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Hey Bruno: Leave The Heartland AloneBy Katey Rich: 2009-07-09 10:09:39
Sacha Baron Cohen has always walked a fine line between having the joke be on himself and on his subjects. The politicians interviewed by Ali G deserved all the mockery they got for answering his ridiculous questions, while the stunned supper club members in Borat were the setup for the poop-in-a-bag joke, not the victims. Throughout Borat Cohen managed to toe the line perfectly, allowing Borat to be just as ridiculous as the people he encountered, and generally letting the good ol' boys of the film come across as well-meaning, if a little racist and crazy.All of that gets thrown out in Bruno, a film that isn't just inferior to Borat, but much more desperate. This time, either because they've gotten wise to the skinny guy pretending to be a foreigner or they're just not as friendly to egomaniac Austrians, the Heartland isn't playing along. Borat might have gotten the Alabama hunters to join him in a rousing chorus of "Throw The Jew Down The Well," but Bruno is met mostly with stony silence. Donny gets a laugh when he insists he's not one of the Sex and the City girls, he's just Donny, but really, who can blame him? Bruno replaces all of Borat's inncoent enthusiasm with arrogance, and instead of allowing people to open up and start acting stupid, they stonewall him. As a result, Bruno's "aren't everyday Americans crazy??" moments feel strained, as Cohen shoves himself into threesomes where he's not invited and nearly incites a riot on a TV talk show, then practically turns to the camera and says "Wow, aren't these people homophobic?" Sure, the people who throw chairs at him at the Arkansas cage match are being ridiculous and scary, but it's a cage match-- they were going to act aggressive no matter what happened. There is plenty of homophobia lingering everywhere in America, but all that Cohen drums up is people reacting to a ridiculous outsider who has shown up in town to insult them. As a South Carolinian, I've always treated jokes about my homeland like "yo mamma" jokes-- you can only get away with it if she's yo mamma too. Englishman Cohen got away with it in Borat through some mix of comedic genius and trickery, but Bruno proves the schtick only works once. It's obviously too late for Cohen to go back to Shanghaing famous people, but the jig is up when it comes to rural America as well. Leave the Heartland alone, Bruno and Borat and Ali G. At this point they're the ones having the last laugh.
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sacha baron cohen, bruno
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