My friend Beth and I went to see Brüno on Saturday afternoon. I won’t give anything away, but the movie can pretty much be summed up in the following question, uttered by the guy next to me:
Did that urethra just speak?
Basically, if you enjoy David Letterman’s Top 10 Reasons to See Brüno, you’ll find the movie ten thousand times funnier:
But if you thought Borat was offensive and belittling, you’ll find it ten thousand times worse.
Did anyone else see it/love it? Did you think it could be construed as offensive to The Gayz?
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David Letterman is terrible. It’s a blight on your blog to mention him, let alone post a video. The ads on this Google News search are vastly more entertaining.
Did you two like Bruno?
Is it that you love Leno/Conan/Jimmy Fallon(?) more, or is it that you’re a staunch Palin supporter?
We liked Bruno, but I got the feeling I liked it more than Beth did. I didn’t care for all of the belittling innocent people that was done in Borat, and I think Bruno was much more tolerable in that area. There was a scene at the very beginning that made me think, “I’m going to hate this sooooo much,” but instead of hating it, I was mostly just amazed that he was able to get all of these important people to actually speak to him.
I think if I were a man, I would be Bruno.
WHAT. I can’t be the only one who’s kind of digging on that little yellow hat, can I?
I think if you were a man, your ass would look a lot hotter in that little yellow romper.
I was seriously underwhelmed.
Me too. C- movie at best. I was offended, but just as an audience member.
I thought Borat was mostly “meh”, although I laughed at some parts. I’ve never enjoyed uncomfortable humor. I don’t like watching movies like Meet the Parents, where the comedy comes from awkward situations. So…I generally don’t like Sacha Baron Cohen because of his style.
Also, I suspect that some sexual jokes are played for the gross-out factor, another thing I don’t tend to enjoy in movies.
As for Brüno…I found a Salon article that makes some good points and articulates some other reasons why I don’t really care to see it: http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2009/07/09/bruno_rakoff/
I don’t think the movie’s necessarily bad for or offensive to Teh Gayz; from my experience, it’s sort of irrelevant. Sure, we’ve all met someone who is a version of Brüno, and people like that are an annoyance in the gay community too – when their only personality trait is “I’M GAY” they’re not that fun to be around. Most of them grow out of it as they get out of their 20s. While I’m sure there are quite a few stereotypes my gay friends and I live out (let’s talk about lesbians in cargo shorts, yeah?), the one thing I think people forget is: being gay is not actually about sex. Brüno IS all about sex, and as the Salon article says, it comes across that his silliness and idiocy are in direct correlation to his love for penises. While that’s a bit annoying and makes me roll my eyes, I know and you know the truth – being gay is like being left-handed, and the only reason it’s important to care about people’s sexuality is the equality issue.
The majority of real homophobes are, like, overly-churchy people or emphatically straight dudes with secret gay fantasies, right? The former won’t see the movie, and the latter will see it and laugh at it, but won’t be swayed by the movie to hate any more or less, I think. So, conclusion: Brüno is silly and probably doesn’t matter in the grand scheme.
And your Letterman clip probably is a good litmus test. I smiled at two parts – the Arnold bit and “rated F for fabulous” – but didn’t think Brüno was all that funny or original as a character. Maybe the mincing gay man has been overplayed on sketch comedy shows and Will and Grace? Feh, I don’t know.
I didn’t mind the discomfort so much as the preying on people. Like, finding out later that the people in (what was supposed to be) Kazakhstan had no idea what he was saying about them in English really got my goat. Although, I don’t really feel bad for the preacher who was led to believe that Bruno wanted to become straight with Jesus’s help, so I’m just biased against people I don’t like, I guess.
And yes, the entire movie is one big sex joke, so I don’t recommend Brüno for you.
I can’t get enough lesbians in cargo shorts, and I know what you mean about stereotypes. I don’t mind that uber-hicks exist, and I don’t mind when people at work call me a redneck for missing the mispronouncing of creek and wash and calling Coke pop instead of soda, because if that’s all Ohio is to them, I prefer that they stay out of it, anyway. Of course, being a hick doesn’t really have the same sort of consequences that being gay does.
That Salon article was really, really on point. Especially–speak of the devil–with the analysis of the hunting-with-the-rednecks scenes. It was just Bruno trying to push buttons, and he ended up looking dumb when the men didn’t react. There were some parts of it that were genuinely funny–the D&G bit that they always show in the trailers comes to mind–and I’m glad I saw it for that, but I’m also glad that my dad will never see it and have the stereotypes reinforced. Not that extremely effeminate gays have ever hurt anyone.
Two things:
1. I have all sorts of cargo shorts, so…how you doin’?
2. You need a t-shirt that says “I’m biased against people I don’t like”.
Somehow, I found Borat outrageously funny (even though I found the naked fight scene excessive and was super annoyed by the audience’s “OMG-naked-fat-guy!” reaction to it). But with the exception of the D&G scene Katie mentioned, nothing else I’ve seen of Bruno has even made me crack a smile. I’m sure I’d probably enjoy the film, but I’m not rushing out to see it.