It wasn’t that I really wanted to see “Bruno.”
It was that I felt like I should, mainly because it’s one of those movies that inspires a lot of buzz and chatter and controversy, and if you’re into cinema, as I am, eventually you have to see it, just so you can formulate an opinion. In any case, I try to be open minded when I go to the movies, and even though I wasn’t the hugest fan of director/star Sacha Baron Cohen’s previous film, “Borat,” it was funny and provocative and hard to forget, and I figured maybe “Bruno” would possess those qualities, too.
But from the opening minutes of “Bruno,” my skin started to crawl.
“Geez,” I thought, as I watched Bruno prance around a fashion show, ask stupid questions and talk to stupid people. “I have to spend the next 90 minutes with THIS GUY?”
Much has been made of whether mainstream America is ready to watch a movie about a flamboyantly (and stereotypically) gay Austrian fashion show host who travels to the United States on a quest to become a celebrity. But Bruno’s sexual orientation isn’t what makes this movie tiresome. No, what makes this movie hard to watch is Bruno’s personality, which grows stale after about 2.5 seconds. Bruno is an irritating person.
Like “Borat,” “Bruno” is a mockumentary, full of unscripted, boundary-pushing encounters with real people who don’t realize he’s a fictional character. In “Borat,” these encounters supposedly revealed the anti-semitic, racist and xenophobic undercurrents in contemporary American life. In “Bruno,” I think they’re supposed to reveal our societal confusion over sexuality and sexual orientation. And maybe they do. But I couldn’t help but think that many of Bruno’s victims were actually quite tolerant. Long after I would have kicked Bruno to the curb, they’re still trying to help him out.
For instance: Bruno seeks out an Alabama karate instructor, and says he wants to learn how to defend himself against the numerous gay men who hit on him. The karate instructor agrees to teach him. Soon, Bruno is waving a dildo in the air, and the karate instructor is demonstrating how to disarm him. “I’ve never done anything like this before,” the karate instructor says, pleasantly enough. Or take the hunters — also from Alabama — that Bruno accompanies on an all-night camping trip. When Bruno muses that stars make him think of “all the hot guys in the world,” none of the hunters say anything, because they’re uncomfortable, and when a naked Bruno crouches outside one of the hunters’ tents in the middle of the night and asks if he can come in, the guy curses, yells at him, and tells him to go away. Now, these hunters may not much like gay people. But, really, would any normal person want to invite Bruno into their tent under these circumstances? Or teach him karate while he’s waving dildos around?
In many ways, “Bruno” is a lazy movie. For the most part, Sacha Baron Cohen has selected fairly easy targets for his supposedly edgy deconstruction of homophobia and celebrity culture. Southern rednecks, Paula Abdul, Ron Paul, Westboro Baptist Church — is it really that hard to make these people look small-minded and dumb? By picking such easy targets, “Bruno” caters to the choir — left-leaning people who watch a lot of HBO, appreciate irony, and generally feel superior to red staters. Of course, sometimes this comedic strategy backfires. I actually found myself feeling sorry for Ron Paul, who is perfectly polite and friendly until Bruno drops his pants, causing Paul to storm out of the room and call Bruno a queer. OK, maybe Paul shouldn’t have called Bruno a queer. On the other hand, he thought Bruno was going to interview him about the Austrian economy. Can you really blame him for being angry? I would have been angry, too. (For more on the Ron Paul segment, check this article in Slate.)
“Bruno” isn’t quite as bad as I’ve made it out to be. It does have its funny moments. I particularly enjoyed Bruno’s meetings with the gay converter who promises to make him straight. (When Bruno asks if there’s any music he should avoid listening to, the converter says, “Sinead O’Connor. The Indigo Girls. Of course, the Village People.”) I also liked Bruno’s trip to a swinger’s party. These scenes are smarter than the rest of the film, maybe because the subjects have ample opportunity to speak for themselves and explain their point of view. Rather than simply mocking them, Bruno allows them to reveal a bit about who they are, and for a brief period of time the film actually becomes nuanced and complex. And funny.
No doubt there are plenty of people who think “Bruno” is totally hilarious, and far be it from me to say that it isn’t. The question of what makes something funny has long been of interest to me, and I’ve finally reached the conclusion that humor is deeply subjective. I do admire Sacha Baron Cohen for his willingness to do anything to get a laugh, but I think his daring and willingness to push the envelope obscures the fact that most of “Bruno” just isn’t that funny. But if you like cruel, mean-spirited humor, it might just be the movie for you.
For more of my musings on humor, click here .
Got a comment? E-mail me at sfoss@dailygazette.net
