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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 07/13/2009 : 15:22:46
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Yes, Brüno is outrageous, and YES it is very very funny.
To compare it with Borat is silly and misses the point. To rant about its excesses is sillier and really misses the point. Which is what many of its targets will undoubtedly do.
Baron Cohen's comedy has always been focussed on hypocrisy. He wants to strangle it wherever it occurs. He seeks out the niches of politics, show biz, celebrity, religion, fashion - [flick of limp wrist] - whatEVER, girlfriend!
That last is my typed rendition of Brüno himself. A self-obsessed Austrian fashionista who embodies a very pertinent contemporary Western question:
What if someone lived their whole life buying the bullshit that surrounds us everyday?
So he pursues fame aggressively. He parades down Main Street dressed like the most bizarre catwalk model. He risks everything to make it in La-La land, using chutzpah to claim his right to be heard. He takes every knockback with arrogance and the support of his adoring wanna-be lover. He will try any and every ploy including learning to be straight; and adopting a black baby in a trade for an iPod, and to whom he gives a typical African-American name: O.J.
Every scene is chock fulla laffs.
Though it's rampant with explicit homosexual demonstrations, the film is not about gay issues. It is about human beings so deluded by the inanity and insanity of their lives that they cannot see much beyond their eyelids.
Some critics have compared Baron Cohen with Swift. Even more than Borat, this film will certainly have a similar effect as Swift's Modest Proposal as a solution to famine: Kill and eat the babies.
The public who will detest this film whether or not they've seen it will react just as Swift's idiot public did --- they will not be able to see exactly what he is being serious about.
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 07/13/2009 15:24:44 |
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damalc 
"last watched: Sausage Party"
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Posted - 07/13/2009 : 18:55:20
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haven't seen it yet, but i plan to.
i feel like i've seen the whole thing already, as heavily as it has been promoted. save something for the theater. |
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 07/13/2009 : 19:44:07
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| I thought it was interesting that Baron Cohen did Letterman this time *out of character*. I can't recall seeing a single such TV interview before [although there was one *radio* interview on NPR during DA ALI G SHOW's US run]. |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 07/14/2009 : 00:23:19
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| I'll see it, but I hope it's funnier than Borat (which had a few genuine laughs, but the rest of the time I felt I was about 30 years older than the target audience). |
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silly 
"That rabbit's DYNAMITE."
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Posted - 07/14/2009 : 14:31:36
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I'll catch this one on Netflix. I've already wasted all my movie money on the likes of Transformers and LotL, and now I hear there's a(nother) Potter sequel coming out  |
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 07/14/2009 : 22:18:57
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quote:
Originally posted by Seán
I'll see it, but I hope it's funnier than Borat (which had a few genuine laughs, but the rest of the time I felt I was about 30 years older than the target audience).
BORAT = JACKASS + Baron Cohen's critical posse, which is not unlike the Beautiful People who flocked to DEEP THROAT in the 70s.
Bruno was always the least of DA ALI G SHOW's three characters [and enjoyed the least TV screen-time as a result; it's *one joke*!], and now it shows.
Now beware MACGRUBER, a SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE blackout parody of the mildly interesting 70s TV show MACGYVER, in which an inventive guy improvises whatever he needs out of stuff laying around to prevent whatever bomb there is from exploding. These :30 blackouts, intended to make fast-forwarding DVR owners hold up for the commercial [one was even *sponsored* by *Pepsi!*] have just been greenlit for AN ENTIRE FEATURE FILM!!!! Be afraid, be, etc. |
Edited by - randall on 07/14/2009 22:45:49 |
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damalc
"last watched: Sausage Party"
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Posted - 08/14/2009 : 16:42:42
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i'm about 99% sure this is the most universally offensive film i've seen. "Borat" seemed to shoot for laughs by way of being crass, but "Bruno" seemed like it just wanted to be offensive as possible, hoping for humor as a side effect. several times, the theater was absolutely silent when i saw the film.
i must admit that it hit some very funny spots. when Bruno said something about the stars reminding him of all the hot guys in the universe, i'm pretty sure that, if not for the camera, the hunters would have killed him. |
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 11/19/2009 : 04:31:44
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| Now I've seen it. What a disappointment. To say it's a one-joke picture is to state the obvious: it was horrendous trouble to stretch it to 75 thin minutes. Yes, I know, hypocrisy, blah blah, but isn't the character Bruno just as solid an expression of homophobia? For example, the bogus TV pilot he shows his "focus group" doesn't prove anything about the prejudices of the focus group; it reveals itself to be a piece of shit from which any thinking person would avert hisser eyes. Likewise, his "hunting party" is perfectly happy to continue with their lives, yet they're provoked without mercy. Some of it's funny, particularly when Bruno encounters genuine hypocrisy [the guys who are trying to "cure" him]. But most of it's funny only to Baron Cohen. Borat was all we could take, Baron Cohen will need to find another way to make his next million, and his "gotcha" game is now over, just like it's been in the UK for years now.. |
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Demisemicenturian 
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 02/17/2010 : 16:29:05
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Brüno
I had more detailed thoughts about this at the time, but I didn't get around to posting them, so I'll mainly just paste some contributions from a Facebook group. However, randall touches on a problem with Baron Cohen's style -- sometimes he victimises people who are not doing anything wrong, and are just coping with the caricature's bizarre behaviour as well as their experience allows.
Member 1:
STATEMENT FROM INCOMING GLAAD PRESIDENT JARRETT BARRIOS ON BRÜNO
New York, NY, July 10, 2009 – The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) today issued the following statement from incoming President Jarrett Barrios in response to the film “Brüno,” which opens in movie theatres nationwide today.
“In many parts of the United States, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people live life in harm’s way. We are among the most frequently targeted for hate crimes—including physical attacks, verbal assaults and destruction of our property. In particular, LGBT youth experience bullying and violence in school and social settings--harassment that contributes to lower self-respect, depression and increased incidence of suicide.
Into this context steps the movie “Brüno,” an 80-some-minute series of sketches apparently intended to skewer these homophobic attitudes—and get some laughs along the way. Clearly, the filmmakers wanted to use satire to highlight and challenge homophobia. But their film also reinforces troubling attitudes about gay people in ways that run counter to the intentions of the filmmakers.
The movie repeatedly builds entire scenes around stock stereotypes and situations that make gay people and families the butt of crude jokes. I can’t help but think of all the teenage kids already getting bullied, beat up and ridiculed for being--or for being thought to be--gay. For these kids, this movie will give their tormentors one more word in the anti-gay lexicon of slurs: Bruno.
Instead of challenging stereotypes, it reinforces them for many of those who voted to take away the freedom to marry from loving, committed gay and lesbian couples in California. Many states have gone even further—Arkansans went to the polls and effectively eliminated the ability of gay people to adopt or foster children in that state. In a cruel twist, “Brüno,” some of which was actually shot in Arkansas, includes a scene where the title character shows a talk-show audience photos of sexual activity occurring in the presence of an infant child. Can this help the gay families across the country who continue to be reduced to political punching bags at the ballot box?
It's unfortunate that “Brüno” ultimately misses the mark, particularly when there are still far too few positive images of gay people in major studio films. Some members of our community will not be offended by this film. Others, like those of us at GLAAD, find it frustrating and discouraging to be confronted with a movie that wants to increase America’s discomfort with homophobia, but which for much of America, seems likely to decrease its comfort with gay people.”
http://www.glaad.org/Page.aspx?pid=627
I can see why. Time to change the message. I am personally getting tired of gays being the brunt of stupid jokes. It's starts with a joke, then it could lead to violence. When are people going to wake up and realize this isn't okay anymore.?
Member 2:
This guy is an idiot. Let's just make more jokes and stereotypes of gay people. Let's just accept this. What a stupid thing to do. I am sure if he was making fun of blacks, they would be freaking out. But of course, its the gay, so who cares, right? WRONG
Me:
The film is hilarious.
On one hand, it pokes fun at an extreme character. It is ridiculous to think that no comic characters should be gay, and those that are are obviously going to have their gayness comedified(!), just like any other characteristic. The main ways that Brüno is ridiculous is as a fashionista anyway, not in being gay. I do understand the point that bullies could use the material as ammunition but (i) they are more likely to see that the gay people they know are actually much more similar to them than to Brüno and (ii) such fears lead to gay characters on screen being neutered and banal.
On the other hand, it more importantly ridicules homophobic reactions, and that is the comic focus of the film. (The audience is on Brüno's side, despite his extreme behaviour.) That in itself is easily enough to outweigh the mere presence of stereotypes being used.
I think that many gay people's objections to this film and similar characters is a kind of internalised homophobia. They don't want people to think that they are camp just because they are gay, so they do not want to see camp characters at all. Too bad. There *are* gay people whom Brüno is a send-up of, and wanting to pretend otherwise does not do equality any good.
As for making fun of black people, well, that's not so far removed from what Ali G was, a white (or potentially mixed race) character who aspired to ghetto culture. He was a send-up of such culture, not just of a white person being like that. And ghetto culture is a small proportion of black culture, just as Bruno's camp superficiality is a small proportion of gay culture. Many people's response to Ali G was closely allied to a sort of racist response or a response of clumsily attempting not to be racist, in that prejudice towards the culture of the character is quite similar to racism. Borat was also an ethnically different character, and elicited the same kinds of responses.
Sacha Baron Cohen is after all Jewish. He is not ignorant about prejudice in the world and how to deal with it. I often find gay characters unintentionally stereotyped through a kind of passive homophobia, but I am quite certain that he is not homophobic at all.
5/5 |
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Brüno
