The Story with Bruno?
Posted by Maman Poulet on 13 Jul 2009 at 09:32 pm | Tagged as: LGBT, Queer
I hear Today with Pat Kenny may be covering the views of lesbians and gay men on Bruno during tomorrow’s show.
I’ve not seen it and it would not be on my list of films to see this year. Milk and indeed the films shown during GAZE would be more my thing. I never even thought of Bruno as a film of gay interest despite the constant ads and features on the television recently – so have you seen it and what do you think? (Maman Poulet is a pop culture following failure obviously – Go read Glitzfrau for some more interesting pre-seeing the movie thoughts!)
CNN covered the issue of the gay community and Bruno over the weekend.
Saw it. Hated it. I thought it was offensive on so many levels, but not in the “I take offence at”… way. I just found it overly vulgar, hugely so for the sake of itself, too many ridiculous staged scenes, ugh. It’s no longer something new to trap Americans in situations where they display their ignorance, so it just falls flat on its face. Way too many gratuitous gay “sex” scenes (sex in inverted commas as I’m not sure what’s depicted is anything anyone, gay or straight, would associate with sex itself). Just, ugh. I wish I could take that hour and a half back. Thank God it was short.
I hate to be a idealogue, a pedant, a little too sensitive, but… Comedy is comedy.
The Life of Brian offended a lot of people, Team America World Police offended people, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut offended people, Borat offended people… Even Fawlty Towers offended people (the Spanish, the Germans, Psychiatrists, the hyper-sensitive.)
It’s ok to be offended by comedy, but I suspect (even though I haven’t seen it yet) that the people who should be most offended/embarassed by Bruno, as with Borat, are not the gay community or the good people of Kazakhstan, but Americans. Borat highlighted throw-away prejudice against the Jewish community amongst others and a lot of Americans were very embarassed and hopefully were inspired to question the common throw-away comments often bandied about among homogenous groups about people ‘not like us.’
Using comedy to highlights people’s irrational prejudices (whether they be against the gay community, the people of Kazakhstan, Spanish waiters) is briliant, even if on a superficial level the humour can be perceived as crude or offensive.
‘I know nothing!’
Two things: the ‘Bruno as gay’ angle is a marvellous marketing gimmick that taps into how straight people can vicariously view what they suspect ‘those gays’ get up to. And: like a wasp, ignore it and it will go away.
I could not be bothered watching this. Pure pleb dazzle.
I saw it. I didn’t want to but then I saw a trailer, which itself was quite funny. This film was vulgar and reinforced every single stereotype there is about gay men – sex obsessed, S&M addicted, bitchy, fashion obsessed, selfish, effeminate and so on. I felt totally uncomfortable watching the “sex scenes” because they were EXTREMELY vulgar – and I can manage vulgar. Coupled with that the final scene (the fight scene) was orchestrated mass homophobia, promoting total hatred of gay people for a mediocre gag.
I found it very funny, but then again, I found Borat very funny also. Brüno himself is annoying and excruciating rather than entertaining, but the point is not that you find him amusing, but that you laugh at the appalled reaction of those subjected to him, whether staged or not.
I think it is provocative but deeply thought provoking in some sense because we don’t question normally whether or not we are complicit in “earning” discrimination and I am increasingly disturbed by a sense in the gay community that somehow we must “be nice” and inoffensive in order to earn the respect of heterosexual society sufficiently to be regarded as equals.
As somebody who grew up influenced heavily by the politics of the UK kickback against such atrocities as Section 28 and the deliberate entrapment of gay men who broached sexual norms by the police I find it a bit disturbing as increasingly I see the old sense of diversity and tolerance in the community breaking down and being replaced with a self-policing moralising.
Much as Brüno is painful to watch, it does raise the question of whether or not to justify homophobia as a gut reaction to “provocative” behvariour or not.