When gonzo British satirist Sacha Baron Cohen last descended upon these United States, in the guise of former Soviet Bloc journalist Borat Sagdiyev, his great subject was America’s cultural isolation. The recurring joke was that if you claim to be from someplace like Kazakhstan, you can do pretty much anything and most Americans will just assume that’s normal “over there.”
But now as Bruno, the Austrian fashionista and host of the (fictional) show Funkyzeit Mit Bruno, Cohen (again assisted by guerrilla director Larry Charles) aims at twin targets. In portraying a flamboyant and sexually aggressive gay man, Cohen’s latest creation borders on queer minstrelsy and the film is obviously meant to provoke and expose homophobia: Within the first 10 minutes, Bruno assaults the audience with the most clinical and obscene buttsex jokes ever displayed on a multiplex screen.
