Branding, Culture, Politics, and Everything in Between

Sascha Baron Cohen’s new pseudo-documentary Brüno has been getting worse reviews than its predecessor, Borat. Most pundits feel that this is due to the film’s similarities, that the joke is sort of “played out” now. But having finally seen Brüno last night, I have a different opinion on why it was weaker (and it was) than the previous film.

Much of Borat’s interestingness stemmed from Borat talking with regular people, who often ended up showing their true colors in the process. Most of the interactions played out like a good qualitative interview: Borat was the researcher getting people to spill their guts, in their own words, with well-timed priming. Borat was the true outsider, wanting to learn about the American way of life, and people obliged. All Borat had to do was to nudge them into the right direction, and people would reveal their deep racist, homophobic or antisemite feelings. Often, it didn’t even require much.

Brüno, on the other hand, is almost a case example of bad anthropology. The spotlight is almost always on him, never on the people he’s interviewing or interacting with. Brüno is flamboyant. He’s irritating. He doesn’t get people to open up, he pushes them and pushes them until they lose their temper and reveal something about themselves. And most of the time, the results were predictable and uninteresting. People were genuinely uneasy with him, just waiting to get out of the situation. Most of the time, I ended up feeling sorry for Brüno’s “victims”, unlike in Borat. Only a few episodes felt free-flowing and enlightening (the talk show and the baby pictures), the rest was just shock humor.

I definitely think Cohen can make another film like this (more makeup and a new character and people won’t know who it is), but he has to tone it down and give the spotlight back to the people he’s interviewing.