How We Actually Sorta Sympathise With People Suing Brüno
So Brüno dropped a perilous 73% in American ticket sales this weekend, basically meaning that the Yanks have forgotten about Sacha Baron Cohen’s Austrian fashion reporter (who’s gay!!!!) alter ego. Well, one American hasn’t. That brain-damaged lady is still suing.
Christian bingo enthusiast Richelle Olson filed a lawsuit against Cohen and the studio last month, claiming that a Brüno-caused ruckus at a supposed Christian bingo tournament (organised as a trap by the filmmakers) resulted in a head injury that caused brain damage, leaving her confined to a wheelchair or walker.
The producers of the film have since countered with a tape showing that Ms. Olson was not injured as a direct result of the cameras or the character (the scene was cut from the movie, so we wouldn’t have ever seen it either way). But Olson and her dogged lawyer persist! Even if Dr. Fashion didn’t push her down himself, it’s his fault that she fainted and hurt herself. In a letter sent to Universal (and, we guess, to the Hollywood Reporter), Olson’s lawyer says her case still has merit:
Ohh, so it happened after. Hm. So the lawsuit is bullshit, but still the lady has a right to be angry. Sure a bunch of Christian idiots getting fussed about some gay dude is lame on them, but said gay dude really going to every extreme length possible to rile and upset people isn’t really comedy in the same way a big fat bully slapping a kid over and over again and saying “stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself” isn’t comedy.
Brüno had his moments in the sun during the long-ago run of Da Ali G Show, sure, but his big feature length movie just felt way too forced and booby-trapped. The laughs are supposed to come from the hideously unprovoked things Americans are capable of saying and doing. But haranguing three unwitting hunters for a few hours, then showing up naked, condoms in hand, at one of their tents? Totally understandable to get yelled at for that one.
So Brüno is dead. There you have it.
Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
i didn't think Bruno was solely supposed to force Americans to confront their gay-uncomfyness. it juxtaposed near-constant vulgarly objectifying images of females, even of females having hard-core swinger sex or having their clothes violently ripped off in that wrestling ring while millions cheered with comparable images of males being scoped out, and preyed upon. i bet no one even winced in unease for one second while that completely-naked-except-boots chick was WHIPPING bruno, but somehow his showing up naked at a tent with condoms was over the top. i know one was a swingers party and the other was a hunting trip, but it was a movie and was meant to be ridiculous. if it had been a female showing up naked during a camping trip people would just consider that dude lucky. if it's ok to objectify and prey upon women that way in movies, then i see nothing offensive about doing the same to men.
@Richard Lawson: I saw it last night and was entirely confused as to what was supposed to be funny.
Because Bruno is irritating, everybody - subjects and audience alike - are rightly annoyed by his antics. The movie was just a repetition of the same long set-up, and as far as I could tell the only funny parts occurred when a subject happened to respond to him with something funny. Shit, that one hunter had the best line in the whole thing.
@NickelMD: I admire your restraint in not 'slipping' with the sutures. Alas for professional ethics.
But you may well have been the only person he'd ever met that he knew was gay. Just imagine the fun you could've had...
[A] Christian bingo enthusiast...filed a lawsuit against Cohen and the studio last month, claiming that a Brüno-caused ruckus at a supposed Christian bingo tournament (organized as a trap by the filmmakers) resulted in a head injury that caused brain damage, leaving her confined to a wheelchair or walker.
I sumbit for your approval that she was retarded (or differently abled) before bingo trap/tournament.
@snugbug: I'm not rallying in their defense. I'm simply saying three dudes were sorta OK to be upset at Bruno's antics that one time. I also didn't write the other North Carolina post.
And as for the other thing about provocation, I think you're right that there has always been a degree of deliberate needling in Baron Cohen's comedy. But there is a distinct difference between forcing shit out of people and teasing it out of them.
Bruno was brilliant because he writ large what really goes on in the big red morbidly obese belly of the US. Being queer and having grown up in NC and lived as an out adult in Louisiana I can tell you, Bruno isn't an order of magnitude off reality.
I've experienced some of the same kind of reactions and I'm not even a flamer. When it got out that I was the gay ER doctor in the rural hospital where I worked, I literally had one redneck idiot ask me if I had ever really stuffed a gerbil up my or my partner's asses.
Seriously. He asked me that. While I was suturing his hand. And I was working so I couldn't even say 'gee... no... but there was this one time in band camp with a garter snake where we... oh wait sorry a gentleman never tells tales out of school!'
I also had a complaint to the hospital from a parent that I was trying to make their infant son gay by having the nurse take his temp rectally. Now admittedly the CEO had tears in his eyes and couldn't breathe when he was telling me he was laughing so hard.... but that shit is for real.
NickelMD
@Nice Beaver: Then clearly Jason Preston's tattoo is not doing its job.
But...but she's a Christian so she MUST be in the right here!!
/sarcasm
What a ridiculous lawsuit.
"big fat bully slapping a kid over and over again and saying "stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself" "
I will forever laugh at that forever.
Borat was funny; Brüno was stüpid.
fragglewaggle
"The laughs are supposed to come from the hideously unprovoked things Americans are capable of saying and doing."
Huh? "Da Ali G Show" and everything Baron Cohen has ever done since has been based on cleverly plotted-out, in-your-grille provocation. That's his shtick, samewise as Andy Kaufman's. Since when are comedians tasked to do their job while simultaneously, therapeutically coddling their targets?
Also: In what universe does it make coherent editorial sense to call North Carolina a "hick" state in one post, and then righteously rally in defense of Southern hunting aficionados two hours later?
snugbug
@Nice Beaver: Maybe you just have an extraordinarily strong constitution.
I thought after the film footage was produced that showed her injury was not directly caused by Bruno's antics, the woman changed her story. She claimed that she was so upset by Bruno that she went into a room and cried. She cried so hard over the events that she passed out and hit her head. Any way you look at it, it is still lame.
TriedandTrue
Thank god, I think I'd pass out and sustain head injury if I was subjected to another in-character Sasha B. Cohen media blitz.
bittergreen
Sorry, but people don't faint from seeing really, really gay stuff. Sure, I got lightheaded when I saw Jason Preston's "Mariah" stomach tattoo, but I never lost consciousness.
@drewonline: Sorry, haven't had coffee - adraid = afraid.
drewonline
Speaking of strange things - Gawker advertising Miracle Whip? I clicked on the "Zing" add and don't understand it and am adraid to try it since it seems to send "zings" to all your Facebook friends. Has anyone tried it? Is Miracle Whip trying to be the new Digg? This all seems like it is from a parallel universe.
drewonline
@Nice Beaver: Srysly? American Idol reruns cause seizures in my household...
gabrielsong