Listen Up, Al Gore

A friend just emailed me to ask if I'm going to see Brüno tonight, heh.

I replied that I was not.

I am, however, enjoying reading all the reviews by straight white doodz informing Humorless Scolds (like me!) that the movie is SO hilarious! you don't even KNOW! and that we're just too stuffy and PC to get it.

I never get tired of that old chestnut.

In fact, I'm running an experiment right now to try to turn "humorless oversensitive hysteric" into an alternative fuel. I'm single-handedly on the brink of solving the energy crisis.

My favorite admonishment so far is one Spudsy emailed me earlier today from the review in the Windy City Times (page 17, pdf)—written, btw, by a gay male reviewer:

So is it offensive to gays? That's the first question everyone asked me as I left the screening. It's not an unexpected question considering my position as the film critic for an LGBT publication. My instinctual answer: no. Oh, I'm sure there are going to be a lot of people (gay and straight) offended by the havoc (much of it easily categorized as vulgar on one end, obscene on the other) that Cohen/Bruno creates--these are the folks who just won't get that Cohen's playing on stereotypes or who are made nervous by his in-your-face-approach.

I can't conceive of a more colossally stupid thing to say than the people who object to Brüno don't "get that Cohen's playing on stereotypes," given that the major complaint from its detractors is the very fact that he's playing on stereotypes. Yeesh.

[Previously on Brüno: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight.]