comment #1

Ray says ...

Blah blah blah ... here's the point: Is the MOVIE any good??

I'm guessing not.

comment #2

Michael says ...

Marching in absolute uniform lockstep is a right-wing thing. Liberals wake up in the morning and decide what they're going to say and do on their own.

This is the article's big whopping obiter dicta -- the words in passing that suggest there's no limit to average people's ability to keep their brains from noticing or absorbing anything that doesn't naturally reside in their own private intellectual and emotional gulags.

I really think you have to take some time and consider the proximity of these two phrases, two posts away from each other.

comment #3

YRG says ...

Sounds like it will be shown in future cultural anthropology classes.

comment #4

Teacher's Pets says ...

You mean certain people won't get satire? Oh no, pull it from the theaters, burn all the copies!

The people who won't get it are just as much a part of the joke as the people on screen...

comment #5

Skip McCoy, American says ...

"Marching in absolute uniform lockstep is a right-wing thing. Liberals wake up in the morning and decide what they're going to say and do on their own."

Self-awareness is a beautiful thing.

comment #6

Skip McCoy, American says ...

Borat set out to prove that middle Americans were anti-semites; it mainly proved that they're so incredibly polite they'll tolerate anything a foreigner does.

As somebody said at the time, "Borat bravely goes out in search of anti-semitism in the one country on earth where it's not a prominent political constituency."

comment #7

theultimatebiu says ...

What is satirical about this film. In one scene he adopts a African baby and treats him like a fashion accessory...why wouldn't anyone watching be offended?? Does that make them homophobic? What about when he walks in full leather thong in a mall? If the police arrest him and people get angry are they homophobic?

The film will be a bunch of skits joined together that is only funny the first time you see it.

comment #8

Phatang! says ...

"To delicately rephrase, after Borat you really needed to be a complete cultural hillbilly not to be aware that Cohen would be out and about last year filming Bruno in a blonde wig."

Umm.... I guess if you mean "pop-cultural hillbilly" (and how I wish I was one!) and removed the implied negative judgment, then maybe this quote wouldn't be so utterly ridiculous.

comment #9

Mowkeka says ...

I'm not sure I'd read too much into Sacha Cohen. He's going for the laughs wherever he can find it. If it's at the expense of gay people, so be it. If it's at the expense of Christians, so be it.

comment #10

iamjoe says ...

I call bullshit, Mowkeka. SBC's humor has a cutting undercurrent that exposes ignorance. BORAT was all about that, even going so far as winking at the camera with the naked wrestling scene, as to say to the films viewers "That now the joke is on YOU, gotcha!". It not just about getting a laugh, there is a real agenda under there. The beat comedy always comes from the understanding of drama.

comment #11

roquentin says ...

Let's wait until people actually see the movie. I didn't judge Passion of the Christ based on positive fundamentalist prejudice and I'm not going to malign Bruno just because I assume that the movie will inflame prejudices. Borat failed, in my mind, because it lacked the spontaneity and reality of the TV show at its best. Bruno seems similarly staged, with its own grafted character arc, but I'm still willing to see the movie and hopefully be surprised by it.

But the notion that satire is dangerous or problematic because a large portion of the audience won't understand is no reason to denounce the satire itself. If a large portion of the audience believes that Stephen Colbert is really hiding a right-wing agenda, does that make his show as problematic as Fox News? No, it does not. Any time you lampoon something a large part of the audience is not going to understand it. If that makes it "dangerous" then so be it. We are lucky to live in a culture where satire is welcomed in mainstream pop culture.

Secondly, the Bruno character has always simultaneously made fun of stereotypical excess and posture of flamboyant gay culture and exposed people's homophobia. The character was never based on a neatly delineated agenda. If you expect the movie to either malign gay culture or expose homophobia, you're likely to be disappointed. It will do both, I'm guessing. But again, I'll wait and judge it on my own.

comment #12

Phatang! says ...

roquentin is smart.

comment #13

corey3rd says ...

I just appreciate the fact that there is zero homophobia in England since Cohen had to make this movie in America. come and make fun of our rubes. But heaven forbid we prove that two guys blowing each other during Chelsea-Man U would be greeted with applause from the crowd. England is a country that wouldn't be showed by guys having sex in a hot tub while a "gayby" sits nearby.

comment #14

Travis Crabtree says ...

I second what corey3rd says....

I love England.... I lived there for a bit.... but it does get old when they send their intrepids over here to make fun of us backwards hicks..... Like Bruno would be accepted for what he is if he worked his stuff in some small towns in Wales or Yorkshire.. uh huh.....

I don't care about any of it as long as it's funny....

Just bring the funny, Sasha.....

comment #15

kneelbeforezod says ...

You can already see what's going to happen: people going way overboard with the sociologial analysis, building the film up and then finally deeming it a failure based on criteria it was never intended to meet.

At the end of the day, if you put this in front of an audience, will they laugh? Yes. Heartily? Yes. More than most comedies? Yes.

I've seen it, it's very funny, a little uneven, and along the way he exposes and alarms a few homophobes. And that's that.

comment #16

OtownRog says ...

Most of the country didn't see Borat. Most of the country isn't part of the movies/movies news complex. Most of the country has never seen Ali G or his ilk.
But despite that, it was apparently pretty difficult for SBCohen to go unrecognized.
I'd say the flyover rubes did OK. He had to basically trek to Appalachia or the Ozarks to find Americans to mock.
I like the comments about seeking anti-Semitism where it isn't prevalent, and the idea that people are too polite to call a stranger with a film crew a bigot, idiot or what have you. That's what I saw in Borat.

comment #17

bents75 says ...

I respectfully disagree Otown. I can't speak for so called mainstream culture, whatever that might imply, but as a 27 year old, I don't personally know a single person in my generation or the preceding one that hasn't seen Borat.

I'm pretty sure word of mouth spread the film like wild fire once it hit video. It's at least permeated youthful culture pretty strongly - and in a certain sense, I think that's a very good thing.

I haven't seen Bruno, but based on the trailers, I'd take a wild guess that most of the mockery in this one will befall baby boomers, and justifiably so. There are exceptions obviously in all generations, but boomers are the last bastian of serious homophobia in this country as I see it, as well as racism, and if it weren't for their (thankfully) decreasing relevance, you wouldn't see a black President today.

I just hope we see a gay black President in the near future, just to see the remaining boomer's heads completely explode.

I don't think someone is polite because they refrain from calling a stranger an idiot or a bigot. Common courtesy would suggest they're not supposed to do that anyway. They're just an asshole if they do.

comment #18

KC says ...

Not that I think SBC's schtick is without its problems, but to be fair I'm pretty sure a major reason he does these movies in America is because everyone in the UK knows his characters