The 2020 Golden Globes were held on Sunday night, combining the latest in movie and TV in a slew of unexpected and unique ways. Amongst the glitz and glamour, there were quite a lot of references to politics and current events — including a pretty memorable one from Sacha Baron Cohen. Midway through the event, Cohen introduced a clip from Jojo Rabbit, which was among the nominees for Best Musical or Comedy in the event. The WWII-set satire, which was written and directed by Taika Waititi, prompted the following joke from Cohen.
“The hero of this next movie is a naive, misguided child who spreads Nazi propaganda and only has imaginary friends,” Cohen explained. “His name is Mark Zuckerberg. Sorry, this is an old intro for The Social Network.”
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Sacha Baron Cohen, for the win pic.twitter.com/xJXUOOoTU1
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) January 6, 2020
This certainly isn’t the first time that Cohen has spoken out about Zuckerberg, the controversial founder of Facebook. In November, Cohen referred to Facebook as the “greatest propaganda machine in history” during a speech to the Anti-Defamation League.
“I’m just a comedian and an actor, not a scholar,” Cohen said during the speech. “But one thing is pretty clear to me. All this hate and violence is being facilitated by a handful of internet companies that amount to the greatest propaganda machine in history. The greatest propaganda machine in history.”
“Think about it. Facebook, YouTube and Google, Twitter and others – they reach billions of people. The algorithms these platforms depend on deliberately amplify the type of content that keeps users engaged – stories that appeal to our baser instincts and that trigger outrage and fear. It’s why YouTube recommended videos by the conspiracist Alex Jones billions of times. It’s why fake news outperforms real news, because studies show that lies spread faster than truth. And it’s no surprise that the greatest propaganda machine in history has spread the oldest conspiracy theory in history – the lie that Jews are somehow dangerous. As one headline put it, “Just Think What Goebbels Could Have Done with Facebook.” On the internet, everything can appear equally legitimate. Breitbart resembles the BBC. The fictitious Protocols of the Elders of Zion look as valid as an ADL report. And the rantings of a lunatic seem as credible as the findings of a Nobel prize winner. We have lost, it seems, a shared sense of the basic facts upon which democracy depends.”
The joke about Zuckerberg feels weirdly fitting for Jojo Rabbit‘s introduction, as the satire deals with antisemitism and racism through a darkly comedic lens. The film, which sees Waititi playing a young boy’s imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler, brought some interesting challenges during filming.
“I felt weird about it,” Waititi shared last year. “Even though the character in my film is not evil — he’s got a 10-year-old’s brain because he comes out of Jojo’s head — there’s elements to him that are shared with the actual guy.”
What do you think of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Jojo Rabbit-themed jab at Facebook? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
