WHAT I’VE BEEN WATCHING: Brüno

No Comments | Posted: July 10th, 2009 | Filed under: What I've Been Watching | Tags: bruno, sacha baron cohen

Right off the bat: I’m glad there’s a comedian like Sacha Baron-Cohen out there right now. We need comedies like Borat and Brüno more than we need Dance Flick or Judd Apatow Ruminates On How Bad Off Middle-Class White People Have It When Things Don’t Go Their Way. Interviews with him have shown that he’s deeply devoted to crafting humor from seemingly-impossible places; Borat’s exposé of America’s racism and hypocrisy proves that.

That said, there’s something very offputting about some segments in his latest movie. It’s not the gay material, per se: the opening sequence featuring Brüno and his lover’s multiple sexual deviancies is one of the most bone-shatteringly funny moments I’ve seen recently, but there’s a whole scenes where the satirical edge disappears entirely, replaced with material like Brüno getting brutally whipped with a belt wielded by an industrially-enhanced blonde at a swinger’s party.

When it’s funny, it’s fantastic. The photo sessions casting sequence and the denouement at an MMA event are exactly why I respect Cohen: he’s exposing base insecurities in our culture as a whole. Brüno also manages to act as commentary on things like celebrity “news” and the military in a way that’s just plain funny. Unfortunately, for every moment where I was laughing out loud, there’s a companion like the too-long scene in which Brüno goes on a primarily black, local talk show and baits them with broad racist caricatures. On one hand, the crowd is behaving in the same way as the rednecks do when confronted with someone who’s aggresively baiting them, but on the other, a white guy mocking black folks through broad caricature doesn’t sit well with me. It seems to be a reprise of bullshit that honestly could stay in the collective closet for a while longer.

Brüno is a more ambitious and aggressive movie than Cohen’s previous work, and its shortcomings are that much more glaring. I can’t recommend it wholeheartedly but it does provide some troubling insight into the boundaries of comedy. In ten years, maybe I’ll have reached a point where I’m seeing something closer to a man driving a crowd into a frenzy instead of a white man using black people to score easy laughs.

(All of my misgivings aside, it’s not exaggeration to say that the penis dance sequence made me spit my drink out and howl. Fucking amazing.)

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