| As someone who is liberal, gay, half German, had Nazi relatives in the branches of the family tree, and grandfathers on opposite sides of the Atlantic in WWII- I should have plenty of angles to be offended by Brüno. To be honest, I kind of expected to be really offended as I didn't really think Borat was anything that spectacular.
The actual result? I laughed harder that I have at most any movie in years.
Now, I recognize that I'm a) young being 24 and b) living in Austin, where we complain about the gay community having no community because we're quite integrated into the social fabric.
But what I think Bruno comes down to, is at a certain point, you have to have the propensity to be offended and the ability to just not give a damn or care or worry or gnash your teeth about "how it will play in the heartland". Just as there is not going to be agreement among GLBT writers & journalists, or the leaders withing the various parts or levels of the GLBT movement, there isn't going to be any common agreement of how people react or minds are molded in the broader public.
There comes a point that when something is just so plainly obviously ridiculous and over the top, that it loses any ability to really have a defined effect on the public consciousness on how they view homosexuals, rednecks, african-americans, celebrities, etc. There's not a particular message here, there's not an intended subliminal message here, there's nothing that the gay community is going to "agree to worry about" other than to offer our own independent opinions like I am here.
I find it's pretty impossible to put yourselves in someone elses shoes with movies like Bruno. I mean, what would be accomplished by some straight reviewer trying to "put themselves in the shoes of a GLBT viewer" to offer a reaction to this? Nothing, because there is no single GLBT reaction. Just as there is no single heterosexual reaction or any other class or subgroup you want to slice and dice for an opinion.
Bruno speaks to no one- which makes it universal and meaningless. And I can enjoy it for that without getting worked up into an activist froth or evaluating it for cinematic merit. |
