This is good timing-- I was on a first date with somebody I just met, and she mentioned how much she wanted to see it. I wanted to too, so we went for it*.

I don't know how I felt about it. I think Bruno is helpful for showing how absurd homophobia is. That is, many of the bad reactions he got would have been hostile even if there had been no gay angle-- the "talk show" segment and the "swingers party" segment are good examples; the straight male swinger was justifiably upset, in my opinion (assuming that wasn't staged). It was at its best when it really was fueled by homophobia, such as with the pray-the-gay-away counselors.

It's pretty clear Mr. Cohen's main goal was comedy, and anything beneficial was a side effect. Nothing wrong with that, but the result is inevitably a mixed bag. I don't think it will change many closed minds.

*This was probably poor judgment on my part. Bruno is not a first date kind of movie. Actually, movies in general aren't usually a good first date thing. Oh well.

The problem with satire is that, in order to be useful, people have to perceive it as satire. And I don't think enough people are doing so with Bruno. From what people have said of the film, it seems more like they're just laughing cause duh, gay is funny! Not because omg, homophobia is ridiculous! Melissa McEwan at Shakesville captures one of the things wrong with Bruno more eloquently than I can, here:

The rationale also goes back to the ostensible raison d'être for the Bruno character, which is exploiting people's homophobia and holding it out for ridicule—a dubious proposition given that Baron-Cohen is not himself gay, thus allowing homophobes the opportunity to laugh unironically at the gay stereotype being played by a straight man.

So to be quite honest, I think Bruno is a clusterfucktastrophe that claims "satire" as a shield to let a straight man play gay for laughs without having to take seriously criticisms of his perpetuating anti-gay stereotypes.

GLAAD: 'Bruno' reinforces negative gay stereotypes

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said Friday that Bruno, the new film starring Sacha Baron Cohen, reinforces negative stereotypes and "decreases the public's comfort with gay people."

GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios, who saw the film Friday, said that "the movie was a well-intentioned series of sketches — some hit the mark and some hit the gay community pretty hard and reinforce some damaging, hurtful stereotypes."

In a style similar to his popular Borat character, Baron Cohen brings Bruno, a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashionista, into ridiculous situations with unsuspecting everyday people.

Universal Pictures, which released Bruno, sought GLAAD's input on the film and invited staff members to advance screenings, Barrios said.

The organization "shared a number of concerns, and unfortunately, the scenes that we had the biggest concerns about remained in the film," Barrios said.

One such scene shows Bruno in a hot tub with his adopted infant son and two naked men involved in a sex act.

"Scenes like that don't help America understand the hundreds of thousands of gay families who get up every day, do the carpool then rush home to make dinner and be with their children," Barrios said.

Similarly, the movie's mock marriage scene "doesn't help Americans understand the lives of gay couples who are denied the rights and protections of marriage in 43 states," he said.

Universal Pictures maintains that Bruno is a satire that "uses provocative comedy to powerfully shed light on the absurdity of many kinds of intolerance and ignorance, including homophobia."

"While any work that dares to address relevant cultural sensitivities might be misinterpreted by some or offend others, we believe the overwhelming majority of the audience will understand and appreciate the film's inarguably positive intentions, which we've seen demonstrated whenever we have shown it," the studio said in a statement.

Barrios said that while he believes the filmmakers had good intentions and that some moviegoers will see the satire, "some people in the gay community will be as troubled as GLAAD is that the movie doesn't decrease homophobia, but decreases the public's comfort with gay people."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

I haven't seen Bruno yet, but I've seen all of the Bruno segments on Da Ali G Show, so I know the character well.

I think people might walk into Bruno thinking it's going to be Borat 2. It's not. Borat and Bruno are basically opposites. Borat is much more lovable than Bruno, because Borat is an ignorant foreigner who can be be taught a thing or to about how things should be done by us smarter Americans. Bruno is bombastic and confident, which puts people off. He already knows everything, plus he's gay, so people don't think they have anything to gain by being nice to this guy. Borat makes people more comfortable to be racist and sexist by being an ally to people with these prejudices. Bruno's image conjures homophobia in others by itself, so he makes people uncomfortable. Add the voice, and people think Bruno is a real gay man and not an actor. I think the point Baron Cohen is making is that people will get afraid and react to someone who just looks or talks "gay," that it doesn't really matter if the person really is gay. Gay isn't a look, but people won't take the time to find out if the person's really gay, because they want to protect themselves from being around a gay person for longer than they need to. So, they'll just make assumptions about people's biological sexuality based on their outward appearance, which is obviously stupid. This wouldn't work if Baron Cohen made a character who was like Borat, except he hated gay people instead of Jews.

I want to add that in some ways, Bruno does expose some people's shortcomings by being an ally. Sometimes he shows how shallow and classist the fashion industry can be (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxOEmTo6eCg) . But I don't think this is Baron Cohen's overall goal in creating Bruno's character.

I had originally planned to go see Bruno, but now, I'm not so sure.
My brother called me and told me that it was disturbing, and many people walked out of it. I figured those would be the people who were either homophobic or just not as tolerant or didn't get the satire, etc.
But some of my very tolerant friends who would have gotten the satire walked out too because they thought it was disturbing/disgusting, so right now, I don't know what to think of it.

I thought Bruno was great. **Spoilers if you haven't seen the movie**

For instance, I felt like when he was portraying his sexuality in the movie he made for the focus group if he had been a woman rather than a gay man no one in the audience would have been as disturbed. We freak out because Bruno is flapping his penis around. If they had shown a naked woman bouncing her breasts around and showing her vagina would the focus group find it "immoral" or feel that the person was "mentally disturbed"? Would the movie audience be disturbed? Probably not. Female nudity is great and okay. Male nudity, especially a gay male, is "disturbing".

In the scene where he's getting his anal hair bleached/waxed the audience is disturbed. But, women do this all the time, and sometimes it's even expected of them. But, when Bruno is in the salon doing it not only does it show how it's kind of a weird cultural practice but if non-straight women who aren't their to pleasure you sexually do it then we should freak out and think it's weird.

There's the scene at the end where he's making out with his friend from Austria in the wrestling rink. How would people have reacted if the two ring girls were making out? They wouldn't mind, we fetish-ize two hot women together.

Basically, when I watched this movie I imagined how the audience would react to an attractive straight woman behaving in the same way Bruno did. Would this scene be just as "disturbing" to the audience? Some of them yes. Most of them, I don't think the audience would have reacted negatively to had Bruno been replaced with a woman.

So, to me this movie showed not only how homophobic America still is but also how afraid we are of male sexuality outside of a heterosexual expectation, gay or straight. Men are not allowed to be fluid with their sexuality without being threatened. Women are allowed to be fluid, but they get fetish-ized. We're totally afraid of sex in America.

(spoilers)

Having just seen the movie, I don't think saying that it deserves an X is necessarily a reaction to the homosexual parts. There is plenty of male and femlae nudity and the swinger scene is very graphic - the reverse cowgirl brunette is on camera for at least an entire minute actually having sex and the "look into my eyes" man is shown thrusting for about thirty seconds. I wouldn't call it "disgusting" or say that it deserved an X but I can see how someone could have thought that without thinking of the male/male scenes.

My theatre really sucked. Someone brought two children about 8-14 to see it, and at least half the theatre walked out during the UFC/WWE/whatever scene. I didn't understand that at all. Did they all know the movie was almost over? Could they not tolerate anymore male/male sexuality? Were they disgusted by a male/male scene where the sex acts were treated as normal instead of the object of the humor?

I was very disappointed by the Ron Paul scene too. Slurs aren't words that are bad until something upsetting happens, they're words that are always bad.

I loved the film. I didn't love it as much as Borat, but I think this was a more difficult social commentary to make. He made light of how deep homophobia runs in this county and I feel like the end of the film is a huge, "We're here, we're queer -- get used to it!" I've seen it with four gay friends and we all felt like while the satire may not do anything to build bridges between bigots and the LGBT community, it remained strong on the point that gay people are living in society regardless how many people may not like us and we don't give a fuck about what others think about it.

The only thing clear about "Bruno" is that its a Rorschach test. Both here & on sites like Fandango its clear that you either you loved it or hated it. No in between.

For the record I believe it deserved a NC-17 rating. It was the most sexually graphic film I've ever seen. They filmed a swinger's party for chrissakes!

It was sexually gratuitous to the point of being offensive & as a result I think it failed in its effort at satire. There were a number of scenes so clever, insightful & revealing that they took your breath away, but they were only 20% of the film. The audience at my theater was stunned into silence, as if watching a slow motion train crash. But the graphic sex was so over the top that it drowned out Cohen's efforts to dramatize our homophobic & fame obsessed culture. Interesting, but ultimately FAIL.

Sasha Baron Cohen is a troll. He just does his trolling in real life instead of on the Internet.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'm worried that it's actually a minstrel show disguised as a satire. "Let's all make fun of the homosexual, who, like all homosexuals, is a freak!"