A few nights ago, I saw a free screening of Brüno at the BAM theater in Brooklyn. As we were entering, several security guys methodically and politely collected cell phones, Blackberries, and iPhones as if they were doing a coat check. They did this to prevent people from filming the movie secretly.
When my brother and I got into the theater, we saw a couple of skinny, hipster looking guys wearing blue Brüno t-shirts walking around with cameras. Of all things to film in this world, people arriving for a screening of Brüno should not be one of them, my brother said to me. A man then announced that he was throwing out Brüno t-shirts, which brought many people in their audience to their feet, waving and screaming for a shirt. It was almost embarrassing. Here we were, a perfectly representative group of Brooklyn-lookin’ people in our twenties and thirties sitting down to watch a Sacha Baron Cohen movie and to no doubt spread the word about it to our friends, as is part of the reason that these free screenings take place.
And then Sacha Baron Cohen came out in full Brüno costume. My feeling of being pawns in a marketing game vanished at the excitement of having one of the most influential comedian’s of today in the room. He came down from the top of the theater, shaking hands and playing with guys’ hair. When he got to me and my brother, he brushed my brother’s glasses off his face onto the floor. He then told us how he had been in Sydney (the city, not the guy) and asked us if we were ready to see a lot of penis. And then he left.
His movie did not disappoint. In fact, I thought it was much funnier than the Borat movie. When my brother and I left the theater, we were recounting all of the jaw-dropping sequences with glee.
So I was pretty surprised when I started reading reviews of Brüno to find that many people either think it a disappointment after Borat (I’m sure many were disappointed with Waiting for Guffman after This is Spinal Tap, but think of what a cult classic the former has become since). Some people just don’t think the movie is funny, which I disagree with, but what I disagree with even more is the contention that Brüno should be an important movie for gays, that it should go so far as to skewer homophobia while avoiding putting gays in a box as flamboyant clowns. Ideally, according to this view, Brüno should skewer the vapid world of showbiz and runway fashion and nothing more.
In fact, the film is an equal opportunity offender, that is, if you find yourself personally identifying with or feeling the need to defend: moralizing talk show audience members, Paula Abdul, runway models, Southern hunters, wrestling fans, Christian gay converters, gay Austro-German types, really flamboyant gays generally, beauty pageant-type parents, cause-espousing celebrities, Ron Paul, Israeli Hasids, or Arab terrorists. I personally think all of these groups are worth poking some fun at, and fun it is. Why people are so insistent that the movie only target a certain group, as if everyone else–like homophobic Southerners–are salt of the earth who don’t deserve a little prodding is beyond me.
The only fair criticism of the movie I have seen is that Brüno disprorportionately targets people who have less savvy about how they are be portrayed. It’s too bad actually that he didn’t spend more time making fun of the fashion world like he does on “Da Ali G” show, but from accounts, it sounds like fashion week was almost impossible for the Brüno crew to get into, owing to the organizers blacklisting him. The fact that he did get into the show and pulled an outrageous stunt though is testament to that Baron Cohen tried to get everyone.
