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   ramping up the gay discomfort
Wednesday, July 15 2009
This evening Gretchen and I went to the Hudson Valley Mall to see Brüno, the latest from the neurosis-spelunking shapeshifter Sacha Baron Cohen.
First, though, we had a dinner of veggie burgers and fries at Rolling Rock.
At some point Gretchen realized the show wasn't at the time she'd initially thought, so we decided to see The Hangover again, and then leave it early and slip into the theatre showing Brüno just as it was beginning. These tricks are relatively easy at the mall theatre, where, until relatively recently, we used to watch movies for free.
We were excited as the explosion-punctuated trailers ended and Brüno began. We were familar with the Brüno character from the Ali G Show and expected an hour and a half of gut-splittling laughter, and for the most part we got precisely that.
Brüno was conceived as a way to showcase the American discomfort with homosexuality. As with his earlier movie Borat, Brüno featured a roadtrip-based plot where our hero makes various realizations and tries various activities in his effort to reach his goal (in this case, to be "über famous"). As a movie, Brüno wasn't as good or as funny as Borat had been, though Baron Cohen seemed to be taking on more risk in the production of this film. He makes fun of a terrorist in Lebanon, he goes camping with a group of redneck hunters, and (best of all) he makes out with another man in front of a crowd of drunk rednecks whom he'd just rallied to the cause of "straight pride," taking advantage of the protective function of a cagematch cage. Somewhere in there, there was also an incredibly funny clip that concluded with the hole at the end of a penis screaming "Brüno!" as a horrified focus group scribbles notes. Still, both Gretchen and I were tuned in more this time to the ocassions when Baron Cohen was doing little more than being cruel. Though I'm no fan of Ron Paul, I felt sorry for the guy as Brüno gradually ramped up the gay discomfort.


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