Amid the screams of shock and laughter at a packed preview screening of "Bruno" Tuesday night in Washington, one could also detect slight sighs of relief.
There were many gay people in the audience, and nothing interests them quite like monitoring how they are treated in movies and TV. It seems gays have found, if not a friend in Bruno, at least a very tenuous ally in his over-the-top (and under-the-bottom) stereotype.
After watching Bruno, a character played by Sacha Baron Cohen ("Borat"), traipse across America and incite whatever homophobic responses and misadventures he can (especially in such places as Arkansas and Alabama), gays seem ready to accept that "Bruno," which opens today, will not hinder their hopes for pop-culture progress. Nor is it likely to inspire any. What "Bruno" inspires in gays is a lot of talking and typing and thinking. Here is some more.
"Bruno" gave me a new (and not new) thought about homophobia. The straight people seen in the movie, such as a heterosexual swingers group infiltrated by Bruno, have just as many issues about their orientation and desires as anyone else. Homophobia, schmomophobia. America has a giant case of sex phobia. The bedroom is a bigger hang-up than it's ever been, which is bizarre, after all the supposed revolution we've been through. Gays just happen to be on the unfortunate side of the bed.
We're all afraid of sex. Any kind of sex -- gay, straight, bi, May-December, Michael Jackson, whatever. Forty years of gay rights after the Stonewall riots in New York have not moved actual hot sex forward. In fact, the more political being gay gets, the more afraid everyone gets of sex. So much for liberation. Now we just cringe in movies, waiting to watch straight people laugh and scream and affirm their complete fear of carnality.
Nothing quite matches the feeling of being the gay person in a movie theater full of straight people when the gay jokes come around. It can put a guy right back on the recess playground, where the bullies are smart and funny and the sissy (also smart, also funny, but only to the girls) is just trying to get through the day unscathed. Not all gay men feel this as acutely, but plenty have sat blithely in otherwise enjoyable movies and watched as audiences howl with disgust when the gay sex joke presents itself.
