After the whirlwind success of 2006’s Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation, British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen [SBCOH] is back. This weekend, the funnyman releases Bruno [BRUNO], based on his third alter-ego from The Ali G Show.
In the film, Bruno is a gay Austrian fashionista who loses his show in Europe so he comes to America to conquer Hollywood. With his assistant Lutz in tow, Bruno wants to make sure he finds the best fashion America has to offer. Like his predecessor Borat, Bruno traverses different parts of the country setting himself in culture clashes that ultimately expose stupid and homophobic people.
Bruno is Cohen’s third alter-ego after Ali G and Borat. Like the others, this character is an outrageous caricature who crosses cultural barriers and gets people to drop their guard. It is then that Cohen manages to get at the heart of people’s close mindedness. In Borat, Cohen exposed the bigotry and apparent anti-Semitism of small town America. That buffoon of a man elicited love and shock as he stumbled from learning to drive a car to having trouble figuring out what to do with his own human waste. Ali G immersed himself in the world of inner-city kids and was able to find loopholes of humor without theatrics. Ali G’s main act was interviewing famous people, mainly politicians but asking them ridiculous questions. The character established Cohen as an international presence.
With Bruno, the outrageously flamboyant gayness seems to account for most of the humor. It’s obvious that people will either be amused or repulsed. Cohen must employ yet more outrageousness to get even more of a response from his onlookers. This writer fears that Bruno runs the risk of being too staged, by forcing gay-mockery. The film’s main relevance comes when Bruno decides to go to a Christian “conversion” camp for gays. There, he encounters the methods used to turn a person “straight.” Cohen’s true comedic talent emerges when he knows how to find the nerve and not create it himself.
This writer is a fan of the funnyman. But she is looking for less outrageous getup, alter-ego and fakery but more of Cohen, the man and comedian.