Brunono

So, the movie Bruno was released today. I've been anticipating this movie as a feel-good summer comedy. What's not funny about some flamboyantly gay foreigner trapezing around the nation, mocking politicians, celebrities and normal people alike? But, should we consider it cruel that these everyday people are subjected to the kind of treatment that politicians and celebrities supposedly condition themselves to handle? We all know that, in order to film Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen told the government of Kazakhstan that he would be making a documentary of their country. While not entirely untrue, the opening scenes of that movie hardly present the country in a factual (0r at all flattering) light. According to TMZ, this time Cohen has emotionally traumatized a woman by using the Bruno character to pose as a celebrity and disrupting a charity bingo tournament for the elderly. The woman is now confined to a wheelchair and walker because she fell during the course of the incident.

In Cohen's defense, I was deeply impacted by the movie Borat. I thought of it as a social commentary as opposed to a comedy. Some parts I considered funny and others I considered gross, but it was still fairly insightful. And (who knows) maybe this woman is exaggerating the trauma of the incident. Maybe she just wants money out of a movie that she is sure will be successful. I'm not going to tell anyone to boycott the new movie. I still want to see it. I just hope that we take something out of these kinds of movies besides a few cheap laughs at potty humor. I personally do not believe that we should take pleasure in the misfortune of others. However, I do think that we should pay attention when average citizens are brought to our attention. We might find out more things (pleasant and unpleasant) about our country through movies like this.