Everything I've seen about this film looks like an insult to gay men. It's nothing more than a modern version of black face.

Caught it at a screening. I haven't laughed so hard in months.

I thought "The Hangover" was funny. "Bruno" was beyond funny.

I think the author of this piece misses the point. "Bruno" can't possibly be about homophobia in the way the author wants because Sacha Baron Cohen has to work with whatever randomly happens on camera. People are going to respond in a variety of ways, and since they know they're on camera, they're going to hold back some of their worst impulses. But there's still the tension and discomfort of Cohen's antics, and that's where the humor comes from: People trying to respond in normal ways to a completely abnormal situation.

It's all too easy to say Cohen is doing a minstrel show, but Cohen is not getting people to laugh AT homosexuality, he's getting people to laugh at people's reactions to homosexuality -- including the audience's. I don't know how anybody could walk away from "Bruno" feeling animosity toward gay people when the movie has shown examples of how ridiculous others look while reacting angrily to homosexuality.

Don't forget, also, that the movie is not merely about the gay angle. It's about breaking through the social contract of various interactions. When Ron Paul goes to an interview and suddenly he's in a bedroom being seduced, you get to see something you wouldn't normally ever see: How a man reacts when the entire meaning of the transaction has changed.

Andy Kaufman is a great comparison, although Kaufman was so completely random, he is closer to what you might call a Dadaist, like Andre Breton. The idea isn't to watch Kaufman, the idea is to change the circumstances of the social contract. One minute people are watching him perform in Carnegie Hall, the next minute they're all going out together to get cookies. What just happened? It was such a simple thing to do -- to stand up and go get cookies -- but it obliterated the pretenses of the scene and turned them into something childlike. (It must be said that this form of "art" is best not repeated, and it is a misunderstanding to even try to call it art in the same way you would other things.)

Boyd Rice famously delivered a sheep's head to Betty Ford in the middle of a presentation she attended. Police thought he was a terrorist and threatened to throw him into an insane asylum. They couldn't figure out why he'd give a sheep's head on a platter to Betty Ford if it weren't some sort of threat or veiled political message. But it wasn't: Rice just wanted to find out what would happen. It was entirely harmless (except to the sheep, but he'd gotten it from a butcher shop). Still, it was disturbing. The end result was that people had a hole poked in the delicate veneer of their reality.

That's the kind of sensibility at work in "Bruno," but it's carefully stitched together into Hollywood-style movie narrative -- a man on a quest -- and then edited to produce the highs and expectations of comedy. It would be impossible to recreate the movie, and it's also the case that if you watched it twice you wouldn't find it funny at all: The humor arises out of tension, danger and surprise.

I thought it was hilarious.

Your hysterical slam of bad-assed "Bruno" has inspired me to see the movie soon as possible. You politically correct intellectual fascists would love to subvert art (low or high, in this case apparently low) to what is "morally correct." You make it clear there is much to gratify one's lower tastes in "Bruno." One remembers Borges's great line, "I have trained myself in satire which causes diseases of the skin, including leprosy." Your rant is a satire on your fucking agenda which would make nice nice of comedy which ain't nice or correct.If it is, it ain't funny.

Ok, that settles it, I'm seeing Bruno this weekend! Too bad it wasn't Jim Inhofe that Bruno tried to seduce.

I loved Borat, really funny stuff. Bruno was always the weakest character on SBC's show, but this sounds really funny.

is just something we have to suffer through, I think. It is, in it's own sad little way, a sign of progress. You couldn't have seen a movie like this WITHOUT the higher profile and greater acceptance that gays are (slowly, painfully) finding these days. It'll die off in time, until then just do your best to ignore the painfully unfunny dreck.

'There will be those who will tell me to lighten up, and it's not like I don't want to. I really, really do. Brüno gets his anus bleached in the movie, whereas I don't know if there is Clorox enough in the world to make me clean again'.

You couldn't be more 'right' -

I never will get clean again - and I'm so enraged, because I'm German too and do you have

ANY idea how bad this is for Germans and for Austria???

He has ruined my love for Vienna and the 'Umlaut' forever!!

(but did you see the twirling penis - that was kind of funny - or did they cut that out for the American version?)

you forgot to mention the Swinger episode - that was REALLY bad for the heteros - don't you think so - while all these gays seem to have a lot of fun!

Those of us who knew that Borat was no more a representative portrayal of America than Dickens' American Notes now have the luxury of being completely unsurprised by this piece of shit.

It's a friggin' stereotype, for Christ's sake. Anyone who bases judgement on a stereotype is not going to make an appropriate decision anyway.

It's humor, it's a joke and it doesn't represent anyone than the little gay man in Sacha Baron Cohen's head.

Like Borat, the success of this film is richly deserved. So much unexpected hilarity, even from Dennis Miller, who said some people like their eminems plain, some like them with nuts.