Bruno vs. the Girlfriend Experience- Constructed Reality vs. Realistic Construct.

I didn’t go into the cinema thinking Bruno was going to be an intellectually stimulating experience. Nonetheless, I expected to be entertained. Not only was I not entertained, I was disgusted. Half the cinema was in hysterics as they watched the gay Austrian fashionista, brilliantly impersonated by Sacha Baron Cohen, get anal sex from a dildo contraption operated by his short Asian partner. I didn’t find this funny. If this was supposed to be a satire of the unfortunate preconceptions some people hold of gays, it failed to come across as one. It was just an excuse to get half of the sexually frustrated cinema laughing/ letting go of some built up frustrations of their own. If that’s all it takes to make a movie these days, it all seems a little bit too easy, especially if you’re mocking 5% of the world’s population in the process. “But it was just so out there, so controversial” said some fans. The movie revealed more about the audience than the people it was portraying.

What annoys me most about the movie is it pretends to act as a social commentary on homophobia in the States. Does the movie at one point show a real gay person and his interaction with society? No. Does it show a quasi-tranny jumping about swinging his privates to people who aren’t interested? Yes. All his targets are safely straight. You’re not exposing anything about society by showing 60 year old senator Ron Paul losing his temper when you’ve just shoved him in a room against his will, and pulled your trousers down. I mean, your dad would lose it too. It’s simply not that clever. Similarly, interrupting a swinger’s party and asking a guy to stare into your eyes as he’s enjoying his moment of pleasure, is going to get him furious whatever happens. Who does Sacha Baron Cohen think he is? He’s talented at adopting the role of the gay Austrian and gets his tongue perfectly around the accent, for lack of a better expression. Apart from these praises, the movie shows us nothing at all. And to be fair, there are a lot of comedians out there who could do the same impression, there’s no comic genius about it at all.

The film claims to be of real life sequences, but it seems the people were manipulated into taking part, without any understanding of what was really going on. A sequence in the film shows parents individually agreeing to let their children take part in a photo shoot which required the toddlers to dress up as Nazis, on crucifixes and in some cases, lose five pounds. What they were told in order to agree to this, we have no idea, what the photo shoot entailed, we don’t know either. It seems the supportive editing strategies had a lot more to do with what see than meets the eye. If you’re going to make a point as Borat had done a few years ago, at least elaborate, prove it, otherwise I’m not buying it. It's just not enough to be shocking. How many people in your environment would agree to their kids doing such obscenities? Unless you live in crazytown, I’m guessing your answer is none. The cultural learning in this particular sequence once again escapes me. There’s nothing cultural about fabricated absurdity. It may be funny for some, but it doesn’t go much further.

Having followed the Madonna adopts Mercy story in the papers, Bruno with little baby OJ swapped for an iPod in Africa, is the only sequence with comic value. Once again it was absurd, but this time the absurdity applied to a pertinent and current celebrity fad. I don’t know if I need to see a movie about it though. I’d rather just see pictures of Madonna carrying the little minions around with her in matching Adidas tracksuits, that’s funnier, and much more ‘real’. There’s no bigger picture in Bruno, it’s simply a collection of silly episodes involving Cohen’s penis, which I don’t need to see. And I’m not a prude. Far from it. There are just other things I could be doing on a Saturday afternoon. Referring to Hamas as hummus is funny for –like- 2 seconds. If that’s the only joke you’re making, then Cohen, darling, you’re getting lazy. The five second gap which ensues after a conversation between Bruno and some macho hunters isn't daring either, frankly, it's boring. The last scene dumbfounded me the most. How he got some of the world’s most talented singers to sing his song is delirious. Surely Snoop Dog didn't think he'd help resolve homophobia by rapping 'he's gay,o.k'.

If he's making any kind of statement, it's that stupid people exist. What am I supposed to do with this revolutionary piece of information? Keep it in mind? No can do. Cheap humour for a movie that’s gonna make a hell of a lot of money. An aggravating paradox.

Money indeed is at the core of the other movie I watched: the Girlfriend Experience. Ironically, it had all the elements Bruno advocated yet lacked. More real, more pertinent and more relevant to current culture than Steven Soderbergh's latest creation is hard to find. A critic from the San Francisco Chronicles even said it may well be “the first important cinematic statement about the recession". In the same way that Elton John somehow was lured to feature in the end song for the movie for financial reward, Chelsea, the case study in Soderbergh's movie, lives the escort lifestyle to get paid $2000 an hour. Morally wrong, but financially very alluring...

Soderbergh admits the film is semi-improvised giving it this genuine lustre to it which Bruno does not have. He offers us a tight script, full of pauses, glances, cigarette drags which all add to the undeniable tension in the New York air, so adequate in its depiction of the economic crisis. The movie is as much about human nature as it is about the culture of money which turns love and desire into things you want to control. Money makes some people think they can manipulate lust, hence why some of the wealthy men in the movie think they have ownership of this girl. The film shows the position that money plays in our lives, what some people will do to get it; such as the girl who gives men this illusion of intimacy in return for it, and what they do once they have it; abuse of the things they can’t have or indulge in life’s excesses. It goes further in its investigation as it shows that as the economy fails, and the rich lose this sense of control they once had, they degenerate, realise they have lost the real in their lives and nothing feels truly satisfied. Such an apt commentary on modern day dependence on money, wealth for way more spurious ends than survival, is relevant and foreboding in its message. Its impact is accentuated by the artistic cinema verite style in which the movie is shot, making it fascinating to watch. The juggled time sequence and long takes of Soderbergh's gem make it artistically spectacular, compelling and astutely in line with the characters' very own fluctuations in power and self-esteem.

The credibility of the movie is emphasized by the main character who is played by real porn star, Sasha Grey. Needless to say this bold move contrasts to Bruno's fantasy fashion guru. Although the Girlfriend Experience consists of 77 minutes of potent non-sex, the sexual climate is far more sexy and sensual than anything you'll ever get in Bruno and feels all the more real for it, making the movie more convincing and engrossing, than Bruno's facile spoof. As far as social commentaries go, The Girlfriend Experience couldn't offer us a better reflection of a unique scenario which is occurring: the bitter truth of women turning themselves into commodities, an evolved type of prostitution and its fate in the declining market. Bruno pales in comparison showing us the adventures of a stereotyped gay parading around the world trying to make world peace.

Bruno attempts to show American hypocrisy by pretending to expose a country which claims to be liberated yet is evidently still closeted. This concept is flawed from the start if the so-called liberated ones are not shown to be the closeted ones and nowhere is the proposed link apparent. In contrast, the Girlfriend Experience doesn’t attempt to prove anything at all, but explores a unique situation in a contemporary backdrop. It shows how human beings have the potential to shut off true personalities and barricade emotions in order to succeed financially at the expense of moral high ground. Bruno is reality yet has been shrewdly set up and edited to obtain a crowd pleasing result far removed from its original, guaranteed to be a sell out. In a way, the Girlfriend Experience warns us of this greedy attitude to money and the dangers this can bring as real emotion become distorted. It achieves this with a commendably veritable narrative and actors, making it infinitely more credible and befitting than Bruno’s alleged documentary turned meek porno for the Big Brother spectators of this world.