Culture

“What The Fuck Do You Need?”: Aziz Ansari’s Video About Voting May Be The Best One Ever Made

"There's a fucking guy running who says he hates brown people? That's not enough?"

by Meg Watson  19 October 2016

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Calling on celebrities to snag the millennial vote is a tried and true tactic of any election. Though the people involved are very likely passionate about the politics or issues raised, it 100 percent was not their idea to rep consititutional democracy through the guise of a superhero movie plot or dance in their underwear and slip some #realtalk reproductive rights in-between the choruses of a Lil Jon song.

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With practically every American celebrity aside from Scott Baio publicly disavowing Donald Trump and Broad City sidling up to Hillary Clinton as far back as March, the US presidential election campaign has had more of this than usual. And now, just three weeks out from polling day, Aziz Ansari has thrown in a new contribution with a video made for climate activism group NextGen Climate.

“I’m here because apparently there’s someone on the fence about voting, and they’re going to see me telling them to vote and then they’re gonna be like ‘okay, I guess I’ll vote’,” he says while throwing his arms around. “What the fuck do you need? How many celebrities have made these stupid fucking videos? Robert Downey Jr made one. DiCaprio made one. Jennifer Lawrence is in one. These people are way more famous then me, why do you need me?”

Saying that his opinion shouldn’t even really matter, Ansari continues pulling out specific reasons people shouldn’t need a viral clip to decide on this thing. “There’s a fucking guy running who says he hates brown people? That’s not enough? He doesn’t believe in climate change! Do you realise how dumb you have to be at this point to not believe in climate change?”

“Go vote, please. I did my stupid viral video, bye.”

This actually isn’t the first time Ansari has entered public debate about the election. Back in June he wrote a really beautiful opinion piece for The New York Times titled ‘Why Trump Makes Me Scared For My Family’. Speaking as the son of Muslim immigrants, Ansari recalled the vitriol he faced in the wake of the September 11 attacks and reflected on how this has changed (perhaps for the worse) in the years since.

“Today, with the presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and others like him spewing hate speech, prejudice is reaching new levels,” he wrote. “It’s visceral, and scary, and it affects how people live, work and pray. It makes me afraid for my family. It also makes no sense…”

“He has said that people in the American Muslim community “know who the bad ones are,” implying that millions of innocent people are somehow complicit in awful attacks. Not only is this wrongheaded; but it also does nothing to address the real problems posed by terrorist attacks. By Mr. Trump’s logic, after the huge financial crisis of 2007-08, the best way to protect the American economy would have been to ban white males.”

Ansari recalled asking his mother to pray at home and avoid mosques in the days after the Orlando shooting.

It’s not as funny as the video, but it’s just as deserving to be shared.