It’s impossible to know without having had it happen to you just how far along with it you’d go if you were the subject of a Who Is America?-style set-up. There’s stuff happening behind the scenes we don’t see. It’s hard to tell when you’re inside something just how bad it will look from the outside. People will go along with stuff out of politeness for a ridiculous amount of time before calling bullshit on it.
I would imagine, though, that there are probably some hard limits to what most normal people would do. Republican representative for the state of Georgia Jason Spencer does not appear to be a normal man.
[jwplayer wdPM27I5]
The second episode of Sacha Baron Cohen’s attempt at making American far-right conservatism look bad (not a hugely difficult task) aired this weekend and somehow it keeps getting even more ridiculous. This week we saw Spencer screaming the n-word and chasing Sacha Baron Cohen with his bare ass while screaming “USA!“. Perfectly normal stuff.
“If you want to win, show some skin.” – #ErranMorad #JasonSpencer #WhoIsAmerica #Showtime pic.twitter.com/2k3Q88nG2N
— Who Is America? on Showtime (@SHOwhoisAmerica) July 23, 2018
In a not-particularly-convincing disguise as terrorism expert Erran Morad, Baron Cohen enlisted the help of Spencer to create a (fake, obvs) anti-terrorism instructional video for elected officials.
https://twitter.com/Ike_Saul/status/1021223023687413760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1021223023687413760&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fentry%2Frep-jason-spencer-screams-n-word-brandishes-bare-butt-on-who-is-america_us_5b5545b1e4b0de86f48e5a5e
Although it is absolutely baffling that Spencer would go along with this, you could argue that both of these were at the best of Baron Cohen. Spencer’s attempt to disguise himself as a Chinese tourist is all on him, however. This disguise solely consisted of Spencer adopting a hugely racist accent and nonsensically speaking to himself with such convincingly Chinese phrases as “sushi”, “red dragon”, “Hong Kong”, “konnichiwa”, “chopsticks”, and “Ho Chi Minh City”. It is not a great look.
https://twitter.com/Ike_Saul/status/1021222573177270277
But, don’t worry, Spencer manages to redeem himself by the end: just kidding, not even close. A sequence after the credits shows Spencer brandishing a knife in front of a green screen and making some very racist threats to some terrorists:
All you damn sand-n*ggers over in the Middle East, we are tired of you coming to America and we are tired of you trying to threaten us. . . We will cut off your dick, you understand? We will take your dick and we will shove it in your mouth. How are you going to rape children and women without a dick?
Spencer had earlier issued a statement saying he would take legal action if the footage was aired:
https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/1018989298442559489
Who Is America? is streaming in Australia exclusively on Stan.
