Bruno Blowback

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"I'm afraid that Bruno feels hopelessly complicit in the prejudices that it presumes to deride," writes New Yorker critic Anthony Lane. "You can't honestly defend your principled lampooning of homophobia when nine out of every ten images that you project onscreen comply with the most threadbare cartoons of gay behavior. A schoolboy who watches a pirated DVD of this film will look at the prancing Austrian and find more, not fewer, reasons to beat up the kid on the playground who doesn't like girls.

"There is, on the evidence of this movie, no such thing as gay love; there is only gay sex, a superheated substitute for love, with its own code of vulcanized calisthenics whose aim is not so much to sate the participants as to embarrass onlookers from the straight--and therefore straitlaced -- society beyond.

"How efficient, though, is embarrassment as a comic device? It's a quick hit, and it corrals the audience on the side of smugness; but its victories are Pyrrhic, and it tends to fizzle out unless held in by a plot -- as it was in Fawlty Towers, which, from its base on the English seaside, fathomed the most embarrassable race on earth.

"Baron Cohen, in exporting his japes, comes up against a people much less devoted to the wince. I realized, watching Borat again, that what it exposed was not a vacuity in American manners but, more often than not, a tolerance unimaginable elsewhere.

"Borat's Southern hostess didn't shriek when he appeared with a bag of feces; she sympathized, and gently showed him what to do, and the same thing happens in Bruno, when a martial-arts instructor, confronted by a foreigner with two dildos, doesn't flinch. He teaches Bruno some defensive moves, then adds, 'This is totally different from anything I've ever done.' Ditto the Hollywood psychic -- another risky target, eh? -- who watches Bruno mime an act of air-fellatio and says, after completion, 'Well, good luck with your life.'

"In both cases, I feel that the patsy, though gulled, comes off better than the gag man; the joke is on Baron Cohen, for foisting indecency on the decent. The joker is trumped by the square."

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on July 9, 2009 at 6:38 PM

comment #1

Ray says ...

Interesting analysis. I will say that, no matter how tolerant Lane imagines America, gay bashing still goes on throughout the country, and marriage rights have not been given to everyone.

I'm not sticking up for gay people as much as I'm admitting that there are large swatches of America that are violently homophobic, even if BRUNO doesn't touch on them explicitly.

Posted by Ray at July 9, 2009 7:16 PM

comment #2

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

"In both cases, I feel that the patsy, though gulled, comes off better than the gag man; the joke is on Baron Cohen, for foisting indecency on the decent. The joker is trumped by the square."

What a crock of shit.

"There is, on the evidence of this movie, no such thing as gay love; there is only gay sex"

... Or maybe the film isn't trying to be the be-all and end-all of the gay experience. Critics often moan about what films don't show instead of what they do show, like the morons who expected Slumdog Millionaire to cover the experience of every single Indian. "It doesn't show the ones who don't live in slums!" No shit. It's a movie, not an encyclopedia.

Flamboyantly gay people are funny. Try watching any gay pride parade with a straight face.

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Science/Images/gay-pride-parade-fairy.jpg

Does this "cartoon of gay behavior" fall foul of Anthony Lane too? Goddamn, people are uptight about this movie. Relax.

Posted by BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey at July 9, 2009 7:20 PM

comment #3

Geoff says ...

Bruno has no underlying point to be made, right? That's what people seem to be saying.

Lane is right about Borat--I saw some tolerance in that film, just not acceptance, which is OK because Borat acts like a fucking idiot.

Posted by Geoff at July 9, 2009 7:33 PM

comment #4

Josh Massey says ...

One of my favorite Onion articles ever.

As for Borat, everybody claimed it was some anti-American slam, but - fratboys aside - I thought Americans came off pretty damn good in it.

Posted by Josh Massey at July 9, 2009 7:36 PM

comment #5

Circumvrent says ...

Massey, what about the guy at the rodeo? He was pretty odious, as I recall.

Even going back to the HBO show, Borat was and still is the best of Cohen's three characters, because he's both a blank slate and "means well," even if that means bringing a prostitute to the dinner party. Bruno, from what I've seen, is only after himself and his goals, which obviously makes the respondents more volatile.

The Bruno bits on HBO worked best when he was playing along with the respondents - asking those guys if they'd send Cate Blanchett to Auschwitz or not, getting that club owner in Miami to admit he wouldn't let somewhere in a wheelchair in, unless it was a Matt Damon. The movie seems to be a completely different interpretation of the character.

Posted by Circumvrent at July 9, 2009 7:58 PM

comment #6

Matthew Lucas says ...

I'm sorry, but listening to straight people talk about how offensive the gay stereotypes are in this movie cracks me up.

Posted by Matthew Lucas at July 9, 2009 8:02 PM

comment #7

Rod32303 says ...

Matthew are you assuming Anthony Lane is straight? Or that those who disagree with the tone of this film are straight?

I never assume that.

Posted by Rod32303 at July 9, 2009 8:50 PM

comment #8

Movie fan09 says ...

Josh Massey Author Profile Page says ...

One of my favorite Onion articles ever.

further proof that flamers are just as bad as frat boy types.

Posted by Movie fan09 at July 9, 2009 9:42 PM

comment #9

DeeZee says ...

Mel and Jodie love playing with beavers. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i8a6a2617e4c79ad1dda6042cf0da1eee
Net review sites finally get respect, Jeff's included.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i8a6a2617e4c79ad1c1639b3c6a084647
Aaron Sorkin tries his luck @ Moneyball.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i3c6dccc0e05490690150567b2cfc6596
Murdoch's still an asshole.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i3c6dccc0e05490691c3c6d080390b6e6
David Gordon Green continues to aim low.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i8a6a2617e4c79ad13a58c9d4d31b98f6
Garry Shandling finally hits DVD?
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/rumormill.html#070909
Also from Digital Bits:

Also, Warner has just added 30 new titles to its Warner Archive program, including Get to Know Your Rabbit, Conspirator, The Girl Who Had Everything, Rhapsody, Big Boy, Go Into Your Dance, Say It With Songs, The Singing Fool, The Singing Kid, Wonder Bar, Mammy, The Moon is Blue, The Fox, Green Mansions and more...

Posted by DeeZee at July 9, 2009 10:48 PM

comment #10

bill weber says ...

yes, Tony Lane. All pop culture must be fully comprehended by schoolboys.

Posted by bill weber at July 9, 2009 10:53 PM

comment #11

lehigh says ...

Lane nails it.

I hold Baron Cohen in pretty low regard.

To me, he's got a touch of Peter Sellers, but he basically just does a souped up combination of Punk'd and Jaywalking.

Splashy, provocative, overexposed.

I have much more respect and regard for comics who can create a whole fictional world with some emotional investment.

Provoking and duping people isn't necessarily offensive. But it's cheap as hell. Joke's on him.

Posted by lehigh at July 9, 2009 10:55 PM

comment #12

LexG says ...

Don't gay dudes ever notice that, like, chicks are way hotter? Plus they have a VAG!

Posted by LexG at July 9, 2009 11:29 PM

comment #13

plastiqueelephant says ...

Matthew Lucas: Not as much as your offensive gay stereotypes crack my straight ass up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YHbTjpjUEI

Posted by plastiqueelephant at July 10, 2009 12:31 AM

comment #14

DeeZee says ...

Oh, yeah, forgot one. http://www.themoviebox.net/movies/2009/0-9ABC/Broken-Embraces/trailer.php

Posted by DeeZee at July 10, 2009 1:31 AM

comment #15

raygo says ...

Flamboyantly gay people aren't funny. Just because people here have the freedom to march in a parade wearing a leather jockstrap and a feather boa doesn't mean anyone should, or that it's funny. More like tiresome, which is what the movie looks like.

Posted by raygo at July 10, 2009 6:46 AM

comment #16

raygo says ...

Last year I went to Three Rivers Art Festival in downtown Pittsburgh on a beautiful Sunday. It happened to coincide with the Gay Pride Parade. The juxtaposition of the borderline (a very thin borderline) obscene displays on parade floats next to art displays where families with small chiildren stood was surreal. Oh, and add the abortion protestors who drag their ultra disgusting 8 foot high aborted baby placards in full display of toddlers ... damn that was a day to remember.

Posted by raygo at July 10, 2009 6:55 AM

comment #17

joefilm1 says ...

I think it's easy to forget that this kind of analysis by Lane and other critics wouldn't even be necessary, if, say, the movie were a total, full-on riot. From every single review I read, it is not. The fact that the main character cloys exponentially more than clowns opens up the film to reviews aimed simply at making sense of it all. And thus, SBC fails. And thank God. He can take all the money he'll make on this one and just go away. Or go hang out with Ashton Kutcher and twitter about how great he is.

Posted by joefilm1 at July 10, 2009 10:33 AM

comment #18

frankbooth says ...

Hey Lex, I like vag, too. I am firmly in the pro-vag camp.

But if you had a choice of getting a bj from a completely convincing (well, when clothed) 19-year-old ladyman who was slim and glamourous and a dead ringer for Megan Fox, or a 50-year-old, leather-skinned, chain-smoking, beer-bellied trailer-park chick from Indiana, which would you pick?

You're all about the image. If no one but you knew, which one would you rather have on your arm at the fabled CLUB?

Posted by frankbooth at July 10, 2009 11:10 AM

comment #19