on: Brüno, Pt. 2

[I had a great thing happen tonight. My friend James P. reads my blog and brought to my attention that I never really discussed what I thought the deeper meaning behind Brüno was. So then I took over his Facebook wall to better explain myself. I might have actually gotten my thoughts together and decided to post them here. Here it is.]

Okay, I am going to try to explain this as best as I can, and hopefully it'll come out clear.

What I think the deeper meaning behind Brüno is, is that people need to...okay, so it is hard to put it into words. Here is my drawn out thoughts: Brüno comments on homophobia, our generation's obsession with fame and the lengths people will go for it, and a bunch of other things that my mind can't bring forward at this moment (it's 3:33AM). The homophobia stuff is blatant; Brüno is as gay as they come and has no shame about throwing it in people's faces (though he doesn't see the issue). As far as the fame thing goes, in one scene he interviews parents who want their children to be on television and one woman even agrees to give her baby liposuction so it can lose 10 lbs and be on television. Yeah.

So yeah, I can't quite put into a sentence what I think the deeper meaning is, but it definitely tells us to look at the way we live our lives and the things we view as "right and wrong". It's "wrong" for 2 men to marry, but it's okay for parents to basically prostitute their children to the media for a little fame? There are lots of scenes that take place in middle-America, where in many cases homosexuals are not welcome; one with men talking about how thanks to religion they've been converted to heterosexuality. I don't want to give too much away (in case you decide to see it) but it's interesting to watch the things people say about their feeling towards gays, TO a gay man. There's even a segment where Brüno goes camping with a group of rugged backwoods men.

(I didn't think I'd be so passionate about this film, LOL) I think what's interesting to me about this film is how many people in the gay community are reacting to it. Many feel like it's playing into gay stereotypes and actually is setting gays back in the eyes of the heterosexual community.* I think that's false. The reason that Brüno is a COMPLETE cartoon is the only way to get the message across. Any subtle portrayal of the character would mean he could just be any other gay on the street; the point of Brüno is to display the idea of the outrageous "gay" that many extreme homophobes have in their mind. To bring this "nightmare" into their reality allows us to truly see how people think of gays in society. If the character was more down played, it'd be easier to sugar coat people's reactions; but with a more in-your-face approach it's harder to hide true feelings. We fear what we don't understand = when the monster is in our face we react how we TRULY feel.

So yeah, after ALL that: I think that Brüno is trying to tell us to look at ourselves and see how RIDICULOUS we are in regards to social issues, even in 2009 with all we, as people, have achieved. We're still pretty backwards in many aspects of our lives, and a gay-cartoon Austrian celebrity wannabe is Cohen's way of making us see this. I hope it works.

(Bruno grossed $14.2mil on Friday ALONE. Way to go, Cohen!)

*In reference to the members of the gay community and GLAAD feeling that Brüno sets us back in the eyes of the straight community - when are we going to stop relying on the opinions of the straight community to dictate our view of ourselves? I know that in the greater scheme of things, the heterosexuals of the world control and dictate what we are "allowed" to do (marry, etc.). But at the same time, we should stop allowing heterosexuals' view of us to alter our perception of things that aren't actually harming us, but may be harming them, which in turn might harm us (if that makes ANY sense); aka Brüno. If anything I hope this film gives people a harsh look at their own thoughts. Sadly, the comedic genre of the film might help blur this view. Also, the people the film is lampooning probably won't see it, or realize that they are the butt of the jokes.