allegations. All creative geniuses are assholes. It is the sine qua non. For showbusiness requires, above all, 100 per cent faith in one’s own talent and a refusal to compromise. Which are the exclusives preserve of the asshole.
Why did Will Smith punch that bloke at the Oscars? Why did Louis CK and John Barrowman repeatedly expose themselves on set? For the same reason they do the job in the first place. Because they’re assholes.
Why did Jeremy Clarkson go tonto over a cheese plate or write that thing about Meghan? For the same reason that he is Britain’s most sought-after columnist and only genuinely original TV presenter. Because he’s … well, he’s a colleague so I won’t actually say it. But I’m sure he wouldn’t deny it.
Without assholes, there would be no civilisation. Why did Churchill stand alone against the Nazis when every other leader had given up? Because he was an asshole. No one but a total asshole could have thought victory was possible from where he started. Alas, being an asshole, he also thought some rum things about Indians. It’s the price you pay. Who was the greatest novelist of the 20th century? For my money, Ernest Hemingway, no question. Serially unfaithful, a slaughterer of beautiful animals, a drunkard, a liar, a brawler and a total asshole. Shakespeare? Left his wife and family in Stratford to go shagging his way round London in tights. Asshole. Charles Dickens, Philip Larkin, Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, VS Naipaul, Martin Amis … assholes. Musk and Bezos? Assholes. JFK? Asshole. All stand-up comedians? Assholes. Sigmund Freud? Asshole.
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And, of course, all Australians, from Russell Crowe to Shane Warne via Sir Les Patterson and Crocodile Dundee, are assholes. Assholery is what made Australia great. Which makes it so strange that Rebel Wilson should make such a thing of it.
Cancel the rapists by all means. Cancel the sexists and the racists and the bullies and the kiddy-fiddlers. But the assholes? Cancel the assholes and you cancel all the world.
Listen to Giles discussing his columns on his podcast, Giles Coren Has No Idea
