If Sacha Baron Cohen's films intentionally court controversy, he's getting what he asked for with Brüno. Some critics, like CL's Joe Bardi, admire Cohen's risk-taking comic performance as a flamboyantly gay Austrian. But the head of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) says the satire is likely to miss the mark: "Some people in the gay community will be as troubled as GLAAD is that the movie doesn't decrease homophobia, but decreases the public's comfort with gay people." Read Bardi's review and the GLAAD story and check out other critics' reactions at Rotten Tomatoes. And after the break check out a clip from Current TV's That's So Gay (pictured above) that mocks the movie and the controversy, declaring "Bruno is the gay version of Malcolm X!"
This article appears in Jul 8-14, 2009.
