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UPDATE: Hot Button ‘Brüno’ Humor, Part Zwei
If nothing else, the current Letterman-Palin controversy has shown that comedy cuts all ways. Now Sacha Baron Cohen’s Brüno is on the hot seat for its hot button humor. The comedy was always going to push the proverbial envelope because Cohen is getting paid to play gay in an outrageous spoof of straight attitudes towards gays, and gay attitudes towards straights. Then again, mercilessness begets media attention which sells movie tickets. But is the price being paid too high? There’s now a YouTube video (see below) making the rounds which features notables like Peter Paige (Queer As Folk), Nick Verreos (Project Runway), and Brian Graden (LOGO network founder) discussing their concerns about Brüno‘s impact on the LGBT community. (It was shot at an event honoring Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black.) Problem is, they haven’t actually seen the film. And it’s always unwise for interest groups to make judgments on a creative endeavor before they’ve actually experienced it. The New York Times the other day did a decent piece summing up the controversies surrounding Brüno. However, a source intimately involved in the Brüno production complains to me that it “completely misses the mark”. That’s because this insider provides me with some not before now known behind-the-scenes details for me about why the film has had, and probably should have, problems with the gay community:
“The film has not been screened for a large number of gays for a reason. Throughout the many private screenings [the filmmakers] have had, the reaction from gays has been almost uniformally one of alarm. It is not a scathing depiction of homophobia — but a grotesque satire of homosexuality. Brüno is a sickening mixture of narcissism, fetishism and shallowness – and he is virtually the only gay representation in the movie. The ‘homophobia’ of the various straight men who he encounters and propositions, seems only natural when faced with such an odious sexual monster. Sacha, Jay and their writers did significant reshoots to try to temper the troubled reactions of the few gay people they invited to screenings. One ‘out’ comedy writer refused to help on the reshoots, because he found the content so disturbing.
The reshoots did not do much other than manage to get Elton John and a few other music celebs to participate in an ending that seemed to promote gay marriage. However, these musicians – including Chris Martin – continue to be concerned as they have not been shown the finished film. Can you imagine a comedian going around in black face in a movie, doing a stereotype of black Americans without ever once using a black collaborator or showing the film to a black audience? Gay men continue to be the last easy targets of the fratboy comedies so prevalent these days. And while Brüno pretends to be subversive, it is no different.”
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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When I was a kid, my Dad wouldn’t let me watch Three’s Company because it was about a straight guy pretending to be gay in order to live in sin with two attractive young women. That was in 1978. Fast forward to 2009, where gays are demanding the right to marry and Obama is extending benefits to federal workers’ gay partners. As you can well imagine, my Dad is now confined to a sanitarium.
PAGING DOCTOR FAGGOT! PAGING DOCTOR FAGGOT!
Under the guise of being said by the group’s lovable idiot in THE HANGOVER, we laugh.
We laughed in FARGO when a housewife is kidnapped and falls down the stairs. A woman in peril is a hoot.
Does it engender a continuation of bigotry? Likely.
Does the over the top mincing homosexual prevalent in film and tv deserve some screen time? Perhaps. Does this characterization deserve the bulk of our national depiction of homosexuality? I think not.
He is funny, crude and not for everyone, unless you like money and a good career in Hollywood.
ugh! This is what happens ( and will continue to happen) with narrow-minded liberals running Hollywood.
Running the best export America has left into the ground.
Has anyone in America not met a gay man? I’d be quite surprised, in this day and age, if there’s anyone in this country who hasn’t known at least one. Heck, I grew up in rural Texas and knew two in high school. In college, again in Texas, there were plenty. Maybe I’ve just been lucky to have met so many gay men, but I doubt it. Everyone has known a gay man.
That’s why this criticism of Bruno is dead on arrival. This movie isn’t going to make anyone think, “Wow, I never realized gay men were like that” because they’ve known at least one gay man in their lives that bears no resemblance to the caricature portrayed in the movie. This is an exaggeration, just like Cohen’s other characters, and almost everyone has figured that out by now.
I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. If the great strides homosexuals have made in gaining popular acceptance can be washed away by one movie, then yes, pick a fight. Otherwise, shrug it off and do something productive, like Will & Grace: The Movie which I would actually go to see. (I’ve got a weird crush on Debra Messing.)
Oh chill the hell out. Jesus Christ. Anyone who hates gays is going to do so with or without this film. Borat didn’t cause that guy to shoot up a holocaust museum last week. Movies don’t teach hatred and anyone whose opinion matters should know what Sacha’s trying to do – make people laugh with a heavy dose of shock value.
Comedy movies portray caricatures… because they get laughs. Raising Arizona portrays Arizonans (sp?) as hayseeds and gun toting convenience store workers. And it’s funny. (just to use an obvious example)
Are these same gay people complaining also going to demand that Mel Brooks rewrite the last scene of Blazing Saddles? Because that’s pretty “offensive”.
Why do I get the feeling that the same people complaining about Bruno are the same ones who dress in bondage gear at a Gay Pride Parade? But, I’m just a mouth breather from Drudge, so what do I know?
This is very clearly caculated and intentional strategy to stir up controversy and manipulate media attention and free ink (or pixels, as the case may be).
Trust me, I know.
In Borat you laughed at how stupid the character was ALONG with how stupid the bigots were being. But in Bruno I’m afraid the laughs are at the expense of his stereotypical portrayal of homosexuals.
Isn’t this hypocritical? Isn’t “Borat” a stereotypical portrayal of foreigners or immigrants? Why is it OK to laugh at how stupid foreigners are but not at the overly flamboyant gay stereotypes?
And gay people have to realize that freedom of speech means sometimes having to deal with content that makes you squirm or roll your eyes. What do you want? Straight people to joke about gays but not too much, and only in the correct light that you approve? That’s the opposite of equality. If you’ve ever seen people who are truly friends, they can joke with each other about anything.
The gays are good people. Very clean and non-violent. A gay person has never tried to steal my wallet or hit my car and run. Those were the damn Mexicans.
Has everyone forgotten that there’s hours and hours of BRUNO footage already in the two ALI G seasons?? Anyone capable of operating their OnDemand system or Netflix-ing a DVD can tell you that Bruno is safe, harmless fun. The only victim: ignorant, hateful rednecks… and that’s fine.
A stroll down Santa Monica Blvd. during any of the recent rallys will tell you Cohen is not that far off from the extreme personna of a gay man.
Most people forget that Bruno is not a cable show anymore. and That it will not only be see on the US and by US “red necks” but by the world!!!
In many countries it is illegal to be gay and people get killed. Children get bullied everyday in school when they happen to be affeminate.
That is one of the reasons ghettos exist, so that people can feel good and not afraid to be themselves.
I can only imagine what bruno will do to gay children everywhere.
Also, stop comparing white rural folks being stereotyped with gay people. White people have rights and don’t get killed or raped or beat up for being ignorant or red necks. There is a big different here.
It is a sensitive issue and it all comes down to tolerance and respect. My fear is this film won’t promote either. and yes, it’s a comedy, but it’s also big business and with that comes responsibility.
I have never seen Bruno the TV version, but I have seen the movie. Basically, it’s just an over-the-top, flaming stereotype put in various predictable candid camera moments to get a reaction. I don’t see the gay community loving this film, because it basically makes fun of both gays and homophobics at the same time. And I could easily see people cringing at Bruno not because he’s gay as much as he’s just in-you-face-obnoxious 24-7.
I’m going with the term “Gay-face” instead. It just has a better ring to it.
“And gay people have to realize that freedom of speech means sometimes having to deal with content that makes you squirm or roll your eyes. What do you want? Straight people to joke about gays but not too much, and only in the correct light that you approve? That’s the opposite of equality.”
+1,000,000.
The video comments (“dangerous!”, “Concerned!”, “in poor taste!”) by, um, celebrities? Or, d-elebrities? Who annoints these people to hold forth on, um, ANYTHING? Besides nodding their head in self-congratulatory, ‘I’m on the right side’ fashion (though, with only the exception of NicQueerEye, they’re all dressed & groomed horribly ie., that ridiculous yellow Charo dress the nodding blond chick cannot pull off … and what’s up with the blue eye shadow on the balding comedian? or Peter Paige with his gap tooth: can he not afford good dentistry?), they say absolutely nothing.
I find it curious that all this faux contretemps are played out against a backdrop featuring the totally irrelevant Lorrie Jean.
If anyone in this insanely illiterate sounding group truly had some balls, one of them would have turned around and called Lorrie Jean out for her awful handling of Prop 8.
As a “leader,” Lorrie Jean completely failed the LGBT community and has yet to be held accoutable and dismissed and/or shoved from her high perch (or, crush it with her enormous fat ass) down to the ground with former Advocate editronix, Queen Judy Weider.
NIckki, you are a pretty smart cookie so it’s kind of surprising to see you so gobsmacked, without questioning if this “controversy” might actually be a diversion … from Lorrie Jean’s failure. It’s far easier to focus on Sasha Cohen – who is, actually considered funny by people who actually PAY for movies (vs. pretentiously, “refrain from comment” on rough cuts while implying, none too subtlely oooh that blue eye shadow again, the movie sucks) – as in any way contributing to a complex political issue that has been appropriated by Lorrie Jean et al after the fact of their failure to actually, um, GET THE FUCKING AMENDMENT DEFEATED.
Oh, yeah, small detail there. Need I repeat it again? Lorrie Jean failed. The LA Gay & Lesbian Center’s “leadership” failed. With $40+ million bucks at her/their disposal and oodles of advance time, her leadership singlehandedly did more to set back whatever “movement” Miss Yellow Blouse is ditzily refers to.
The notion of this monolithic gay/queer community, prone to outside victimization by “the media” is so fucking outdated esp. in the face of OUTFest (the largest – yes, the largest film festival) and tv channels and American Idols and etc. At some point, sooner than later, the LGBT communities needs leadership – not 60′s relics like the failure Lorrie Jean and her sycophants at the LA G&LCenter – with VISION and political savvy.
I think, at this point, the gay/queer communitie S (plural) has enough political power and visibility to withstand what is clearly a satire.
The fact is – if you’ve actually SEEN the movie – Cohen’s Bruno is hilarious. People who hate the gays will hate them after; people who are or love them, won’t. Movies hardly have the power to convert (unless a ticket to Bruno also comes with genital shocks common to reparative therapy) massive number of people’s opinion.
i think it is dangerous and should be banned. any criticism against gay people should be outlawed and those who offend should be rounded up and retrained in re-education training camps located in the mohave desert.
free speech is fine until it offends me and anyone who thinks like me. i also think that until further notice, president obama should be named president fro life until all of his policies are implemented and take hold.
i would also recommend trials, like those a nuerenberg, for those republicans and hateful rightwingers who will not comply with progressive ideas and lifestyles.
gays are not to be made fun of. we should be a protected class, and our art and curiosities subsidized.
burn in hell, sasha.
Change the argument from gay male to Catholic priest and the complaints or support is the same. Some gay male will be just like the Bruno character. The same as a perv Catholic priest also has truth in it also. If every movie must show whatever group in the best light, with no bad or odd, BORING.
Nice that people are outraged now, but when Borat was released, no one called it on being a racist pile of shit. I guess we all care about gays more than Kazakhs.
I’m so sick of the Black face comparison. It’s NOT the same. Having seen Bruno last month before it received its R rating, I can honestly say its not making fun of gay people. It’s making fun of intolerant people, namely folks that live in The Bible Belt!
It’s a funny movie. People need to lighten the f#@k up.
I’m waiting for Sacha Baron Cohen’s next film – surely it’ll be about an obnoxious Jew who goes around pissing people off with his antics. Just as he trotted out the same concept (obnoxious foreigner, obnoxious queen) in his last two movies. Then watch as the potsmokers laugh in their beanbags until they vomit.
How can homosexuals say they have a problem with the Bruno homosexual stereotype when this stereotype is itself played upon in the camp identity of many gay people?
It seems like Cohen is satirising both homophobes and homosexuals here – by identifying too much with the homophobic fantasy supplement. By bringing this outrageous gay fantasy completely to the fore rather than as the homophobic subtext he destroys the fantasmic distance homophobes depend on for their discriminatory attitudes. Without this distance, the figure becomes completely ridiculous and loses its substantial identity, the homophobic attitudes themselves completely dependent on fantasy.
At the same time, Bruno reveals the minimal difference that homosexuals themselves have towards this fantasy figure when they self-consciously satirise it with the camp identity. The character of Bruno is nothing but the fantasy figure both homophobes and homosexuals adopt a distance towards. The traditional camp identity is revealed as not camp enough. Thus the film is problematic because it should be problematic – it reveals the minimal difference both these two opposing groups share.
Also, if you have a problem with Bruno, I cannot see why you don’t have a problem with Borat too.
Cry me a friggin’ river! I am so sick and tired of my fella queers raging on about a comedy routine and “how it stereotypes gays”. And yet, you prance around in leather, in full drag regalia, ad infinitum and expect the respect of the heterosexual community when you “dress up”. Stop being so politically correct and look in the mirror some time so close that it scares you and see yourselves with others eyes for a change. Then you can scream Stereotype all you want! Until you change from within and treat yourselves with respect and others within the community, then there might be more acceptance rather than finger pointing.
Was this linked on Drudge?
Why so many angry wing-nuts freaking out about the incredibly judicial and measured statements made by public figures who were put on the spot about an incredibly personal and emotional issue?