Bruno = Gay Face?

Now, I loved Borat. I thought Sacha Baron Cohen effectively illuminated American's ignorance and racial intolerance. America was the butt of all jokes, not Kazakhstan as some have claimed (though I can understand Kazakhstan's grievances). My love for Borat, however, has not transferred into a desire to support Cohen's newest film, Bruno. I saw no satire in the commercials, only common stereotypes of "queens." Bruno plays on notions of promiscuity and superficiality to generate laughs.




David Rakoff of Salon.com perhaps puts it best:

Baron Cohen's Brüno is a gay minstrel, in the most literal sense of the word. Just as the characters of the burnt-cork vaudevillians had, bound up ineluctably with their dark complexions, traits like being shiftless, lazy, and "a-feared of spooks" as their eyes bugged out in Neanderthal, superstitious terror, Brüno's homosexuality comes bundled up with a lot of unattractive software. He is an open hydrant of empty, venal ignorance, a fame-chasing, grandiose fucktard, all because he is a cockaholic (his term).

If there is any comfort to take away from this it is that Baron Cohen exhibits a similar disconnect and misunderstanding about attitudes toward gay men as the government, since most polls show that Washington lags behind popular opinion when it comes to tolerance.

Another movie added to my boycott list...

Comments please.