GCL Goes to the Movies: Bruno Sucks

Feel free to place the requisite Euro dots over the u's in the title of the post.

Before I delve into why Sacha Baron Cohen's follow up to 2006's critically acclaimed Borat sucks, I have to say that as a publicist who has to tell every one of his clients "welll, maybe this particular story isn't good enough for the Today Show," I'm beyond pissed that Matt Lauer had to promote this film on Friday because the shows's parent company (Universal) distributes it. Meanwhile my laundry detergents, airlines and destinations go unnoticed. It isn't fair. So, for that alone, fuck you Matt Lauer and NBC Universal. Again, stick those dots where you see fit.

The unfairness of why Matt Lauer won't do a segment on any of my clients notwithstanding, Bruno is a piece of (Euro)trash. And I love gross humor (kinda) - just last weekend I was dying over the hijinks of Bradley Cooper in "The Hangover." But Bruno was just stupid. (And Bradley Cooper is just so yummy.) Picture all of those gay jokes you heard in junior high school - all those anal-centric jokes, to be exact - and now picture them on the big screen. Within five minutes the lead character finds himself on his knees having a massive dildo pedaled into his rear end by his Pygmy boyfriend. And then champagne is poured out of said Pygmy boyfriend's derriere, which Bruno then proceeds to pound furiously with a fire extinguisher to produce all sorts of yellow gunk which flies across the frame. There's also a love story beneath Bruno's attempts at stardom, and this too winds up in fisticuffs, plastic sheets and soiled hand prints in a motel room.

The film, according to Baron-Cohen, is meant to satirize anti-gay attitudes. So they sent a flamey sexual deviant into red states to poke fun at Jesus and hit on a bunch of yokels. Let's just see how many times the word faggot can be tossed around by a bunch of stupid Americans (incidentally, it's not - ever - even by the most visibly disturbed and straight laced/ignorant/whatever people the film is trying to expose).

Now, the good people at GLAAD are upset about the movie, and God bless em', their mission is to make sure that Tim Gunn reigns supreme as the model for how gay men should behave on TV and how the world should embrace them. So they're right to kick up a fuss. As a gay man myself, however, I'm not the least bit offended by the movie - the character is so off the mark with who I am and who my partner and friends are that, yes, he is laughable. But I do think it's appalling that most media outlets have jumped on this bandwagon, hailing Baron Cohen as a genius, devoting fashion spreads to him (thanks, NY Times, GQ) and, once again, a full segment on a morning TV show (because Today Show moms will LOVE to see a giant penis waved in their face, repeatedly, at $12.50 a pop). That's what's objectionable to me: the media's complicity in peddling this sort of stupid filth.