Get Over It, GLAAD

Get a life guys! It's only a movie! Remember "The producers" (the original)? Scandal, oh, scandal! You can't make jokes about nazis and Hitler and Jews! Wanna bet that in years to come 'Brüno" will be the perfect vehicle for a musical as well? Mr Cohen has set new standards when in comes to comedy. This is the same dicussion as "Are you being served" in the seventees: looking back now it seems Mr. Humphries has done more for gay liberation than let's say all of Holywood back than. Not all people are homophobes and the ones that really are will never change: Bruno or not. GLAAD should would wake up and smell the poppers: they are fantastic people and have done loads of brillant work over the years, but this time they are wrong: patronizining an entire community because of some innocent fun. I am far more shocked and disgusted by worldwide politics these days. Now that's vulgarity and discrimination at it's best. Not Bruno.

I haven't seen the movie, but this article is silly and boneheaded. GLAAD's objections to the movie, and mine to what I have heard and seen about the movie, is not that the main character is effeminate, but that he is relentlessly made fun of and help up to be mocked. It seems to me that if you want to support people who are effeminate, you don't do it by mocking them. And of course, our enemies often buy into these stereotypes to find a reason not to take any of us seriously.

Obviously Robert hasn't seen "Borat," where Jews are spoofed as hook-nosed, money grubbing people. Before you make assumptions about Jewish filmmakers, Robert, know your facts.

This is a caveat: I haven't seen Bruno. Bruno looks funny, I've heard it's mediocre. Let me decide. You know what people said when Lenny Bruce was offensive, or Playboy or Hustler was offensive? Don't look. No one is holding a gun to anyone's head to make them see the movie. But GLAAD's patronizing, paternalistic behavior gets on my nerves. As someone who is gay and Catholic, I have to tell you that the Catholic church had for a very long time, a list of banned books. To their credit, they got rid of that index. If Bruno is in any way homophobic and my eyes fall out of my skull and I burn in hell for seeing it, Bruno is reflecting attitudes that were already there to begin with. Let GLAAD have their free speech rights, but go to Bruno and make up your own mind.

I agree with Kendall's comment.

Hi All, I agree with all the criticism about the Bruno movie. It is true. But one thing that the bloggers don't seem to address is that who goes to the movies made by Sacha Baron Cohen. Only those with a sense of humor. It would be interesting to know statistically how many people changed their minds adversely to gays by seeing the movie. I would say such a person was already homophobic and they just needed a reason for justifying it. Its like asking the Republicans to support President Obama to pass a bill. Its not going to happen. Just an thought.

When will the conformos realise that when the drag queens and screaming queers are safe, we are all safe!! I am not very fond of Baron Cohen's work, but I recognise his great satirical talent, and the reality is that satire is meant to hurt, and the newly empowered gay civil unionists need to recognise that they wield a certain kind of power in society, and that all power should be subjected to the lampooning of humour, and the strikes of satire. All satire works in context, but lacking context is not enough reason to censor it. What is needed is to shape that context. When we think that because we are gay, we should be above criticism and the barbs of humour, we embark on the journey of wanting power without limits. People who desperately seek to blend in to straight society, and to be invisible are much more likely to be self-loathing than those who are proud to standout as gay, and celebrate the glorious diversity of difference!

Bruno equal to real gays, have no shame, sex any where, any body, self-centered hedonist, no moral value and disgusting. Why you want equality if you don't have respect for moral standard in our society? Ask your mother.

Sorry if this has been addressed already, but what was most disturbing to me was the scene in which Bruno holds his "adopted" child in a hot tub in which two men are having sex. "But," he says, "when I have fun I want OJ to have fun also!" Do you think this image, in some form, hasn't crossed the minds of some ignorant legislators or voters in, say, Arkansas, when they took away our right to adopt or foster children in 2008? No, GLAAD was right to complain. I think it reflects a growing feeling that we need to stand up for ourselves- I am over the jokes, the tolerance that ends as soon as we "act gay," the treatment of our culture as something to parody and mock. We have too much at stake to laugh uncomfortably with our straight peers as we get the worst images of ourselves thrown back in our face. We don't stand for actors doing blackface in a mockery of African-American culture, and we shouldn't have to stand for this "gayface" from straight comedians either. It is defamation.

At the end of the day, Bruno hurts the homosexual community. It exasperates harmful stereotypes, and confirms the fears that moderate heterosexuals have. Consciously, these moderates know better, but people, in the privacy of their voting booths, vote from their sub conscious. Will the Bruno pop-culture phenomenon prevent the gay community from obtaining equality?? No. Will the Bruno pop-culture phenomenon increase the number of years before the American public is comfortable electing officials who want to give homosexuals equal protections under the law? Absolutely. Cohen's satire is usually spot on, and I respect him as a comedian. His efforts are honorable in the way that he highlights ignorance. However, perhaps he underestimated how easily American public opinion is swayed. Cohen has set the "gay agenda" back, by at least a decade.