Bruno NC17? The Marketing Campaign Has Begun

On March 31st, CBS News reported that Sacha Baron Cohen’s new Bruno film had received an NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). For all intents and purposes, this is an X-rating, and thus guarantees the film will not even break even at the box office. Industry insiders spent the rest of the day hemming and hawing about film’s need to get an R-rating, footage on the “cutting room floor,” and the supposed studio’s disappointment. However, none of those interviewed seemed to understand that they were being played by the world’s finest con/performance artist.

Sacha Baron Cohen has made a career out of parlaying controversy into fame and financial rewards. Whether it is provoking Kazakhstan, the world’s ninth largest nation, into threatening him with lawsuits, using obscenity on the BBC, nude wrestling obese Armenian-Americans, or encouraging Arizonans to throw their Jews down the well, the Cambridge-educated mountebank knows how to play media and his fans.

While the NC-17 rating is the initial salvo in what will be a several month-long media blitz intended to fill theatre seats with American, British, and Anglophone European bottoms, the actual marketing campaign for the as-yet-officially-untitled Bruno film began long ago. SBC has been slipping the media clips of his adventures as the flamboyantly gay Austrian fashionista with a Nazi fetish for some time.

Throughout the past 18 months, Bruno has been spotted in the Americas, Asia, and Europe, generating press clippings in each case. It began with sightings at the Wichita airport, which were quickly posted to the Web, followed by much a publicized controversy over a gay wrestling match in the Ozarks. In Israel, his interview of Mossad agent and a Palestinian academic instantly made news around the world. In California, his abortive attempt to interview Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (a fellow Austrian, of sorts) attracted even more media attention. In Milan, he stormed an Agatha Ruiz de la Prada fashion show before being escorted away by police, who soon recognized him as a world famous trickster. He then made headlines in Paris after disrupting English designer Stella McCartney’s show by sucking on a tampon. But now that the film is in the can, the real campaign begins.

The NC-17 brouhaha is a simple but effective ruse to get Sacha back on our minds as the summer approaches. It also gave Harry Smith, anchor of the CBS Early Show, the opportunity to recall ,with more than a little nostalgia, his on-air wrestling match with Borat in late 2007, just before the premiere of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The video of the two men grab-assing remains a YouTube favorite and likely saw a surge in views on this, the first day of April.

Spring is in the air, and for Sacha Baron Cohen that means it’s time to get you start fantasizing about Bruno’s tanned, shaven legs (and other body parts). Welcome to continuing performances of Sacha Baron Cohen’s global minstrel show.

Is Sacha Baron Cohen a Racist?

I recently gave a reading from my book The Many Faces of Sacha Baron Cohen: Politics, Parody, and the Battle over Borat at my local cultural hotspot, the Green Planet Coffee Co. in Point Pleasant Beach, NJ. During the hour-long event, the only question that really gave me pause and I found trouble answering to my satisfaction was “Is Sacha Baron Cohen a racist?” I want to make clear that my trepidation derives not from a failure to explore this question. In fact, whether or not he is a racist has been a central aspect of my research for years.

Back in 2007, I asked his dissertation advisor at Cambridge, Tony Badger, if he thought his former student was a racist. Badger replied: “How you interpret that form of satire is very much a matter of personal taste or definition of humor. Particular audiences respond in different ways. I never detected a semblance of racism in him. Actually, this is not strong enough. There is no evidence of Sacha Baron Cohen being racist. No one can see a racist intent in the humor. Everything about him was consistent with an anti-racist orientation. The $64,000 question here is about the danger of parody when one takes ludicrous or extremist view or approach. This has been a problem for humorists forever. He faces it now. That sort of humor lends itself to criticism and contestation.”

While this eloquent defense of Baron Cohen should be taken at face value—along with his participation in and advocacy of activist organizations like the Anti-Racist Alliance (ARA)—as evidence that he is not a racist, I believe the answer to the question remains ambiguous. This stems from my audience’s response to my paraphrasing of the above quote and references to Baron Cohen’s personal campaign against racism. In a world where image is everything, one’s personal performances and personae trump who you “really” are. Therefore, even if he is not racism and his humor is, then that is what matters. The discussion about Baron Cohen purported racism continued after the reading at a gathering at my home. Hoping to parry responsibility for fulfilling what I knew was quickly becoming an impossible task, I begin to turn the question around on my interrogators, asking them—in good political science fashion—to provide me with their definition of the concept of ‘racism’. Not surprisingly, the responses were mixed. This prompted me to do a bit research.

According to Merriam-Webster, racism is a platform or dogma based on “the assumption that psychocultural traits and capacities are determined by biological race and that races differ decisively from one another which is usually coupled with a belief in the inherent superiority of a particular race and its right to domination over others.” A bit too vague for my tastes, but, by this definition, we can affirm at least the possibility that Baron Cohen is a racist (though proving it is another matter entirely).

W. Thomas Schmid in his 1996 essay “The Definition of Racism” renders racism as “the infliction of unequal consideration, motivated by the desire to dominate, based on race alone.” Using this behavioral definition, one can argue that Sacha Baron Cohen is not a racist—either in his portrayal of blacks (or—as Ali G is rather indefinable—other minorities) or in his larger comedic project. Schmid’s definition mirrors others which make subordination the explicit characteristic of racism. If there is no power, then there is no racism.

Joseph Barndt, in Dismantling Racism (1991) is more parsimonious in his definition: “Racism is prejudice plus power.” He later refined his definition to read “racial prejudice” plus the “misuse of power.” Needless to say, Sacha Baron Cohen is powerful. In March 2007, GQ ranked him as the 19th-most powerful man in Britain. This put the comedian one place behind Prince William and only two spots behind the country’s Conservative Party leader, David Cameron. In the words of GQ editor Darius Sanai, “Not since John Lennon has an English entertainer had such an effect on the world . . . George Bush was briefed on him, the Kazakh government briefed against him and the film Borat . . . hit the No. 1 spot in America last autumn.” Now to another question: Is he prejudiced? First, this query leads us to another definition (ah, concepts, concepts everywhere). According to Gordon Allport, author of The Nature of Prejudice (1954), prejudice is bias expressed through negative or positive opinions towards individuals based on the group in which one mentally places them. Bingo! My research proves that at least on some level, Baron Cohen is prejudiced. But then again, who isn’t? We all engage in some level of positive or negative group-based presupposition about the people we meet. Therefore, it all comes down to the misuse of that power.

Like it or not, Baron Cohen’s Ali G shtick is racist. It is a mockery of whites pretending to be black. Ali G has pre-judged a certain group of whites and uses his mass-mediated power to subordinate them by making them look the fool. And that is just fine by me.

Bruno Needs a Few More Months in the Dressing Room

Sacha Baron Cohen’s third film based on one of his characters from Da Ali G Show is set to premiere this summer, but the date for the release has been moved back from May 15 to July 10. Hoping to replicate the success of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, it appears that Baron Cohen is seeking to find the optimal time to introduce the world to Bruno. That time seems to be the sweaty days of mid-summer. The date recently opened up when Roland Emmerich’s apocalypse movie 2012 was pushed back to November. Only time will tell if Baron Cohen’s campy Austrian fashionista with penchant for fascism and skin-tight muscle shirts hits pay dirt or falls flat. The film’s title even remains in doubt; ostensibly, it is to be called Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt, however, industry insiders reckon the working title—like so much of Baron Cohen’s work—is a chimera to distract the audience from his real intentions.

Unlike Borat which was filmed in a low-key manner, Bruno has been making a spectacle of himself. Over the past year, he has been spotted in the Americas, Asia, and Europe, generating media coverage in each case. It began with sightings at the Wichita airport which were quickly posted to the Web, followed by much a publicized controversy over a gay wrestling match in the Ozarks. In Israel, his interview of Mossad agent and a Palestinian academic instantly made news around the world. In California, his abortive attempt to interview Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (a fellow Austrian, of sorts) attracted even more media attention. The scene created a strange post-modern simulacrum of the main stream media reporting on a faux journalist trying to report on a mass-mediated personality. In Milan, he stormed an Agatha Ruiz de la Prada fashion show before being escorted away by police, who soon recognized him as a world famous trickster. He then made headlines in Paris after disrupting English designer Stella McCartney’s show by sucking on a tampon among other things.

Such antics suggest that the forthcoming Bruno film will be as controversial as Borat. There are already reports surfacing that one of the film’s characters, a black model named Jesus who wears a loincloth and a crown of thorns, is sparking outrage among test audiences for the film. Bruno regularly uses the Jewish Holocaust as a punch line for his comedy, which might eventually create issues with Bruno purported homeland: Austria. Hitherto, Austrian diplomats have chosen not bother with the British mountebank. When confronted with a question about Baron Cohen’s next movie project which targeted his country, an Austrian Foreign Ministry official responded, “Bruno who?” Despite being the birthplace of Hitler, Austrians seem to have moved on from worrying about historical stereotypes. While Viennese diplomats may not be taking much notice, the same cannot be said for the country’s tourism industry.

Bruno purportedly works for the fictional Austrian TV station Österreichischer Jungen Rundfunk (‘Austrian Youth [or Boy] Broadcast’), whose name mocks Austrian national broadcaster ORF (Österreichischer Rundfunk). When pressed, he confesses it is really “Austrian Gay TV.” Such an admission has lead to threats of physical violence on multiple occasions during the filming of Da Ali G Show, e.g., when Bruno was interviewing testosterone-driven jocks during Spring Break in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Part of Bruno’s humor comes from his assumption that everyone is gay or bisexual. According to journalist Kaizaad Kotwal, “His subjects don’t find that funny and this makes their homophobia come through in spades.” At an Arkansas pro-America rally (read gun show), a rabidly anti-Semitic libertarian defended Bruno’s right to homosexual intercourse behind closed doors before exploding and telling him not to be “so fucking gay.” Bruno’s most well-known exploit involved joining the University of Alabama’s cheerleading squad in “the gayest part of America” (i.e., the southern state of Alabama). His impromptu performance in front of the Crimson Tide’s fans ended in a pathetic scene with elements in the crowd cursing and calling him a faggot. Baron Cohen recounted the event in an interview:

"Bruno is the subject of a lot of homophobia. The main difference between playing Borat and Bruno is that it is a lot more dangerous doing Bruno, because there is so much homophobia. So for example, when I was doing Bruno at the Alabama, Mississippi football game a few years ago, 60,000 people in the crowd started chanting faggot, and started throwing stuff at me, taunting me, spitting at me, threatening to kill me. Those kinds of situations are a lot more common when you are playing a gay character. It is almost as if homophobia is one of the last forms of prejudice that really is tolerated."

Bruno was the Da Ali G Show’s most underutilized character. It is therefore no surprise that Baron Cohen has waited the longest to unleash a feature-length movie starring the Austrian reporter. However, with his campy style and a built-in fan base, Baron Cohen’s Bruno is likely to probe new depths of unorthodox humor. Given Sacha Baron Cohen’s announcement one year ago that he was permanently retiring Ali G and Borat, there is now an added allure to the Bruno character as the only surviving vestige from Baron Cohen’s first decade of performance art.