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Loading ...Bruno has a gay ole time in the Holy Land
07.19.2009 9:00am EDT
(Jerusalem) Bruno’s flamboyant sashay across the Middle East has succeeded in one thing – uniting Sacha Baron Cohen’s unwitting Israeli and Palestinian victims in their joint disdain for his latest comedic creation.
Bruno is an over-the-top gay Austrian fashionista with a Nazi streak whose goal is to become the biggest Austrian celebrity since Hitler. To do so he travels to America, where he is told he must take on a charitable cause to achieve worldwide fame. So he decides to bring peace to a troubled place he calls “Middle Earth.”There, he nearly sparks a riot in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem when he struts down the street in a sexed-up Hassidic outfit that includes skintight shorts. On the Palestinian side, he tries to convince a West Bank militant to kidnap him, while giving the man condescending fashion tips. Bruno confuses the popular chickpea spread “hummus” with the Islamic militant group “Hamas” when he tries to bring together Israeli and Palestinian personalities to make peace.
Baron Cohen, an observant, Hebrew-speaking Jew with close ties to Israel, has ribbed the region before. In his 2006 movie Borat, his fake Kazakh language was actually Hebrew and his shtick was peppered with Israeli slang. In Bruno he goes a step further, taking aim at the Middle East’s most sacred cows.
The movie opened worldwide a week ago and became the top grossing film in the U.S. over the weekend. It’s making waves in Israel, too.
The locally shot scenes got big rounds of applause and hearty laughs at a recent Jerusalem screening. But the subjects of his pranks don’t seem to be in on the joke.
“This man, I think he is not a man,” said Ayman Abu Aita, a former member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a militant group that has been largely disbanded. “He is not saying the truth about me. He lied.”
In their scene together, Bruno identifies Abu Aita as a “terrorist” and asks to be abducted.
“I want to be famous, and I want the best guys in the business to kidnap me,” Bruno says. “Al-Qaida are so 2001.”
Before Abu Aita has a chance to reply, Bruno suggests that the mustachioed man lose his facial hair. “Because your King Osama looks like a kind of dirty wizard or a homeless Santa,” he says before being kicked out.
In an interview with David Letterman, Baron Cohen, 37, said he set up the meeting in the West Bank with the help of a CIA agent.
Abu Aita’s Israeli-Arab lawyer, Hatem Abu Ahmad, denied his client has been involved in any acts of violence. He said he is preparing a lawsuit against Baron Cohen and Universal Studios alleging that the terrorist reference could get Abu Aita in trouble with the Israelis and the homosexual association could get him killed by Palestinians. “This joke is very dangerous. We are not in the United States, we are not in Europe. We are in the Middle East and the world operates differently here,” Abu Ahmad said.
The jokes apparently had their share of dangers for Baron Cohen as well. His production team said he narrowly escaped an angry mob during his prance in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Jerusalem.
Jonathan Rosenblum, an ultra-Orthodox columnist, said he hasn’t viewed the scene but said the reaction was to be expected.
“It was offensive. It was meant to be offensive and it succeeded,” he said. “I don’t have any interest in going to the movie but I am sure it will have its fans.”
Yossi Alpher, a former Israeli Mossad officer, and Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian Cabinet minister, are apparently not among them.
In a panel Bruno holds with them in the movie, he tries to find common ground.
“Why are you so anti-Hamas? I mean isn’t pita bread the real enemy here?” Bruno asks with a straight face.
The dumbfounded interviewees look awkwardly at each other before taking the bait.
“You think there is a relation between Hamas and Hummus?” Khatib asks.
“Hummus has nothing to do with Hamas,” Alpher insists. “It’s a food. We eat it, they eat it.”
To which Khatib responds: “It’s vegetarian, it’s healthy, it’s beans.”
Both men declined comment for this article. But following the prank, Alpher published his account of the meeting in the Jewish publication The Forward in which he said he became suspicious when he saw Baron Cohen dressed in leather and studs, his face heavily powdered, and his arms and chest shaven.
In the movie, Bruno encourages the Palestinians to return the pyramids and asks Jews why they can’t get along with Hindus.
Among the nuggets not appearing in the movie but said nonetheless, according to Alpher, were: “Your conflict is not so bad. Jennifer-Angelina is worse” and “Vy don’t you Jews and Arabs settle the conflict with a time share on the land?”
Dave W said, “Both movies are just stupid…dumb humor for dumb people.”
What a brave but arrogant opinion. If we and other people who enjoyed Cohen’s humor are dumb, then you must be a cretin.
>I think the success of Baron Cohen’s movie says something terrible about those who enjoy watching it. Mr. Cohen plays on people’s desire to socialize…
I am in total agreement on the point about depicting people being torn between their individual values, and the desire to be polite and sociable. The Paula Abdul scene–and probably the Latoya Jackson seen cut from the movie–depicted that quite clearly. In an attempt to be polite to her host, she ended up betraying her values by using a human being as a chair–and then proceeded to say at length that humanitarianism was “like air” to her as she continued to use a human being for a chair.
But isn’t that a worthy topic of examination? Take the same dynamic and tension, and you have have people “going along” with Nazi Germany or “going along” with invading Iraq even though it had nothing to do with what scared us witless in the first place. It’s the tension between social pressure and individual morals.
What I found most brilliant about Bruno was how it worked on multiple levels simultaneously. Leading up to the movie, I read very compelling arguments that the movie made fun of gay people, homophobes, and the audience member’s willingness to laugh along at certain parts. After viewing the film, I found that *all* these people were correct! Depending on the biases and beliefs you had coming into the film, it would push a different set of buttons in you. And the whole point is to understand your buttons…to “know” thyself.
…and, as I mentioned in another post, I didn’t read anything from any major critic about what I thought was the primary target skewered by the movie: American’s insane compulsion to “be famous,” and how the insanity gets exported around the world.
I thought I would hurt myself from laughing so hard. A Jewish buddy of mine was sitting next to me, and he exhaled painfully at every mention of “Hitler.” And, during the Middle Eastern scenes, my friend kept saying, “How did he not get *killed*!”
And I didn’t expect the cage fight scene to be so thought provoking for me. It was the only scene, IMO, where over-the-top, raging (literally) homophobia was spewing on the screen. I kept asking myself, “Why don’t these people just leave the arena?” They kept shouting at the two guys making out as if they could “will” the icky homos away. One guy pounded his head, shouted, and (I think) was crying! It was startling to watch….
I have no desire to see Bruno though I did watch Borat over the weekend.
Yawn.
Some of it was funny but for the most part is was obnoxious and offensive.
Kind of like Andrew Dice Clay back in the 80’s, Borat/Bruno isn’t any different.
At least Dice didn’t wear the outfits that Bruno does.
Both movies are just stupid…dumb humor for dumb people. However, there is a point to be made and some here hint at it.
The two men interviewed from Hamas and Mosod, one of them suing, is very telling. The lawyer says “we do things differently here”. He is really saying “we are so backwards we cannot even take a joke. We kill based on people being the butt of a joke”.
This is akin to gang raping a girl who commits the “crime” of being in public with a man. The case I remember in KSA they even raped the man too!
So, yes, this movie does its job of pointing out how ridiculous extreme sides can be…but still, this type of humor reminds me of all the movies I’ve never seen and never will like “dumb and dumber”, “naked gun” etc.
The irony is while it points out the ridiculousness of the middle east’s fanatical taking of sides to the nth degree, it at the same time poins out how dumb we are to consume this type of crap.
I don’t care for movie that portray gay people as this type of “Bruno” character . Although there is nothing wrong with this type of character. This image portrays the wrong message to people who do not know gays that they all act and dress, think, like this “Bruno”.
Cohen LIVES for lawsuits and public cries of offense from EVERY group available. That’s his shtick! That’s his genious marketing!
Doesn’t ANYONE have the sense to not take this mans bait!
I think it’s all in good fun, but if you’re REALLY offended, then stop doing exactly what this man hopes for…giving the movie publicity that money can’t buy, in papers and news sites that wouldn’t otherwise cover a comedic film of any sort!
The man is a brilliant marketer and pretty much everything he does is covered legally as it’s SATIRE!
Sam, there both Sad. Yet funny in their own right!!! They Both Poke FUn at the Stupidness of people and show just how Idiotic people can be about conflicts that started 1k yrs ago. ( bruno)
How many of you complaining about this movies negative stereotypes and rude nature actually complained about Borat?
I’m sure your comments are well-meaning, Jeffrey – but they seem to advocate for the position that we should all be deadly serious about the slightest affront (real, perceived, or imagined) to one’s group membership or ideology – leaving no room for the possibility that the speaker was motivated only by humorous irreverence rather than hatred.
Know anyone else who lives by that same deadly-serious mentality? Oh yeah… the same extremists who almost started a riot and tried to kill Baron Cohen for acting out the scenes of a silly, somewhat sophomoric movie! (Get Serious enough about something, and before long, you start to feel that the Importance of your *ends* justifies some pretty nasty *means* as well.) Cohen-style irreverence is actually an antidote to these dangerous tendencies.
Assuming the worst about others (e.g. projecting oneself into someone else’s head by assuming that his motive is hatred rather than humor) is what generates friction and violence in the world. Let’s not add fuel to that fire by demonizing someone who’s clearly a humorist.
I think the success of Baron Cohen’s movie says something terrible about those who enjoy watching it. Mr. Cohen plays on people’s desire to socialize, their trust in others, and turns it against them. In a world of such violence where groups are constantly seeing everyone outside their group as the “dangerous other”, Mr. Cohen adds to the problem. Mr. Cohen is cruel and the sad joke is really on us.
GLAAD wasn’t happy with this movie either, because of its antigay stereotypes.
I **LUV** the clear plastic suit he wore!
The box office for Bruno fell off 81% this week and fell from number 1 to number 4. It’s expected to be a huge disappointment in comparison to the last movie. I would expect that it will be gone from the main theaters by the end of the month.
This should speak volumes.
This particular part of the movie was scary as Cohen was clearly in danger. To go to this length for humor and to show what idiots these big bad people are is quite brilliant. Had he been a woman he would’ve been killed. If people didn’t like it they could leave or one could walk out of the movie theatre. No one was forced to do anything.
At least he didn’t blow anything up.