Bruno wasn’t a commentary on the state of homophobia in the United States. It wasn’t a commentary on the root of bigotry, or tolerance, or on American culture, or on anything that it could’ve been a commentary about to allow for critics to over-intellectualize the movie’s purpose and therefore either defend or criticize the movie’s execution of that purpose. Bruno was just, in short, a bunch of really funny things happening in a row with no justification, no attempt at a justification, and honestly, no need for a justification. I walked out completely satisfied.
First off, Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno character multiplies gay stereotypes and vague European-ness to such a ridiculous degree, he’s too absurd to be considered a representative of anything. When he tells three hunters in Alabama that all the stars in the sky remind him of all the hot guys out there, followed by about sixty seconds of complete film silence, it’s not exposing the homophobic insecurities of the nation’s underbelly, nor is it even attempting to accomplish anything that metaphorical or grandiose; it’s just a really f*cking funny thing to watch.
Most of the film’s negative reviews compare the movie to Borat, shockingly, and either lament Bruno’s brashness as a negative alternative to Borat’s quirky awkwardness, or complain about the overall pointlessness of the film’s narrative structure. I don’t disagree that the plot of Bruno was pointless, but the plot of Borat was equally pointless and took up even more time; do people really think Bruno would’ve been improved with some more scripted shots of the character walking around sad and missing Pamela Anderson? I’m sure Cohen and Larry Charles quickly realized that the plot only detracted from valuable bit-time, and rather than supply the film with an obligatory but boring narrative backbone, they just threw together the feature film equivalent of “hey let’s go do this now! [BIT]” and the result was a maximized series of jokes that never got bogged down in wasting time trying to justify itself, which is exactly what I wanted to see.
Bruno thoughts continued after the jump — feel free to leave your own in the comments:
As for the Bruno/Borat character comparisons, I agree that movie-Bruno came off a lot more aggressively and was usually the most ridiculous person in the scene, whereas Borat’s bumbling approach was more equipped to allow the other people in his scenes to provide the awkward humor. Not that Bruno didn’t have its fair share of awful human beings; the montage of parents auditioning their kids to be in child photographs was more cringe-inducing than probably any of the interviews in Borat. Plus, so what if Bruno was more aggressively ridiculous? Did people really want the movie to be even more similar to Borat?
I also enjoyed how up front the shock value of Bruno was, especially coming off the heels of Borat. In Borat, the film’s most shocking scene comes 2/3 of the way through the movie, and marks a climax of the film’s ridiculousness in one intentionally-too-long naked fight scene. In Bruno, within the first twenty minutes of the movie, you witness a montage of impossibly exaggerated anal sex toys followed shortly by a talking penis hole. The film made every effort to top Borat in the ridiculous department, and whether or not people choose to interpret this as a pandering, selfconscious decision, I honestly believe it succeeded; the majority of the critical masses who were so overtaken by the novelty of Borat (and rightfully so, as it was a great movie) wouldn’t be calling Bruno a disappointment if the films had been released in the reverse order.
Bruno and Borat are both collections of amazing, awkward hidden camera bits incited by an absurd, nonsensical character and strung together by extremely loose, barely-necessary running plots. They both provide occasional insights into American customs and ways of thought, but both first and foremost aim to be completely, humorously absurd, with any cultural meaningfulness as a bonus secondhand consequence. If people aren’t able to enjoy two separate collections of ridiculous jokes because they’re pretty similar to one another, or for failing to accomplish some intellectual mission that they clearly didn’t even set out to accomplish, then, well, that’s up to those people.
Personally, no amount of restrospective intellectualization of the movie’s purpose will ever erase the fact that I laughed out loud constantly throughout almost this entire movie. I might’ve cut a scene or two (National Guard thing?) but the non-stop jokes — “That is such a Samantha thing to say,” visiting the psychic, starting a hummus argument, “I was going to have to think outside the [lengthy European gibberish]“, the talk show, the child photographs, many many more — were exactly what I expected going into the movie, and exactly what I got.
If someone can tell me why they didn’t enjoy this movie without referring to “expectations” or comparing it to Borat, then I’m all ears. And my sense of humor shouldn’t hang out with yours.
Bruno thoughts? Favorite parts/lines? Movie theater audience stories? Leave ‘em in the comments.
