I've lived in the Fort Smith area for most of my life, and I am gay. Word about Cohen's act had spread pretty fast the night of the incident - I was at a liquor store and the clerk there told me that people had come in talking about what had happened downtown. I finally got the chance to watch this movie the other night.
Cohen stated in the film's commentary that people told him to go to Arkansas if he wanted some tried and true homophobia. Homophobia runs on a sort of spectrum. Some people are mildly homophobic, and some people tie gays to fences and beat them to death. I believe Cohen wanted to show the most extreme example of homophobia he could get legally, and he did what he needed to do in order to achieve that goal. The reactions of some of these people (and from the commentary I'm pretty sure no scenes from Texarkana were edited in with the Fort Smith footage) are downright scary. Yes, a lot of them were heavily inebriated, but I really doubt they would have reacted with any less passion had they not been drinking. An idiotic, intolerant redneck is an idiotic, intolerant redneck, drunk or not.
However, I can say I have not personally ever encountered the passionately deranged reactions pictured in the movie. I used to go to the gay bar downtown, and that's the only place I've ever encountered homophobia in Fort Smith. I'd sit outside in the parking lot on some nights, and as the bar is situated at the end of Fort Smith's largest strip of bars, a few drunk, redneck morons would drive by and shout out delightfully original declarations.
That's as close as I've ever been to homophobia here. I don't speak for all gays. I know there are intolerant dolts around here, and I'm sure there are violently intolerant dolts, but they're certainly not the majority. Fort Smith wasn't exclusively named in the film, so it's not like the town is objectively singled out or misrepresented. They named the state, but even in the commentary "Fort Smith" was not said (although Texarkana was named). The idea's that this could be anywhere, particularly in the south.
At the end of the day, even though this movie tried to show just how ridiculous some people are with their discomfort and/or hatred of gays, it's just a comedy film. I'm not one to attempt to flaunt my orientation, I don't go to gay pride rallies, I don't really have gay friends, but I do know that I'm gay, and divisive as this movie was among gays, I can say that I laughed my ass off, which was why I wanted to watch it in the first place.
- 1
- 2
How Real Is 'Brüno'?
Email To A Friend
Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.
In early June of last year, fliers strewn across Ft. Smith and the surrounding Ozark hamlets promised a big night of "Blue Collar Brawlin' " at the local convention center. "GET THERE EARLY! $1 BEER" and "HOT CHICKS, COLD BEER, HARDCORE FIGHTS," they bleated in big typeface, next to a photo of a woman in a pink lamé bikini. Tickets sold for $5 in advance, $10 at the door, a pittance compared with typical cage-fight nights, which can run $25 to $30 a head. It's no surprise, then, that "people were coming in droves," according to the convention center's sales director, Karin Hobbs, including several men intent on participating in an advertised tough-man competition. (Hobbs and the rest of the facility's staff were under the impression that the fight was for a reality show.) Once at the fight, attendees had to turn over cameras, cigarette lighters, and other items. They were required to sign waivers allowing them to be filmed and then were deliberately made to wait for 90 minutes at the door. "At this point, they were frustrated," Hobbs says.
Once in, attendees were ready to "get this party started," Hobbs says, and a massive crush of people hit the bar, which the flier advertised would sell $1 beers only for the first hour. But the promotion never expired, though the audience kept thinking it was about to. As a result, attendees got drunker and drunker, something Hobbs and the Ft. Smith Police Department say was planned all along. Before the event, they say, the catering company in charge of concessions was told to keep the beer at $1, no matter what, and that the movie's production team would pay the difference later. "Beers are normally five to six bucks by design because we don't want people just sitting there power-drinking all day," says Sgt. Levi Risley, the spokesman for the Ft. Smith Police Department. "It creates problems, subsidizing alcohol sales." (Contacted by NEWSWEEK for comment on this and other alleged stage management, Universal Pictures said it had nothing to add beyond the movie's production notes.)
Hobbs says that the film crew also threw T shirts out into the crowd with profane images and homophobic phrases ("Straight Dave" and "My A--hole Is Just for S--tting") emblazoned on the front, presumably to rile up the crowd further. They'd originally asked the police officers to also wear the shirts, say Hobbs and Risley, but the officers declined, saying they needed to be in uniform.
The whole event prompts tough questions, but they're more about filmmaking than tolerance. Baron Cohen's audience-baiting isn't obviously scripted, like most feature films, but it also doesn't adhere to the truth-telling principles of journalism. Yet the studio still presents his movies as accurate reflections of society. In the production notes, Universal states that to get the reaction Baron Cohen wanted, "[m]uch goading or antagonism wasn't necessary at all. He found that once interviewees had a lens in front of them and were prompted with uncomfortable scenarios, they reacted incredibly honestly. People don't say or do things on camera that they don't mean." The people actually shown on camera beg to differ. According to The Dallas Morning News, several participants in a faux talk show seen in the film say they too were misled; they say they were lured into a studio to talk about family values and instead were faced with Brüno talking about disowning his child if he turns out to be straight.
Fowler and Marriott, for their part, find the depiction of Ft. Smith not that far from reality; the two are planning to leave town as soon as they finish college. For now, Marriott says his soundtrack is Augustana's wistful "Boston": "I think that I'm just tired/I think I need a new town, to leave this all behind."
© 2009
- 1
- 2
Discuss