Bruno Sets Us Free

More famous than Hitler? -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Last weekend, I decided to throw caution to the wind and go see Bruno -- the documentary-comedy featuring Sacha Baron Cohen in the title role. He plays an over-the-top, gay Austrian fashionista who seeks fortune and fame however he may come by it. To some extent, his character is a standing satire of superficial celebrity personae like Paris Hilton and her wag namesake Perez Hilton. Bruno is a pompous, preening self-absorbed drama queen seeking to inject his face wherever he can. The most biting satire is when this ridiculous person interacts with the denizens of Alabama and Arkansas. However silly Bruno might be, he has a right to existence and self-expression -- rights that the USMC, Exodus and Lebanese terrorists would just as soon revoke.

Cohen isn’t even gay in reality but is willing to submit himself to all the humiliations an openly gay man might experience in dealing with “heterodoxy”. I won’t do a tedious play-by-play of the whole movie, but will hit some of the highlights. Bruno entraps 2008 candidate Ron Paul for a faux interview. He puts the moves on Paul, who runs from the room in terror …”That man’s a queer!”. Bruno enlists in the Army, and reports for duty in a standard issue uniform accessorized with Dolce and Gabana. Two butch drill sergeants are no match for Bruno’s fashion sense. He joins on Exodus (gay conversion group) in Alabama only to tell the minister in charge that he has beautiful BJ lips.

Other encounters are with a karate instructor, a group of deer hunters, a straight dominatrix and straight swinger’s club. He also tries to broker peace in the Middle East (not kidding) and tries to get himself kidnapped by Islamic terrorists. Through all of this, he is met with gape-jawed outrage from the straight people with whom he interacts. In truth, some of the people figure he’s crazy and show the same type of apprehension you might have for an escapee from Belleview Hospital. I think the straight people end up looking just about as silly as Bruno in the end.

I’ve left out big chunks of plot and dialog but suffice it to say, the movie is an eyeful. It ends with Bruno in a cage fight where he and his opponent engage in a make-out session instead of a fight. The audience (a sea of Arkansas mullets and tank tops) roars in fury but can’t rush past the chain-link fenced stage. I myself envision a future world like the downtown San Francisco I saw a few years ago. People wear costumes all year long -- it doesn’t have to be Halloween. Bruno would almost be conservative by their standards. Our day will come … and Sacha Baron Cohen helps to make it so obvious how much better a place it is when overbleached drama queens lead us to love, not war and hatefulness.

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