Nej, jeg har ikke set Sacha Baron Cohens nyeste epos, og jeg har heller ingen planer om at gøre det, hvis jeg på nogen som helst måde kan blive fri. Jeg hadede Borat, og selv om jeg principielt mener, at man kan lave mange gode ting med skjult kamera, kunne jeg ikke lade være med at sympatisere med de mange almindelige, små hverdagsmennesker, der blev lokket til at blamere sig for åbent kamera.
Hvis man absolut vil lave den slags, så gå dog efter magthaverne – som Michael Moore f.eks. gjorde i Bowling for Colombine – ikke efter privatpersoner, for seven da. Men Baron Cohen tør faktisk ikke, så vidt jeg kan se, for alvor rette sit skyts mod de store – i stedet kan man jo så altid komme med millioner i ryggen og udstille almindelige mennesker, der dårligt nok har til terminen eller pensionen. God, gedigen humor, der sparker nedaf, med andre ord.
Nå, men hvis jeg ikke selv vil se den, er det jo godt, man har folk til det. Barbara Ellen når i The Observer frem til nogenlunde samme konklusioner om Brüno, som jeg selv drog om Borat:
Make no mistake. Brüno is bad art, and depressing, even boring, with it. What promised to be a lampooning of the fashion industry, a dark-hued Zoolander, at least a scathing exposé of the rich and famous, turned out to be a relentless, sour trashing of the white and black US underclass for their supposed homophobic tendencies.
I say “supposed”, because with many of Brüno’s stunts (giant dildos, talking penises, shit handprints on hotel walls, baiting Republican politicians and churchmen, placing an adopted black baby in what appeared to be a mocked-up gay orgy), there is a nagging feeling that one doesn’t have to be a drooling redneck to wonder what the point is.
For example, the climactic scene, featuring Brüno and his male assistant, half-naked, simulating sex in front of heckling “white trash” at a cage-fighting event, would arguably have created as much consternation at the Ideal Home Exhibition, the Last Night of the Proms, even the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.
Like much in the film, it says naff all about homophobia, preferring to lift up the rock of the US underclass to titter along with a liberal elite audience. The intimation is that if one is not amused, one has a “problem”: one is narrow-minded, repressed, unsophisticated. Voila! The cultural bully’s credo in full. […]
Even more damning are the final scenes of Brüno singing a Live Aid spoof with Bono, Sting, and Snoop Dogg. If Baron Cohen was doing his job properly, these celebrities would be terrified of him, at least wary, as they once were of Paul Kaye’s Dennis Pennis. The fact that they’re not, that they’re cosy, says it all.
It seems to me that by making Brüno, Baron Cohen has ceased to be a satirist and exposed himself as a careerist. He’s an A-lister who lets off the rich and famous and sets up the powerless poor for the delectation of the elitist liberal stalls. Worse, like all cultural bullies before him, he then tries to make his audience take the blame for how misguided and unfunny it all is.
Mine fremhævelser – og netop de fremhævede pointer er som sagt spot on i mine øjne.
