The Verdict on Bruno?

It was opening weekend for Sacha Baron Cohen's much-publicized "Bruno," the new movie that features Cohen flaunting a larger than life gay persona and pranking his way up and down the entire country.  Before the film was released, many folks were on one hand worried that "Bruno" would reinforce negative stereotypes about LGBT people, and on the other hand hopeful that Cohen's ability to poke fun at homophobia and bigotry would advance LGBT rights and point out just how silly those who oppose gay rights are.  So, now that the film is out, where does "Bruno" fall?

Well, if box office numbers have anything to do with it, people seemed to like it.  "Bruno" made more than $30 million this weekend, placing it at number one on Hollywood's charts.  But the film certainly saw it's share of detractors, from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), to bloggers and critics alike.  So, here's a question for you: After it's first weekend, did "Bruno" help or hurt (or have absolutely nothing to do with) the larger LGBT rights movement?

Here are a few responses from around the web.  We'll start with the Good (2), then head to the bad (2), and then head to the ugly (just 1!).

1. The Bilerico Project (DC): "Homophobes aren't going to venture anywhere near a theater where Brüno is playing. And if they do, they'll walk out before the going gets really good. Meanwhile, those straight folk who choose to pad Brüno's box office this weekend are likely already in our court. They're wise to the joke, acutely aware that the sexual antics performed early on by Brüno and his boytoy are way beyond absurd. No one in their right mind will think gays stick champagne bottles up their butts. At least, not on a regular basis. Just special occasions."

2. Slate.com: "Borat and Brüno are comedies of difference, documentaries of bigotry, and they more or less require the viewer to pick a side. Baron Cohen doesn't play nice, but there's real value to the aggression of his literally confrontational method. How many political entertainments can match the satisfaction of watching Borat trash an antique store full of Confederate kitsch or Brüno compliment an ex-gay preacher/deprogrammer's "amazing blow-job lips"? For the climax of Brüno, which echoes the rodeo scene in Borat, Baron Cohen, disguised as a tough-guy wrestler, starts making out with another man mid-cage match, sending the drunken mob into a horrified frenzy. Leave it to a movie with a talking penis to come up with a brilliant tactic against homophobia: the gay-panic offense."

3. GLAAD:  "The makers of the film "Bruno," Sacha Baron Cohen's just-released follow-up to "Borat," have said that they intend to satirize and expose homophobia. But even when filmmakers have the best of intentions, there can be a disconnect between the concept and the execution. In "Bruno," the satire often loses sight of the way gay people are treated in real life....We live in a world where far too many still mistreat and abuse gay people, deny us the ability to take care of the ones we love and exclude us from fully participating in the life of our communities. For a major studio film with a massive cultural footprint to pile even more stereotypes and discomfort onto an already hostile climate -- despite what are inarguably the best of intentions -- doesn't make the work of changing and overcoming it any easier."

4. Socialist Worker Online: "The first thing that strikes you is that this is a grotesquely homophobic film, a compendium of everything that a particularly bigoted 12 year old boy might think he knows about gay people....Sacha Baron Cohen is clearly an intelligent and creative person. He could presumably produce a film worth remembering in some way.  But Bruno deserves to be forgotten about as quickly as possible."

5. Carlos in DC: "The worst thing about this movie it makes gay people look really bad, as if we all are sex addicts and dildo-obsessed drag queens, with a thirst for money and fame so extreme that we would do anything to get them. To be that way, one doesn't need to be gay. And of course the film is racist as it can be. Mexican men are used as chairs and furniture, and a Black kid is used as a toy, an Asian gay man is portrayed as a submissive sex slave."

So what's your opinion?  Let us know!