Singular is "Hasid"

...and after seeing the movie, I still think he seems forced and not authentic. Yes, there are some extremely flamboyant gays out there, but that's not really how they act. Beleive me, I've never been in the closet and I've know plenty of flamers. He seems like a straight guy making fun of fags. I know that's not his intent. Ali G and Borat were nearly pitch-perfect, but Bruno never felt successfully realized to me (not to mention the accent that doesn't work). Too much of it seemed staged to me as well. Borat seemed more off the cuff.

The movie is very funny in its outrageous offensiveness, but I don't see any higher satire working simply because he failed to create a real person. He's playing a character he basically doesn't understand.

If "a lot of people" miss the humor in "Brüno," maybe it isn't there.

(((Also, why do you think Cohen is putting down the little guy?)))

Because his targets: Evangelical Christians, d-list celebrities, the Alabama national guard, people from a backward country and many, many rednecks are all people that middle and upper middle class people already like to laugh at and already feel superior to.

Send him to Whole Foods to bother people, let him do something obnoxious at a Radiohead concert, get him to harass a psychotherapist rather than a counselor for ex-gays, or hit on Obama, and see if the audience finds it funny.

My guess is that THAT would get more cries that he was being offensive than anything he does to Jews or Gays.

I'm not sure where the idea that SBC was a social satirist came from. Maybe it was because he made fools of right wing politicians or because of the "Throw the Jew Down the Well" on 'Da Ali G. Show', but I don't see how that notion survived the actual 'Borat' movie. Sure he got a couple of drunken frat boys to make offensive remarks but the rest of that movie was more like 'Howie Do It' than 'The Colbert Report'. I haven't seen Bruno yet but if I do, I won't go to be enlightened but to be entertained.

Coming from a column that printed oh maybe 1 million words on how BSG is the best TV show, ever, world wide, I have to take its pompous unselfconscious post modern humorless deconstructivist analysis of comedy with a grain of salt.

Yesterday it was bad because (of course) it's gay-hostile. Today it's bad because its satire isn't as evolved as 'Weeds'.

it may have been part of the whole. it also ridiculed anti-muslim bigots, made fun of assholes, and had some funny random pranks/jokes.

by this logic, the character is there to expose other's views towards him: A) In bruno "a gay man finds homophobia", so how does is follow B) In borat, a muslim man finds anti-semitism?

people trying too hard to keep from feeling guilty at laughing at something they have been told has no room for laughter (if that makes any sense).

much like sarah silverman's comedy. you may feel a bit uncomfortable, but like it or not, you just thought about the topic in a new way, and mayby realized a we're all kind of full of it.

sarah silverman is someone to avoid, not to quote

being funnier than sarah silverman is not particularly difficult

SBC looking up to sarah silverman actually makes sense

"sarah silverman is someone to avoid, not to quote"

I typically love Ms. Zacharek's reviews, and this one is no exception. However, I disagree with her closing attempt to let Bruno off the hook for any meaning viewers might find in the movie. Yes, comedies aren't PSAs. Apocalypse Now isn't a PSA either, but it says something. And typically satire, which is perhaps the most rhetorically potent form of comedy, has a point. That's what makes it satire. So if Sacha Baron Cohen is a satirist, then it's legitimate for his audiences to ask, "What's the point?" If the work can't stand up to that kind of scrutiny, then it's poorly constructed satire. I haven't seen the movie, so I can't say whether it works or not. But to claim that, just because it's a comedy, it shouldn't be taken seriously is to take the bite out of what is clearly more than a garden-variety yuk fest.

terry silverman?

it's not like she is my hero, but, really, why?

The whole half-scripted, half-reality TV things throws me for a loop. My favorite parts of Borat are the most scripted (his time in the Gypsy village), and I don't quite understand why there is a need for the "inserting the character into real situations" bit. No matter how in-character he is, it's never a "real" interaction, just as when I'm humoring the drunk bum on the bus, it's never a "real" conversation. None of the people he interacts with in Borat are able to "get" who he's supposed to be. It very, very quickly devolves into Tom Green--acting stupid in public to get a laugh. While Tom Green showed he was absolutely unable to do character comedy, Cohen clearly can, and I don't understand why he doesn't just place the characters in a normal plot. It's not like it's so surprising that people hold prejudices and that most people are uncomfortably interacting with flamboyant homosexuals in professional situations (most of my gay friends are). I just don't see the humor in that.

I haven't seen the movie so have no opinion on "Bruno" but I am amused by the random cougar ad.

I seen the movie Borat and found it funny. But with Bruno, they have been promoting this movie so long, and so intensely, that I am burned out. This is the definition of overexposure. It must be horrible for those of you who watch TV. I'll miss this one.

I can say that Salon's comment threads about Bruno are incredibly po-faced and tedious. I was never under the impression that Sacha Baron Cohen was on a crusade to make the world a kinder place, so I'm not sure where all this finger-wagging about offensiveness and meanness is coming from. I suspect some of the disconnect is cultural; SBC is a Brit and their sense of humour is far sharper and yes, crueler, that Americans tend to like.

I'm glad to see Zacharek acknowledge that SBC is a brilliant physical comedian (like his idol Peter Sellers), which is an all-too-rare talent. And if anyone honestly thinks SBC is homophobic, the extended nude wrestling scene in Borat (one of the funniest things I've ever seen on film) conclusively proves he isn't. The guy is scared of nothing - and that's a pretty rare quality in the entertainment business too.