It’s taken only two weeks, but Sacha Baron Cohen has claimed his first victim on his new show Who Is America? by forcing Georgia politician Jason Spencer to resign out of sheer embarrassment.
In the latest episode of the satirical mockumentary series, Cohen (rocking some prosthetics and a thick Israeli accent) dons his new anti-terrorism expert alter-ego Erran Morad and meets with Spencer for a demonstration on how to detect terrorists.
Not gonna lie, the prosthetics may look shoddy, but Cohen does a damn good job selling the character.
Cohen was certainly convincing enough to dupe Spencer because the actor managed to convince the politician to partake in a series of seriously offensive “training exercises” designed to “combat” terrorists.
First Cohen tricks Spencer into screaming “n****r” loudly as a method to “distract” terrorists. Then he somehow manages to up the ante even further by getting the politician to drop his pants and “to use your buttocks to intimidate ISIS”, all while yelling out “America” because that makes things just that little bit more intimidating.
It is all more ridiculous than it sounds and even more ridiculous when you see it happen before your very eyes.
After his “anti-terrorist” bit on Who Is America? aired, Spencer was inundated with calls to resign. Whether it was because it was the right thing to do or because he realised that screaming “n****r” and dacking yourself on camera isn’t particularly good for a politician’s career, Spencer announced that he will resign effective from July 31.
Given how Spencer quickly blamed Cohen for taking “advantage of [his] paralyzing fear that [his] family would be attacked”, and his history of being a pretty horrible racist, there definitely shouldn’t be any sympathy for the guy’s resignation so let’s enjoy the sight of him being a pants-less jackass on-camera over and over again.
While it is gratifying to finally see an American politician own up to his horrible actions, Spencer’s antics and resignation also shows just how far the line must be pushed before proper consequences finally happen.
Whereas Spencer’s antics were ridiculous and funny with just a dash of discomfort, last week’s episode of Who Is America? in which a number of politicians supported Cohen’s (fake) proposal to arm children aged three to 16 in order to prevent school shootings was just downright shocking.
Despite some chatter over the disturbing amount of positive reception towards Cohen’s crazy proposal, the buzz disappeared nearly as quickly as it came and all the gun-loving politicians escaped with nary a slap in the face or an on-camera self-dacking.
When we live in world where it is perfectly fine to advocate the arming of children with guns but dacking yourself while yelling racial slurs is a HR no-no, we definitely need a serious rethink on what the hell is going on around us.