A still image from the new “Borat” movie emerged Wednesday and showed Rudy Giuliani laying on a bed with his hand down his pants as an actress pretending to be a reporter and Borat’s daughter stood next to him.
The scene between President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and Maria Bakalova, a 24-year-old actress, sparked a fury among members of the media, quickly going viral. The Guardian dubbed it a “compromising scene,” New York Times opinion columnist Maureen Dowd tweeted that it is “beyond cringe” and Vanity Fair TV critic Sonia Saraiya wrote that the film “should end Rudy Giuliani’s career!”
“What is BORAT if not a coordinated misinformation campaign?” she tweeted. “Add a pretty woman and you’ve got, lit er all y, rudy with his hands in his pants.” (RELATED: Giuliani Made A Number Of Claims During His Daily Caller Interview. Here’s Where They Stand)
The film, including Giuliani’s scene, was released Friday on Amazon. Was the media being fair while describing the scene between Giuliani and the actress? You can decide for yourself:
WATCH:
Here’s the full Rudy Giuliani clip from Borat.
Judge for yourself…pic.twitter.com/CQHzI23GFb
— Rex Chapman???????? (@RexChapman) October 23, 2020
Following the Wednesday reports suggesting the scene was indecent and inappropriate, Giuliani tweeted his version of events and called it “a complete fabrication.” The former mayor of New York City suggested the photo showing him with his hand down his pants was taken out of context.
“The Borat video is a complete fabrication. I was tucking in my shirt after taking off the recording equipment,” Giuliani tweeted. “At no time before during, or after the interview was I ever inappropriate. If Sacha Baron Cohen implies otherwise he is a stone-cold liar.”
(3) This is an effort to blunt my relentless exposure of the criminality and depravity of Joe Biden and his entire family.
Deadline Hollywood reports CAA had a distribution screening in September where there was no mention of the scene holding any importance.
— Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) October 21, 2020
While many members of the media wrote that the scene was inappropriate, others pushed back. Ben Dreyfuss, an editorial director at Mother Jones, tweeted Wednesday that after seeing the incident, “though it is creepy for other reasons it is being described on twitter in a false way.”
“He does not have his hand down his pants in a sexual way. He is tucking his shirt back in after she untucks it removing his mic,” he wrote before adding that “there are parts of this scene that are creepy” but “the description of the ‘hand in the pants'” seemed unfair to him.
Journalist Megyn Kelly weighed in Friday after watching the full scene and called the media’s coverage “absurd.”
“I read all of the coverage yesterday thinking he was seen on cam pulling a Toobin,” she wrote, referring to a suspended New Yorker reporter who recently exposed himself on a Zoom call. “Now having watched it, it really does appear as if he was tucking in his shirt as he said. I get that many don’t like him-but this B.S. is just wrong.”
Now, viewers can decide for themselves: Did the media take the clip out of context, or did Giuliani get caught red-handed in a compromising situation?
