Will Sacha Baron Cohen's "Bruno" be Homophobic, or Funny?

Given the success of his 2006 film "Borat," it's not surprising that filmmaker/actor/provocateur Sacha Baron Cohen is looking to stir controversy again, this time with the upcoming release of his film "Bruno," a mockumentary based on a character Cohen created in earlier comedy routines where he plays a flamboyant gay Austrian fashion reporter.  Filmmakers suggest that Cohen's bold humor may actually serve the purpose of unmasking homophobia.  But it's clear that the film is stradling that fine line between ingenious and inflammatory, which has lots of people asking right now: Will "Bruno" be homophobic, or funny?

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has expressed some skepticism about the film, while noting its potential to enlighten an audience.  Here's GLAAD's Senior Director of Media Programs, Rashad Robinson, commenting on one scene that might go a little too far:

In one extended series of sequences, Bruno adopts a baby from Africa, giving Baron Cohen an opportunity to take aim at those celebrity parents who seem to treat their children like fashion accessories. What follows, though, shifts the film from smart social satire to something else entirely - a parade of over-the-top stereotypes that, whatever their intent, play to and could affirm troubling attitudes about gay people.

Bruno appears as a guest on a local TV talk show with the baby in tow. Then, following racially insensitive comments by Bruno in the presence of the largely African American audience, that audience is shown photos of what appears to be Bruno in a hot tub having sex with men inches away from the child. Horrified and outraged, the talk-show audience turns on Bruno.

What's disquieting about this scene - and others in the film - is that it doesn't call attention to or unmask cultural homophobia...in a country where gay and lesbian parents can still be denied the ability in some states to adopt the children they have raised since birth - and where those children can even be taken away from the only parents they've ever known - the idea of trivializing gay families, making them the butt of a series of crude jokes, and reinforcing pernicious stereotypes about gay men and children didn't feel funny. It felt dangerous.

And that might be the biggest concern with "Bruno"...that scenes meant to illicit extreme laughter and push the envelope actually end up hurting members of the LGBT community.

Still, there are a few other folks - Queerty, for instance - that resent the fact that organizations like GLAAD are telling people what to think of "Bruno."  From Queerty's point of view, "Bruno" could be another tool in the arsenal to defeat homophobia. Here goes:

Yes, he plays a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion reporter, but heterosexual Sacha Baron Cohen's character Bruno is, for all intents and purposes, a comedic exercise in exploring gay stereotypes and going on a witch hunt for homophobes — both concepts that, on their face, we're perfectly fine with...

[But] Bruno doesn't need to be a finely tuned teaching moment; that's asking too much of mainstream cinema fare. But the film let's us laugh with and at stereotypes. It's a pornographic enterprise into America's remaining taboos. If the film starts even one conversation about "how wrong" all of that is, it's a success — and, dare we suggest, something we should support.

So there's the question: Is "Bruno" going to help or hurt the larger movement?  Or does it even matter?

It's easy to see how some scenes, like the one pointed out by GLAAD's Robinson, could be an offensive portrayal of LGBT families, and reinforce the stereotype that many hold that LGBT men and women are unfit parents.  But I also agree with Queerty to some extent that, sometimes, we all just need to lighten up and trust that most people will see the funny, and not the homophobic, in comedy like this.

Either way, it's clear that the answer to whether "Bruno" will be funny or homophobic won't likely be known until it premieres here in the States in July.  Until then, we all get to play the role of pundit (or blowhard) in deciding whether the film will sink or swim.