Austrians find Bruno hard to swallow

True enough, we Austrians probably shouldn’t complain if our own country gets another couple nanoseconds of fame soon – and for once it won’t be on account of a paternal paedophile or ultra-right-wing demagogue. At least not directly.

Still, there is no denying that the new film by British gagman Sacha Baron Cohen is proving pretty taxing even before its theatrical release in Austria. Not because in The Brüno Movie Baron Cohen makes fun of Austria in particular and homosexuals in general, but because the British comedian’s marketing machine has become obtrusively abrasive. In March he was already crashing the Milan fashion show and strutting down the catwalk as a gay fashion reporter – which got him arrested (good publicity for him: scandal!). And just two weeks ago, at the MTV Music Awards, he staged his own “scandal” – though it wasn’t a real one, as it transpired later. He had himself abseiled down – bare butt and all – onto the lap of the notoriously homophobic rapper Eminem.

The latter was outraged, so they said at first: in fact he was in on the stunt, which had been planned out well in advance.The latest issue of men’s mag GQ features naked Brüno on the cover – and right on time, too, for this week’s tour to promote the European premiere. In Paris Cohen made his grand appearance – as on the movie poster – in gold leather hotpants, a sleeveless plaid shirt and a sunflower yellow Styrian hat. Two days later, in London, he went for a classic British getup, viz. a Beefeater’s uniform, albeit taking considerable licence with the cut for this carnival-style costume lampoon.

But Sacha Baron Cohen can pull off that sort of thing. The 37-year-old Briton of Israeli-Iranian extraction, who dons jeans and a white T-shirt when at home, is now a household name – and pretty popular, too. First there was Ali G., the sexist chav rapper from England, who carried a whole TV series on MTV and later a movie. Then Borat, the mustachioed Kazakh (and likewise misogynous and homophobic) TV reporter, took the cinemas by storm in 2006. And now here comes Brüno!

Austria’s painstaking petty bourgeois search for “the real Austrian Brüno” has now been concluded. A British paper initially suspected Alfons Haider [a gay Austrian film star] was the role model. Dominic Heinzl from private broadcaster ATV thought he’d found the bona fide Brüno in the erstwhile head of a newspaper fashion section. Although Cohen repeatedly insisted he had no specific person in mind, the idea for the character seems to have stemmed from Austria. Baron Cohen lived and studied for a while in Vienna – and most likely didn’t have the time of his life here. At any rate, he has his Brüno go to the United States to become “the most famous Austrian since Hitler”, and portrays the Alpine Republic as a place where men are not even allowed to shake hands. So Brüno certainly does not have the makings of a particularly good ambassador for Austria. But as long as he amuses some people, one can hardly object.

However, some American gay organisations see that a little differently. The satirical treatment of all-American homophobia has come a cropper, they say. The very viewers whose prejudices are derided in the film could see it as corroborating their worst fears.

There has been no official condemnation in Austria to date. But Baron Cohen fans here are bound to be disappointed: despite the film’s Austrian allusions, the star won’t be gracing any official premiere in Vienna with his person. Austria is presumably too small a country for Brüno’s PR machine.