Review: "Bruno" Isn't Homophobic (But It's No "Borat" Either)

It would have been nice had we been given more of Bruno's "backstory" -- his mother, his father, siblings, etc. But that would mean he'd be three-dimensional rather than one.

Cohen seems interested only in an imediate impact "shock" effect -- created by juxtaposing this comic creature with "real people" who aren't in on the joke. As a result the film never gets to be the real satire of people and attitudes it ought to have been. It's just about acting like a brat.

BTW, the notion of treating people like pieces of furniture comes from Lolita. In Quitly's big speech to Humbert -- trying to dissuade him from killing him -- he offers him such people for his use.

Cohen claims to be "outrageous" but the fact that he cut the Jackson sequence show's he has his limits.  

I will be watching Bruno today or over the weekend. I'm glad to hear the contraversy about the homophobic scenes was over hyped. My only concern is as you mentioned due to the ridiculous media blitz I think i know what half the scenes are about unfortunately. But, some of the most advertised scenes are those I really want to see.

Guess I'll see if the exposure ruined the movie for me soon enough.

I agree with most of what you say. I think 'Borat' also took on more universal themes. With 'Bruno' it's all about fame. And most of the best bits have already been shown in trailers and such.

It's not homophobic. I found the character too obnoxious to be anything but silly.

I don't agree that he's a Susan Boyle. Cohen is a funny guy and has produced a lot of great humor, where Ms Boyle had her moment.

I also don't agree with you about the talking penis (if only for one word). The sequence was not very funny but that one word made everyone in the theater I saw it in howl with laughter.

I'm suggesting to friends to either hit an ealy show (I paid $6) or wait til DVD.

It is more miss than hit and feels much more scripted than 'Borat,' but it still is worth a look. Cohen can't pull this off a third time. He barely pulls it off this second time.

about two weeks ago. First: it's not my kind of humor. I get what he's doing, but as with Borat I just don't find it entertaining, just crude. I also don't like that Cohen keeps feeding stereotypes to an audience that for a large part takes these stereotypes at face value.

I don't know if anyone else had the same experience, but hearing the homophobic remarks from members of the audience who take Brüno as a typical gay made me feel very uncomfortable at the thought that a lot of the future viewers of this film are going to watch it because they feel it makes it okay to laugh at and ridicule gay men. The same thing applied to Borat. I get what he's doing, but he's doing it in a way that leaves a lot of ambiguity and while ambiguity in itself is a wonderful thing (how accepting are we really?) it still enforces to the USA, USA, USA -chanting crowd (of which we have our own spin-offs here) that foreigners are crude and dumb and gays are sleasy and weird. I highly doubt that the people I heard in the audience are going to take anything else away from this film. As for the people who do get it it's hardly more than a ploy to feel superior. 'Look at those dumb red-necks, how much better then them are we?' It's just not the kind of film that I feel could actually lead up to a debate because for a debate about opinions you need to be able to respect eachother, this just reinforces our own worst opinions of others and our most base and crude ideas about how superior we are to others regardless of who we define as the other. If Cohen had wanted to ignite a debate with either Borat or Brüno a movie is hardly the best medium. You see it in a dark room with a relatively high amount of anonimity and the people you go to see it with are maybe not of the exact mind as you are, but usually very close to your own opinions. It's not like I could debate with the people who were making homophobic comments, I could hardly locate where they were exactly sitting nor could I have picked them out of line-up if I had to. Afterwards everyone goes their own way with their own opinions validated regardless of what that opinion is.

So no, not my cup of tea.

I'm trying out this blogthing: http://vladivos.wordpress.com/ 

The first time I saw Bruno was about 12 years ago when SBC was doing comedy shorts for the Comedy Channel in the UK. Out of the characters SBC had, Bruno was the funniest. At that stage Ali G and Borat were definitely rough around the edges, whereas Bruno was virtually perfect.

However, back then, Bruno was a very specific character whose purpose was to lampoon the fashion industry.

His flamboyance and sexuality weren't really a consideration in that context. He would ambush fashion designers and ask them increasingly ridiculous questions that exposed their pretentiousness/shallowness/general weirdness. Occasionally he'd interview one who understood it was a joke, or was such a nice person that they were nothing less than charming to him. In that industry, Bruno was a joke that could be repeated endlessly and would be funny each and every time.

I understand perfectly what Brent means (well, I think I do but could be wrong because he and I think differently) about wanting to feel something 'real' about Bruno. In his original incarnation, it was the fashion-business context of the comedy that provided the realness. You understood everything you needed to about him because of where he worked.

In the film, some sections are hysterically funny and other sections are far too staged. The problem was that there wasn't a consistent context. He'd swapped a concept for a geographical location. Instead of lampooning an idea (homophobia), he ended up as a comedy-sketch character where the joke is his flamboyance rather than the punches he can land on homophobes.

Having said that, some of the lines he comes out with are priceless and the one thing no one can take away from him is that he is the bravest physical comedian - of recent times - to have ever hit the big time.

Just thought this was interesting...I saw a story linked on the AE main page about a Texas sailor being murdered, it took me to 365gay...I clicked to watch the news reply and it showed the Bruno ad first.

After seeing the movie and knowing the context of the clips being shown in the ad it was a little frustrating seeing the headline "Texas sailor murdered for being gay" right below Bruno getting his asshole bleached, lisping and seconds away from showing dirty pics in front of an audience with a kid.

Ah...the power of the dollar...

Theater not terrible full--maybe 1/2 to 3/5.  No homophobic outbursts, nothing like that at all--just uproarious laughter, and a few groans (I might have uttered a couple myself) during some of the most outrageous stuff.  (Oral sex on an invisible ghost?!?) 

I didn't find the movie truly offensive, but I found it interesting that due to Cohen's fame, many people are now aware of who he is and what his schtick is--thus, the first 2/3 of the movie really moved, since the scenes were very short.  The entire sequence during Fashion Week, which you'd think would be the centerpiece of the film, was dispensed with in less than 3 minutes since they got wise to him and threw him out.  And others just refuse to interact with him (Harrison Ford is no fool).

I think the movie began to lose some of its juice and satire when Bruno went South, as the filmmakers (and Cohen) don't have anything really clever for Bruno to do there--when he's at boot camp, it would've been much more subversive if Bruno had in fact been able to do 25 push-ups one-handed, or if when he went on the hunting trip he'd been a crack shot.  The idea of this "pansy" being as butch or butcher than those around him would've been REALLY interesting.  Also, I noticed that this is where the director/editor started getting really slack--several scenes which might have been funny if truncated sooner went on and on until they started getting uncomfortable, as Bruno was no longer a clueless nitwit but someone borderline predatory.  (His trying to feel up men during a swingers party, and his attempts to get into his hunting companions' tents--while naked--were the sorts of things I wouldn't like either, if a gay man was trying them on me when I'd politely refused already.)  And the bit in Arkansas was too easy--if Bruno (here "Straight Dave") had been in the middle of a SERIOUS wrestling match, a la UFC, which then morphed into sex (see also: nakedkombat.com), it again would've been really subversive.  Here, it was too much of a giveaway, and though it provided the film with a romantic tie-off and brought the plot full circle, it still wasn't as satirical as was intended.  (It would've been interesting if the wrestling sequence had had two WOMEN making out while wrestling first, as a counterpoint to underline the crowd's hypocrisy and homophobia.)

However, at least 80% of the film works well--as a comedy of extreme gay humor (the pygmy sex scene is a gut-buster), as a vicious satire of celebrity culture (poor Paula Abdul), as an examination of the cluelessness of some Hollywood types (are those celebrity charity consultant sisters for real?), as a commentary on the ridiculousness of religious orthodoxy (the Middle East sequence, the "ex-gay" meeting in the South with a man whom Bruno blithely notes has "cock sucking lips"), etc.  It's not as fresh as "Borat," but in a weird way it's also a little less vicious and more ridiculous--you could come out of "Borat" and feel a chill about America and Americans, whereas this is much less biting and more goofy.  Then $20,000 question: what on earth will Cohen do for his next film?  (Also interesting, since Cohen is Jewish: the most over-the-top rabidly religious protest he encounters is not from Muslims or Christians, but from a hysterical Orthodox Jew in Israel, who does NOT react to Bruno's outfit with calm and decorum.)

Honestly I hate Bruno, he puts off us gays as some overly camp person who walks around prancing in our undies, ripping off religion and making a fool of ourselves. we are nothing like that.

Example, he goes into a town full of jews, and befriends them, then tells them hes gay, they want to kill him, and oh its all for the fun of comedy. No it isn't, its just getting a raise off a religion who he knew hates gays. Yeah it shows that America and other countries are very homophobic and think its wrong, but why does he put it in comedy? I just can't believe he would make a stereotypically look on gays and rant around dressed over the top, all for peoples enjoyment. Why doesn't he just go around acting himself or acting a true blue assuie bloke instead of ripping us off!!!

Stick with normal acting Sasha Boran Cohen! He was good in his part as Mr Perrelli in Sweeney Todd, so stick with FICTIONAL MOVIES!