Bunga Bunga

Sexism, authoritarianism, and the fragile egos of powerful men have never sounded as hilarious as they do in  Bunga Bunga , a story about Italy’s infamous former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. A real-estate developer, he gained notoriety through his TV career and lives in a cartoonishly large mansion. He has ties to beauty pageants and showgirls. His wife calls him mentally ill after learning of his reported affair with an 18-year-old who calls him “daddy” (which Berlusconi denied at the time). But the host, comedian Whitney Cummings, makes light of the obscenity without becoming tone-deaf.  Bunga Bunga  focuses on absurdity over abuse, the laughable over the sorrowful. The title itself is the punch line to one of Berlusconi’s nasty jokes and a shorthand that the show takes time to explain, so we won’t spoil it here. Cummings offers listeners a total escape from reality that also leaves them with a new take on, well, reality—specifically a surreal lens through which to view President Donald Trump’s many similarities to Berlusconi.  Bunga Bunga ’s fun and buoyant tone pairs surprisingly well with a story about corruption, showing that even in dark waters, we can stay afloat—and laugh about it, too.