The official trailer for Sacha Baron Cohen's latest movie "Bruno" was released this week; in the meantime Cohen is in the editing room trying to scrub it up to beat its NC-1 rating. I haven't seen the film so obviously I can't offer a critique but I'll beg the question by asking when "shock" will ever stop being taken seriously as a form of art?
I didn't dislike "Borat" but good grief, this film seems to follow the exact same formula as "Borat," wherein man goes undercover as a ridiculously outrageous character to expose the latent (or not) prejudices within the most stereotypical people in America. Trailer after the jump, SO COMPLETELY NSFW.
The hair is gloriously flat-ironed and I give Cohen major props for a) pulling this off when he's a household name and b) pulling it off without dissolving into a fit of laughter.
I do think Cohen's brand of shock is more cerebral than say, Marilyn Manson's brand of shock, which is just a repurposed use of Alice Cooper's original shock … and entire aesthetic. Cohen is "let's examine all the ways in which we as a society think; Manson's is "LOOKIT I SHOP AT HOT TOPIC! SCARY! OOOGIE OOGIE OOO!" I digress. (Everytime you make fun of Manson an early naughts' faux-goth tween cries.)
Shock seems lazy to me and I sometimes feel that there can only be so many instances in which an approach is original. But we are simple creatures and we forget things of the past so in that sense perhaps things will continue to seem original even when there is a record of previous prototypes. Jeebus, that is way deeper than I wanted to go; I was completely satisfied to stay in the kiddie pool with this.
I just sense that Cohen has serious acting chops hidden behind the comedic facade and I'd like to see him use them at some point.
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