Brüno - Larry Charles

"He's the white Obama"

-Snoop Dogg

One of the two worst things Americans have given to the World is the use of political correctness in the public speech (the other one being the CNN 24/7 broadcasting model). The purpose of political correctness, it is argued, is to create the conditions for a civilized discussion that transcends insults and injuries, allowing the participants of the debate to focus on its substance. The intention is good, but political correctness ossifies and stiffs the public sphere, that is too serious and owlish. That is just unfortunate: Voltaire showed us that sense of humor is a weapon against which there is no effective defense. At one point, all the revolutions make fun of the oppressing regime. The fact that we have taken humor (including, of course, offensive humor) out of our discussions has made our arguments poorer.

Over the last years, Sacha Baron Cohen has produced a couple of movies that make Western civilization look itself in the mirror. His sense of humor is a weapon against the tyranny of political correctness. Baron Cohen simply reduces the speeches of his interlocutors to the absurd, which is probably why he annoys all the people who identify with them.

Brüno is probably not a good movie in terms of plot -although it is more structured than Borat.The movie is permated with teenager sexual vulgarity, but is that Baron Cohen's fault, or is it just the reflect of how primitive we have become since the creation of mass media? Gays, rednecks, movie stars, super models, Christian preachers: all of them are put in their right dimension. If they do not like the picture, they should blame themselves instead of the painter.