Bruno ist maschterpeizen du satiren! (Translated from German: Bruno is a masterpiece of satire!)

Saw Bruno this weekend. Loved it for many reasons. Primarily because it was outrageous. I also like the blend of scripted scenes and absurd interviews. You can never quite tell what's real and what's staged. Like Fox News.

I recently went on a liberal-leaning website (The Huffington Post) and found myself laughing at all the comments complaining about how they feel Bruno reinforces gay stereotypes. They were in fact, reinforcing the stereotype that liberals are a bunch of humorless analysts who can't cease promoting their agenda for even one second, even to laugh at an obvious over-the-top parody from someone clearly on their side.

The fact is that Bruno is a masterpiece of satire. All topics are fair game, but more than homophobia, the movie hits the phenomenon of celebrity: its insincerity, the self-destructive (and destructive to others) lust for it, its obliviousness to hypocrisy.

Cohen's satire smokes The Onion's groin-kick obviousness or The Simpson's spoon-feeding subversion. Why? Because Bruno shows by example. Witness Paula Abdul live as she talks about human dignity while sitting on the back of a Mexican. Note the consultants advising Bruno on the hottest charity to get into so as to become famous-er. Feel your jaw drop as you watch show-biz parents willing to pimp their children out at any cost.

This behind-the-scenes look at the Fame Industry is eye-opening enough to be almost documentary-worthy.

With every work of satire comes complaints that boiled to their essence are concerns that people are going to take the work seriously and incorporate it into their world-view. The role of knee-jerk is currently being played by GLAAD, who despite their admirable agenda, are pushing the complaint that Bruno reinforces gay stereotypes.

So surely GLAAD must be violently opposed to the Bravo network, where every other show features gay people as fashion-designers, interior-designers or hair-designers. No such luck. A quick (and admittedly lazy) search on their site finds an essay titled Where We Are on TV: 2007 - 2008 that calls Bravo "The gold standard of LGBT representation on reality shows." (Link.)

But I'm not here to pick an internet brawl with an organization I mostly admire. I'm here to say that Bruno is a great film, funny and clever and ridiculous all at once. It even takes a few shots at homophobia, as Bruno visits gay-converters, taunts the cruel "God Hates Fags" people, and pulls the ultimate prank on a proudly straight crowd expecting a cage fight.

The real target of Bruno was fame and those who reach for it.

Now for some humility. The Huffington Post's Guide to Blogging instructs bloggers to "write on top of the news." That is, in order to get more site hits, you should hitch your blog to a rising news story, which I just did. So, despite my critiques, I suppose I'm not immune from fame-lust either. Bruno was right!

Ach mein suchen butockenkopf! (Translated from the German: I'm such a butt head!)

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Larry Nocella is the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers. For more info, visit LarryNocella.com.