Who could have predicted it? Actually, I thought there might be trouble brewing in the gay community when as I read this line Sacha Baron Cohen delivered as Bruno, claiming that he wanted to “redress the wrong done to the gay community by that Hollywood movie on Harvey Milk which was acted by Sean Penn, who’s not even gay.” When Sacha brought Borat to film audiences, Kazakhstan formally protested the portrayal of the country in general, and of this fake Kazak in particular. Now, it seems like relatively small potatoes to mess with a poor, former Soviet-bloc country. Sacha’s Bruno has moved on to alienating a much more powerful group.
Page Six had a story up on Sunday about the start of some rumblings in Hollywood from some prominent Hollywood gays. Milk’s Oscar-winning screenwriter compared Bruno’s faux-gay act to a white person doing blackface – you knew someone was going to go there, might as well get out of the way fast. So far, a rep from GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) has only made one comment, no formal condemnation yet:
“BRUNO” is raising gays’ temperatures to the boiling point. Despite Universal Pictures’ claim that the movie lampoons homophobia, the Sacha Baron Cohen comedy, opening July 10, has activists up in arms.
“I thought I was going to throw up,” gay writer-director Mike White said after a screening, according to TheWrap.com.
At a recent gala honoring Oscar-winning “Milk” screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, some gays likened Cohen’s limp-wristed portrayal of a flamboyant Austrian fashion reporter to a white person in blackface.
A rep for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation told us, “It’s really a 90-minute series of sketches — some of which hit their mark, but some of which hit our community instead.”
[From Page Six]
I tend to think GLAAD understands that if they protest too loudly, they’ll just be giving added promotion to Bruno. The film hasn’t come out in America yet (release date July 10th) so I don’t know if it really is bad, or just on the edge of grossly funny and grossly offensive. I suspect Sacha’s Bruno is a send-up of much more than just being gay – he seems to be making fun of the fashionistas, the celebrity “it” culture, and hip-because-it’s-Euro thing. Maybe I’m wrong and it really is bad, though. I’ll wait to see it.
On an added Sacha Baron Cohen note, it looks like he and fiancé Isla Fisher has postponed their wedding yet again. Apparently, they were going to have a wedding after Sacha finished all of his promotional duties for Bruno, but Isla just signed on for a film in Ireland, and will be gone for months. This is like the tenth postponement – at some point, they’re just going to start telling people “We don’t need to get married, we’re fine as is.” And I really hope they are – because I worry that Sacha might be one difficult bastard to get down the aisle. I’m lighting a candle for Isla.
Sacha Baron Cohen is shown in front of the Brandenburg gate in Berlin yesterday. Credit: WENN.com and BULLS/Fame Pictures
Ok gay community, it’s a joke. Get over it already. If the select few are stll having issues try counselling to deal with your gayness admit it your gay and nobody cares.
I was wondering when this was going to start, LOL. SBC’s just a dipsh*t (I mean, come on, look at those ridiculous costumes). The gay community does not need to take this movie seriously.
First off, I hate the phrase gay community because there is no gay community just like there’s no straight community.
So before people start mouthing off about how the gay community needs to lighten up, please consider that GLAAD or whoever, doesn’t speak for eveyone.
Also, anyone who is not gay really needs to step back and think before they start telling gay people (not the community) what they can and can’t take seriously.
I think Cohen is funny but I think there are millions of homophobes in this country who don’t get the satire and just see some gay guy on screen and that makes them damn mad (or confused), sometimes mad enough to go beat up the nearest fag they can find. That’s something I can’t lighten up about.
Neelyo GREAT post. It would be the same if Bruno was Jewish guy, a Mexican, a Black guy, an overweight person etc. Who is anyone to tell someone from a certain group, chill out.. give me a break. People can be so ignorant.
“…redress the wrong done to the gay community by that Hollywood movie on Harvey Milk which was acted by Sean Penn, who’s not even gay.”
Sorry to say, but anyone who doesn’t see this comment as pure unadulterated satire needs help. Ditto all the way to Neelyo’s post. Any sane person will know immediately that Bruno is a gay parody, representative of nothing other than all that is idiotic and OTT about an industry that takes itself and the people who work in it so ludicrously seriously.
This reminds me of an incident that happened with my niece when Norbit was on exhibition, I don’t know, two, three years ago.
My niece and a group of friends from school went to see it with the mother of one of them during the little girl’s 6th birthday party. On the group there was a black girl who’s slightly overweight. This girl has been a friend of my niece since kindergarten and neither the color of her skin or her weight were factors for either side of their friendship.
After coming out of Norbit, all the girls started endlessly mocking the little black girl for her weight and skin color, even going as far as “uninviting” her from the pool party one of them was throwing (of course, the girl’s mother made no case of this uninvitation) due to Norbit’s infamous aqua park scene featuring Rasputia, a fat black female character who’s the butt of every joke in the movie and is played by Eddie Murphy in a fat suit probably because no self-respecting woman would take this kind of part. I’m not happy to report that my niece, against the education her parents gave her, succumbed to peer pressure and joined the bashing.
See, Norbit was intended as a joke, but the gullible 6 year olds saw it only as an affirmation that fat, black people are mock-worthy and proceded to ignore a lifelong friendship in order to join in the bloodthirsty fun. You may say that children will be children but you DO know that many people function on this level – they’re so sheltered and ignorant of certain facts and groups of people that will gladly jump in when given simplifications, stereotypes, especially if the stereotypes reinforce the high opinion they have of themselves and the low opinion they have of the group represented. Especially if it shows that it’s okay to take a bat to these people’s heads because they’re clearly so ridiculous.
Of course it’s parody! But not everybody will get the joke. You know that! There are plenty of people who don’t know any gay people and will take what they’re given by the basic media without going through the trouble of researching more reliable sources. I shiver thinking of what might happen when one of these people who will be convinced that all gays are Bruno meets a real gay person.
Now, I understand Baron Cohen’s focus with Bruno is less to ridicularize gay people and more to expose the underlying American homophobia just like Borat dealt with the reactions of xenophobes to the title character’s crazy antics in between slapstick comedy bits. Still I can’t help being concerned about the way it’s (reportedly) done, especially with the over-the-top representations designed to produce a few cheap laps in order to carry the movie – or do you think anyone is going to watch Bruno for the social commentary only? Let’s see how it pans out.
Sorry for the long rant, btw. 😉
Neeylo – I misread the second part of your post, understand what you and quid_iuris are saying, but find it impossible to get into the mindset of someone who could take Bruno seriously as representative of gay men. To me, it’s the completely over the top antics – I mean, look at him, for God’s sake, listen to what comes out of his mouth! – that save it from being seen as anything other than satire.
And for the people out there who will miss the point, does this mean satirical films like this shouldn’t be made because of the handful of morons out there who will misconstrue and misinterpret and allow it to feed their own bigoted agenda? I’d hate to see that happen. The only way imo to deal with bigotry is to ridicule it.
To quid_iuris:
Norbit is a PG-13 movie. Meaning, it is meant for people 13 or older, at the risk of people younger not understanding, or being upset by the content. Why any parent would take a child in 1st grade to Norbit, and expecting them to understand the “humor” out of it, is making me scratch my head.
Bruno? It’s a rated R movie. This is a movie for adults, where people are old enough to (hopefully) understand the content and be able to laugh at it. Adults are not as impressionable as children, and there is a reason why it is the rating it is. I doubt this would have the same reaction as the children did because 1) children shouldn’t be seeing it, and 2) people get that Borat wasn’t real and was a comedy, why not Bruno?
geronimo, I found it hard too but today I heard an elected representative of PA saying that gay people already are “allowed” to exist, thus justifying the barring of any other rights to same sex partnerships and individuals. Call me pessimistic but I’m starting to believe the said handful of morons is a bit more numerous than just that. *shrug*
As for me, I’ll probably watch Bruno and have a good time, too – I’m a guilty fan of (some) Sacha Baron Cohen. I can’t help but to be a bit worried, that’s all.
Jen: I think the logic behind taking the kids to see Norbit was that it was a slapstick comedy movie with Eddie Murphy and a fat suit. The Klumps or whatever the title was was based in the same principle and I doubt the involved parent was aware of the true nature of this movie. All in all, people falling from chairs and that sort of thing is amusing to little children. As for adults, I’ve expressed my reservations before. It’s good that you have that kind of faith, I just don’t. My problem, most likely.
On a lighter note he has Jennifer Aniston’s fake nips in that pink suit. I wonder is he competing with her lol.
I agree Geronimo that only idiots would not get that Bruno is satire, but I’m afraid there’s a lot of them out there.
He is disgusting. Who finds this idiot funny? Have we stooped that low? Please, let him go to hell and lock him there and throw away the key.
“Now, I understand Baron Cohen’s focus with Bruno is less to ridicularize gay people and more to expose the underlying American homophobia just like Borat dealt with the reactions of xenophobes to the title character’s crazy antics in between slapstick comedy bits. Still I can’t help being concerned about the way it’s (reportedly) done, especially with the over-the-top representations designed to produce a few cheap laps in order to carry the movie – or do you think anyone is going to watch Bruno for the social commentary only? Let’s see how it pans out.”
——
Very well said “quid_iuris” …. as a gay man, I’m bit worried as to how people are going to walk away from this movie and if it’s going to cause some backlash towards gays. I understand what he’s trying to do with this movie, but I’m still somewhat “nervous.” Anyways, I can’t wait to see it and get the full perspective on it.
Very good points. It will only reinforce whatever original ideas anyone holds, befre they go into watch the film (I will NOT) because that speaks of their level of thinking. I doubt anything that makes mockery a ‘positive’ thing can aptly teach anyone differntly, if ther mindset is that being a separatist (ie that any us is better than any them) is a good thing.
Im all for social commentary, but I prefer it tasteful and not bound to backfire– this just appears gross, childish, and ineffective. Its real ‘point’ sounds like it is hidden among stereotyping! What good can that be? We have enough of that in EVERY movie, sitcom, magazine, etc already…
Well…. I hate Larry The Cable Guy because he’s the epitome of everything I dislike about the South- where I live. And when my accent and I go up North, there are some assholes who sum me up as a back-woods, mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging cousin-fucker because the word “y’all” flows so trippingly from my tongue, and at some point they WILL say Git-r-Done to me. So.. how does that make me feel? Irritated. Am I prepared to say that Larry The Cable Guy should not be allowed into mainstream media? No. Because I’m willing to bet that those assholes were assholes before Larry ever came along, all he did was give them a new way in which to engage in their asshattery.
My point is that if a person is going to beat up on gay folks, that person isn’t going to need a movie to encourage him/her. It’s going to happen anyway. Just like if you’re a racist, you’re a racist and movies and books explaining why you shouldn’t be a racist aren’t going to make you not be a racist anymore. Also- Borat had its moments. The thing about the cockroach Jews was hilarious- and I’m a Heeb, so I know from funny.
Cletus – great post.
There will always be bigots and ignorant people who are afraid of anything or anyone who differs from the so-called ‘norm’. Be that religious bigotry, racism, sexism, homophobia etc etc. A film isn’t going to make these loons more prolific or even educate them out of their stupidity. They just are, and there is nothing any of us sane folk can do about it.
But didn’t all kinds of people jump out about RDJ doing blackface last year? I’m not saying gay characters should only be played by gays, but I believe there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed with humor. Then again, I don’t find a lot of today’s films funny.
But, you know, I read “Sex with the Queen” by Eleanor Herman this weekend, and people have always taken to this kind of humor. There are reference back to the medieval times of coarseness.
Cletus: Exactly, thank you.
so Neelyo, by your insightful post, I can conclude that anyone who doesn’t find SBC funny is both an idiot, and a homophobe…nice.
Also, you’re telling everyone to take a step back and consider whether they should be telling anyone gay what they should or shouldn’t take seriously. Why then are you ok with SBC doing that very thing?
I wanted to like Borat, so many people found him and the film so funny. I didn’t, and i’ve got one helluva sick sense of humour. Same goes for this one, the idiotic costumes alone.
Hate to tell you, but i’m neither an idiot, or a homophobe, simply because I don’t keel over with laughter over this guy.
MOST people occasionally mock the attention-craving of the world – whether they are gay OR straight. SNL makes big $ from it. In addition, any man that allows his voice and mannerisms to sound like a teen girl (or a woman who wipes out all traces of her femaleness as to sound and look like a young man) is taking risks in public. Just the way it is.
Cletus, great post and totally agree.
How nice to have some decent posts to read for a change!!! 🙂
LMAO…that’s one hell of a funny outfit…way to go Bruno… people need to chill…it’s all just an act.