Mayhem and more at the 2009 MTV Movie Awards

I just don't get it either - maybe i'm not getting something about him that others do, but def not my type.  Like I ever had a chance, but hey...

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Wow, I have no words...

 Thanks for sharing the links.

Good analysis, Nukely.  I think it's important that we're able to laugh at ourselves sometimes, and Bruno is the perfect vehicle for that.  He's obviously "on our side", and sending up not gay people, but rather the pious anti-gay folks. 

I've never been a fan of the "but if it were a black guy" sort of analysis.  It's too simplistic, and allows the equation of things that just aren't always equivalent.  The black struggle and the gay struggle share many similarities, but there are many differences as well.  And there's also the context of who's doing the "shtik" and why.

Borat was one of the funniest, most daring movies I've ever seen, and I hope Bruno can come close to it.

I disagree, Nukely.

 Lots of gay people and many straight people might be laughing with Bruno/Sacha Baron Cohen, but most straight people are laughing at Bruno. Unfortunately, many of them actually don't realise that no gay person is like Bruno. The Bruno persona is exactly how many of them see gay men. They do realise he's over the top, but they see it as making fun of the gays. I'm not saying all of them see it that way. And I'm not saying that this is Cohen's intention. But most straight people around me and in the mainstream press are just laughing at the gays, or what they perceive as "the gays". I'm not guessing here, or presuming. I've heard it from the people around me, and read it in the mainstream press. I can see that Bruno is satire of the way the mainstream sees gay men. But the mainstream majority doesn't see him that way. It goes over people's heads. I go to the cinema a lot, and I can't tell you the number of times, I've heard people laugh during the Bruno trailer, saying stuff like : "Look at the fag!", "He's just like *insert celebrity rumoured to be gay*" etc.

Now, there could be two ways Cohen looks at this: 1)he doesn't care about the audience response, or the effect his character has on the audience because he thinks art/satire/humour/whatever comes first and it doesn't matter who gets it  2)he knows full well how the majority of the mainstream perceives Bruno, and he feels no guilt/moral qualms over cashing in on it.  The first would be somewhat justifiable in my eyes, even though I don't believe that the audience is unimportant in art/humour/whatever. The audience is the purpose, or at least a huge part of the purpose, of any art that is made public. The audience's opinion matters. The impact that art has on the audience matters. Not to say that everyone in the audience has to understand everything. But it really is questionable how wise, or indeed moral. it is to create something the audience response to which will obviously boil down to the privileged making fun of those different from them. It doesn't take much to figure out that that's exactly what's going to happen in the case of a very mainstream blockbuster about a flamboyant, effeminate over-the-top gay fashion designer, not when we're still living in a society that so often still perceives gay men as the giggling, whining, poodle-carrying punchline. 

But I'm more inclined to believe the second option - Cohen is well aware that he is cashing in on straight people laughing at gays, and he likes it that way. Only thing I'm not sure is whether that was his original intention when creating the character or the satire actually did come first. Cohen is treading a fine line here: he cashes in big time on mainstream audiences indulging in stereotypes and laughing at the "other" of society, but he's never condemned by liberals/the gay community/activists/etc. "because it's satire". I know I'm in the minority, but I loathe that trend. The creators of Little Britain did the same thing, You serve up the audience sexism, racism, classism, homophobia galore and then greedily collect the winnings. But it's okay. Cos it's satire. And if someone calls you out on it, you pronounce them politically correct killjoys. It's a whole trend.     

The Borat flick was the same, but with Eastern Europe. Yes, it was satire. Some of it was even quite funny. And people did laugh at some of the dumbfounded people Borat interacted with in the USA. But for the overwhelming majority, most laughs were at the expense of  Eastern Europeans. I say Eastern Europeans because, even though different sources geographically classify Kazakhstan differently, Cohen's whole Kazakhstan shtick was based on the most vile stereotypes out there about Eastern Europe. Borat even spoke a mumbo-jumbo caricature-like Slavic pidgin. As an Eastern European Slav who has to go against this stereotyping and prejudice all the time, I didn't find their reinforcement funny. And I think I get to have a say in the matter.

Cohen made a film. Americans and Western Europeans laughed at Eastern Europe. Quite sadly and stupidly, many Eastern Europeans laughed at Kazakhstan (which the film actually had nothing to do with; even the race of the actors were all wrong). Kazakhstan remained forever linked with that gross parade of stereotypes. Cohen made loads and loads of money. But it's okay. It's satire.

We can call it satire. But the bottom line is, Sacha Baron Cohen is cashing in on people laughing at us.

I was merely trying to use an easy reference to a now socially unacceptable characature. I believe you are right in your statements, and you put them forth better than I ever could.

But does everyone "get" the joke?

After all, it was always the "Bruno" types that the news programs showed of the Gay Day Parade for its shock effect, so I guess I was missing the point.