'Bruno's' Gay Stereotypes Rile GLAAD

Bruno took the box office on its first day out. But the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation late Friday condemned Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest satire film, which is intended to “highlight and challenge homophobia.”

The film, in which Cohen portrays the title character, is intended as a satire in the vein of 2006’s Borat, in which the actor poked fun at foreigners.

“Clearly, the filmmakers wanted to use satire to highlight and challenge homophobia,”
GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios said in a statement. “But their film also reinforces troubling attitudes about gay people in ways that run counter to the intentions of the filmmakers.

“The movie repeatedly builds entire scenes around stock stereotypes and situations that make gay people and families the butt of crude jokes,” he added. “I can’t help but think of all the teenage kids already getting bullied, beat up and ridiculed for being — or for being thought to be — gay. For these kids, this movie will give their tormentors one more word in the anti-gay lexicon of slurs: Bruno.”

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The film, which features a cameo from music icons including Elton John and U2’s Bono, essentially is an hour and a half of Cohen exploiting stereotypes as Bruno, a “flamboyant” Austrian fashionista has-been previously featured on Cohen’s Comedy Central show Da Ali G Show.

While Bruno can, at times, be funny, the overall message it delivers is not a good one for the LGBT community at a time when anti-gay measures overwhelmingly pass across the country.

“Instead of challenging stereotypes, (Bruno) reinforces them for many of those who voted to take away the freedom to marry from loving, committed gay and lesbian couples in California,” Barrios said. “May states have gone even further — Arkansas went to the polls and effectively eliminated the ability of gay people to adopt or foster children in that state.

“In a cruel twist, Bruno, some of which was actually shot in Arkansas, includes a scene where the title character shows a talk-show audience photos of sexual activity occurring in the presence of an infant child,” he continued. “Can this help the gay families across the country who continue to be reduced to political punching bags at the ballot box?”

Barrios is spot-on in his assessment. While the filmmakers had the best intentions in wanting to make a movie that illustrated how narrow-minded some Americans are when it comes to gays, Bruno does the opposite.

“Some members of our community will not be offended by this film,” he said. “Others, like those of us at GLAAD, find it frustrating and discouraging to be confronted with a movie that wants to increase America’s discomfort with homophobia, but which for much of America, seems likely to decrease its comfort with gay people.”