Even though we’re a big loving family here at Unreality, we don’t always agree on everything, and the debut of the new Bruno trailer is one of those times.

Madison posted the redband trailer a bit ago, saying that it “wasn’t a bold claim” to say that Bruno will be the funniest movie of next year, the way as some might argue Borat was when it was released. And I don’t think he’s alone in thinking this.

However, Bruno is not Borat, and though the movies are similar in style, they’re extremely different in a very important way.

Borat used the guise of a clueless foreigner to take his own (fake) prejudices against jews, blacks, gays, women, etc. and reveal middle America’s deep seeded prejudices against those same groups. As a result we were more often than not laughing at the clueless Americans, more than the clueless fake foreigner, and many hailed Borat as a kind of social commentary that we hadn’t really seen before.

Bruno is different. He’s a clueless foreigner of a different sort, a flamboyantly gay Austrian that doesn’t understand why the rest of the world isn’t as fabulous as he is. By placing himself in a variety of awkward situations around the country, the “greater goal” here is presumably to show how truly homophobic middle America is.

But no, it doesn’t work. Here’s why.

If a man in a mesh tank top and booty shorts came up to you on the street, chatted you up and then proceeded to try to give you a lap dance, you would probably react with some combination of A) disgust or B) anger. Now presumably a man in a mesh tanktop and booty shorts is gay, but that’s not the issue, the issue is simply one of proper social conduct. So to see Bruno try to molest straight Americans may be funny purely for its shock value, but what is it really proving about America’s attitude the gay community? Can you really say that it’s homophobic for those featured in the film to react the way they do?

Bruno is a culmination about every redneck American’s worst fears about gays, that literally they will swarm the streets, having sex with each other on the street, and trying to convert straight people to their devious ways. In real life, the gay community is nothing like that, and to present them like that in a movie like isn’t serving any real purpose. Most adverse reactions to Bruno’s behavior can be chalked up to people A) not wanting to be sexually harassed or B) the violation of public indecency laws, two things which everyone has a right to want to avoid.

I have a number of gay friends, and I’m curious as to what their reaction is to this whole project. To me it seems the Bruno isn’t representing gays, he’s representing the gayest of the gay gays in the history of gayness. His straight equivalent would be a hybrid of Arnold Schwartzneggar, Clint Eastwod and Jack Bauer, running around town with muscles bulging out of a speedo, dry humping any woman that passes by. If they scream and run away, is that making a larger point that America is biased against straight men? No, he’s just being an asshole. And Bruno, simply put, is just being an asshole.

So will Bruno be funny? Yes. But it will be funny the way Jackass: The Movie was funny, not the way Borat was funny, and really, that’s a shame.

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