Will BRÜNO Enforce or Expose Homophobia?

In an interesting piece from the New York Times, author Brooks Barnes focuses on the question of whether or not Sacha Baron Cohen’s upcoming comedy, “Brüno” will reveal stereotypes and cause audiences to face their own latent homophobia or if audiences are too stupid to grasp that this is satire and that it will re-enforce their attitude towards homosexuals.

Now before you cry, “How could anyone be so stupid to not see this is as parody?” I would direct you to a recent study conducted by Ohio State University which found that conservatives thought that Stephen Colbert wasn’t a caricature but saying what he actually believed and that the joke was on liberals in the audience.

I haven’t seen “Brüno” but it’s one of my most anticipated films of the summer.  I will say that I don’t think the film will re-enforce homophobia especially since Cohen has already tested the waters with “Borat” and while that film got him sued a lot, there wasn’t a rash of antisemitism after the film came out.  Of course, the key difference is that Brüno is a homosexual while the idiot character of Borat isn’t Jewish; he just openly despises Jews.   Still, it’s hard to side with the man who brings a bag of his own shit to the dinner table.

Click here to read the full article (although it contains some minor spoilers so be warned) and leave your thoughts in the comments below. “Brüno” hits theatres on July 10th.