Certainly Bruno couldn't be bad for Everyone?

Guuuuuuhh. Would Sarah Palin please just leave. Just go. Just take your ticky-tacky, pseudo-leadershipness and go away. Who didn't know that she was completely unqualified for the job of Vice President and probably governorship? Who can't see right through the Republican machine agenda of putting her in that position in the first place? God. If I can see through it, who can't? But apparently we're just going to keep generating news stories about her until her book is published, then keep her in the news by talking about her book, until the next election. I'm sure it's all just part of the larger plan set in motion by the bots, that we, the thinking organisms, are unable to detect because of their clever mind tricks of confusion. It's exhausting to listen to.

OK. Important business is at hand. Is "Bruno" bad for the gays? Well, Bruno is the new Movie, created and starring improv genius, Sache Baron Cohen. In this Movie, Cohen plays a fictional and fruity, aggressively sexual, potty-mouthed, Austrian, clothing whore, who just happens to be gay. And in keeping with style of improvising with the every-man that he pioneered in past projects (Ali G and Borat), he actively seeks out opportunities to exploit the foolishness of bigots, haters, thumpers, and the small-minded from all economic strata. A true equal-opportunity offender. I have not seen it yet and have only heard of it and watched the trailer on the tubes, but from all of the froth and feather-ruffling going on regarding the movie's debut, I am getting that the press doth protest too much.

This is fiction, people. I know that it's hard in this day and age to tell the difference sometimes, when we have characters thrust into leadership roles and touted as "real". But in this case, in this Movie "Bruno", we can rest assured that we are not being duped. This is a "real fictional" character, whose words and actions are fabrications of a creative nature, for the pure effect of entertainment. It's supposed to be offensive. It's supposed to be hard to watch (hard in that you'll probably want to claw your eyes out half way through it, because you'll be so embarrassed to be in the same species as some of the poor homosapiens who fall his victim), it's supposed to blush and make you laugh. It's not touted as a documentary or an educational film about the nature of homosexuality. It's about the preying of a fictional character on the unsuspecting public. I'm sure it's painful, but I can almost promise that I'm going to laugh my way through it. Borat made me pee my pants and wince with shame, equally.

Bad for the gays....let's ponder that for a moment, shall we. What kind of movie could be bad for an entire group of people? How could it? "Bad" for? I take this question to mean, does this movie show an unfair and stereotypically negative image of mannerisms and affectations of gay men? Even though I haven't seen it, I can almost certainly guarantee that, yes, it does. And would that representation have the unfortunate side-effect of swaying the average pin head to believe that all gay men behave that way or that gay men agree with or are complicit with those behaviors? It's conceivable that some pin heads that already believe that will have their fantasies confirmed, but other pin heads will feel the mirror of irony being held up to their mouth-breathing little faces and will wince with the pain of recognition. I find it unlikely that Bruno will recruit new haters of the gay, due to his fruitiness. Haters already hate. I also find it unlikely that Bruno will be viewed as scathing commentary on this age of civil discourse on the rights of gay citizens. Non-haters already non-hate. I think that we'll see exactly what we expect to see. Some will chuckle gleefully at fagginess, some will storm out in righteous indignation, others will watch and wince, like me.

I hate to see that newsy blogs like Salon are making Bruno their feature story today. Who gives a shit, Salon? It's a fucking movie. But I get that people are so paranoid about hate right now. Gay citizens have really had a rough time of it lately and we're all kind of wishing things would just chill out, that we could jump ahead two years and see full marriage, military and benefit rights for ALL CITIZENS, and that the focus could turn to more pressing and potent issues in the world. But we're Americans and Americans love a good soap opera and we love to get on a righteous band-wagon when we can because we've been beat up so badly in the world view as being haters of everything except Disney. We could all use a break, but especially our gay friends. So let's go escape to the movies this weekend! And if we really want to put our brains on autopilot and engage in a little schadenfreude, let's go see Bruno!!!