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• Friday, July 10, 2009 01:40 AM

  @Agrippina

  Agrippina: "Although I'm probably too sensitive for this kind of humor, I wonder why the cultural bias has flipped in favor of putting down the less fortunate and ignorant among us, as opposed to the Chaplinesque style of making fun of the rich and powerful who make the little guy's life a misery."

  Why is this an either/or division for you? Also, why do you think Cohen is putting down the little guy?

  Charlie Chaplin's urchin characters were similar to Cohen in one way: He's the guy who stumbles into an ordered situation and turns it into chaos.

  Chaplin's little-guy-hero element was the counterbalance to the subversion. It's the sentimental gloss that goes on top of the actual substance -- the mayhem.

  In spite of the Borat mustache, Sacha Baron Cohen's no Charlie Chaplin (who could be?), and he is working in a different genre: A half-way zone between what's staged and what's reality. Chaplin's every move was staged and choreographed; Cohen has to work with multitudes of unknown variables and have a team of doctor, lawyers and getaway vehicles at the ready. It's performance art and pranks, posing as narrative.

  I think what people will eventually realize about "Bruno" is that his antics are an in-your-face test of people's Christian principles as they apply to sexuality. The core concept of Christianity is to love your enemy. To the ignorant and those taught to be hateful, homosexuals are the enemy of all that is healthy, normal and traditional. When Borat waltzes into their world, their Christian principles come face-to-face with their bigotry.

  This is as true for those in Borat's setups as it is for the audience. The movie doesn't have any answers about sexuality, but it shakes up your assumptions.

  If that sounds a little too deep, it probably is. Part of thet ime I think Cohen wants to provoke a transcendent consciousness in his humor, and part of the time I think he just wants laughs however he can get them.

  I appreciate the letter writer above who writes against the taken-for-granted idea that Mickey Rooney's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" depiction is offensive. I still lean toward thinking it is, but it isn't a simple judgment to make. A man dressed in drag (like on Monty Python) isn't necessarily mocking women, and a Caucasian appearing as an East Asian isn't necessarily putting them down either. A lot of it depends on the role, the words, the perfomance, and the effect. (The gentle, whimsical way Peter Sellers plays an Indian man in "The Party" didn't leave me thinking it was insulting to Indians.) Of course, I have the luxury of distance: It might be a completely different story to somebody from the ethnic group being depicted as caricature.

  With "Bruno," I have a hard time believing gays would really be insulted by him, as he's a really extreme and bizarre creation. He talks like Dieter from the Sprockets, and he looks like the Little Dutch Boy. The Austrian angle makes it weirder: He refers to his butt as his "ass-chwitz." I don't think people who laugh at him are going to laugh at him for being typically gay; they're going to laugh at him for being on the outer realms of ridiculous.

  —Xrandadu Hutman Read Xrandadu Hutman's other letters
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