OPINION:
The left likes to play both sides. Especially leftist actors and comedians who get to play tough guys with guns or act out ‘racist’ roles while accusing others of racism in real life. Far too often they get away with the perceived hypocrisy because they are leftists and often donate to or endorse Democrats.
Many go a step further and bash Republicans such as President Trump or prank Trump ally Rudy Giuliani like actor Sacha Baron Cohen recently did. In a video clip that is reported to be part of his new film, Rudy Giuliani was made to look like one of those guys who got busted by Chris Hansen on an old Dateline episode.
This was apparently not the actual context at all. It appears more like Giuliani was in an embarrassing situation where he did nothing illegal and immediately left and called the police in reality though. He recently tweeted out his defense of the situation as you can read in the tweet thread below, saying it was a complete fabrication.
(2) In fact, the NY Post today reports “it looks to me like an exaggeration through editing.”
— Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) October 21, 2020
As soon as I realized it was a set up I called the police, which has been noted in THR article on July 8th.
(4) We are preparing much bigger dumps off of the hard drive from hell, of which Joe Biden will be unable to defend or hide from. I have the receipts.
— Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) October 21, 2020
Cohen has been known to play dark roles in movies and push the envelope, and we are not actually against thinking outside the box when it comes to comedy. The thing to note here is the apparent hypocrisy. Currently the left wing media is hailing Cohen as a liberal hero as he is trying to hurt Rudy Giulilani’s image amid a re-election where Giuliani has been at the forefront of exposing Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s alleged laptop.
But is Cohen truly the liberal hero they deserve? Sacha Baron Cohen’s humor in the past has not been ok to the left-leaning community. Some have even accused him of pushing anti-Arab stereotypes in his movie ‘The Dictator’ from 2012. He also acted out a scene where he says as the character he is playing to another person in the film “the darker races are less choosy”. According to Exclaim.ca:
Beyond this, the greatest thing about Cohen’s latest work is how casual it is with offending various social mores. In responding to Zoe’s claim of not being racist because she hasn’t dated a white man since college, Aladeen states, “Yes, the darker races tend to be less choosy.” He also mocks her extensive education, stating, “I like it when women get an education. It’s like seeing a monkey on roller skates. They have no idea what’s going on, but we find it really entertaining.”
Left leaning outlet “The Wrap” actually questioned if it was ok for him to make certain stereotyping jokes and other apparently offensive jokes back in 2012, but they are now praising him, yes the same website, for bashing people with his pranks including Giuliani. So, “The Wrap”, is he a liberal hero, or an anti-Arab racist? We can’t seem to figure it out.
“The Wrap,” wrote an extensive ‘offended’ piece in 2012 about Cohen’s movie ‘The Dictator’ saying in part:
“Arabs are being ridiculed again and again and again,” Jack Shaheen, author of “Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs After 9/11,” told TheWrap. “It’s unending and has been going on for nearly a century. [Baron Cohen] just advances the idea that it’s perfectly acceptable to ridicule Arabs in film.”
Shaheen has written extensively on the depiction of Arabs in Hollywood and the fact that movies tend to depict them as nefarious, dirty or moronic. In his book, “Reel Arabs,” he chronicles hundreds of movies with such portrayals.
Particularly troubling to the author and professor in this instance is the timing. Baron Cohen is mocking the idea of a dictator while similar leaders are slaughtering civilians on the other side of the globe.
The piece goes on and on with more more extensive detail.
Today “The Wrap” released a “report” with photos, appearing to be bragging about Cohen, and how many people he has ‘duped’, from “Donald Trump to Rudy Giuliani” on the heels of the Giuliani/Cohen news.
Since the announcement of Sacha Baron Cohen’s new Showtime series, “Who Is America?” several politicians, including Sarah Palin and Joe Walsh, have said that they were tricked into talking on-camera with the actor’s many aliases. They aren’t alone, as many other public figures have been deceived by Baron Cohen into appearing in (sometimes unflattering, but always uncomfortable) onscreen moments.
Nothing about his anti-Arab stuff in today’s report though. I guess since his fame is outweighing the negativity he received from the left back then, it doesn’t really matter anymore. This begs the question, did they ever care to begin with? Many other outlets questioned his possible ‘racism’ or racist tropes back in the day, including The Guardian, Foreign Policy.com, Haaretz.com, Hurriyet daily news, and many others.
With our story here, we are but scratching the surface, but it isn’t our point to note every single thing Cohen has done that may or may not be offensive to various members of different minority communities as much as it is to point out the left-wing hypocrisy. It’s almost as if they use their rules to push their power grabs more than they care about the rules themselves.
This doesn’t change the fact that often many people get “doxxed” or fired from their jobs for saying the wrong thing or being taken out of context due to cancel culture these days, even people who don’t consider themselves “racist”, some even Democrats. The culture’s after-effects don’t seem to concern too many people as long as they themselves get to continue climbing the virtue-signaling lighthouse.
The only real moral here is not that there will be any accountability but that we can’t take Hollywood at face value, or any other icon who tries to bow to the rage mob of politically correct ‘police’ when it serves their good. Then they get to ignore it when it doesn’t unless it’s absolutely impossible to ignore.
