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Bruno the Movie: Offensive or Hilarious?

June 19th, 2009 · 1 Comment

I didn’t think Borat was as funny as others claimed it would be, but it certainly had it’s moments. Now Sacha Baron Cohen brings us his latest “masterpiece” with Bruno.

Here’s the thing, I haven’t seen the movie, only a couple of long trailers for it and it looks pretty freakin’ hilarious. BUT there are many in the LGBT community who aren’t laughing, they feel that the movie is offensive and catering to the typical gay stereotypes that they blame for holding us back in society.

It’s important that everyone keep in mind, though, that Cohen’s purpose for making the film isn’t to insult the gay community, it’s the opposite. He is trying to show through satire, how ridiculous the predijuce against gays, lesbians and transgender men and women is. The question is whether he has managed to do that without making LGBT people into a joke.

I wish I had seen Bruno so I could share my thoughts on it, but I just saw the aforementioned trailers oh and him tea bagging Eminem on that awards show. Which, by the way was also hilarious. I don’t listen to Eminem or anything but I was still glad to learn after the fact that he was indeed in on the joke and his anger as he stormed out of the theater was all for show.

As it stands, America’s leading gay rights group, Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), has asked the studio heads behind the Bruno movie to throw in a tolerance message at the end of the film. They are very worried that Sacha Baron Cohen has ran with the stereotypes way past the line of acceptable.

They even go so far to say that Cohen has managed to cover every insulting gay stereotype out there in this movie and without the message at the end, they worry people will take the movie at face value, rather than as the joke it’s meant to be.

Eonline.com had a chat with GLAAD spokesman Rashad Robinson and he had the following to say:

“We have very mixed emotions about the movie. Those of us who saw the film agreed that you can’t critique it as a single film because it’s more like 90 minutes of individual sketches. Some are funny and hit their mark but others hit the gay community instead. This movie does not unmask stereotypes… As someone who sat at the back of a focus group audience… I felt they were laughing at us at times.”

Last I read, Universal isn’t even considering adding the pro-gay message at the end. In response to the request they stated:

“Bruno uses provocative comedy to powerfully shed light on the absurdity of many kinds of intolerance and ignorance, including homophobia.”

All that said, Sacha Baron Cohen has gone back to the drawing board and has reportedly done “extensive” reshoots to address some of the issues the gay focus groups were concerned about.

Bruno comes out on July 7, I guess we will have to wait until then to see the final products and whether it hits the mark or misses it completely while dragging the LGBT community through the dirt in the process.

 Bruno the Movie: Offensive or Hilarious?

Tags: Rants and Raves

1 response so far ↓

  • 1 Sacha Baron Cohen: The Master of Controversy // Jul 8, 2009 at 2:17 am

    [...] not like you’re going in to see a new Sacha Baron Cohen movie thinking it’s going to some kind of sweet sappy film, the guy lives for controversy. That is what [...]

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