QUEERFACE #2 - Gay Celebs Compare "Bruno" To Blackface; Voice Concern

June 13, 2008 - LIFEWORKS event honoring Dustin Lance Black

Gay celebrities Jack Plotnick (actor/comedian), Peter Paige (actor "Queer As Folk"), Nick Verreos (fashion designer), Jennifer Elise Cox (actress/comedian), and Brian Graden (LOGO network founder) express concern about the impact of Sacha Baron Cohen's film "Bruno", about a flamboyant Austrian Gay Fashionista who comes to America.

While some hail Cohen's "Bruno" as a brilliant device to tackle the subject of homophobia, others see "Bruno" as a kind of gay "Blackface". Stereotypes embodied Blackface played a significant role in cementing and proliferating racist images, attitudes and perceptions worldwide.

Sacha Cohen, who is straight, created "Bruno" as part of the Ali G Show. He has not made public his personal views on LGBT issues, leading to his having little, if any, moral standing on which to caricature an oppressed group which struggles for the right to marry, serve in the military, employment security, immigration, and even their own lives as they are killed for striving to live as part of the global LGBT community.

Reporting - Courtney K; Camera and podcast - Mike Skiff
Third Rail Media

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Bruno
• movie
• sacha
• cohen
• comedy
• gay
• LGBT
• blackface
• queerface
• lifeworks
• peter
• paige
• jack
• plotnick
• fashion
• entertainment
• prop
• marriage
• equality

[MrVidCam]

How was Cohen's presence at a Prop 8 demonstration (two days before Prop 8 passed - banning gay marriage in CA) relevant to the civil rights issue of stopping Prop 8?

Do you give celebrities passes to do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as it makes you laugh and keeps you entertained?

What was remarkable about Cohen showing that Yes On 8 supporters were intolerant?

Wasn't his and the film crews actions just plain opportunistic - hijacking the moment only for a 'Bruno' skit?

[zengreen7]

What the hell does the stupid interviewer mean by saying what black face ONCE was or "used to be"?! If the hate behind BF is gone....WHERE DID IT GO?!

[MrVidCam]

Blacks in America ceased to be second-class citizens, gaining equality with whites in regards to employment, housing, education, even protection under the law.

Gay and lesbians are currently second-class citizens in America and around the world. Their relationships aren't recognized as equal by the federal government. In many states, LGBT people can be fired from their jobs, and they can't serve their country.

Give gays equal rights and the the laughs will be equal.

[blackmetalqueer]

is that Calpernia in the background at 1:50

[MrVidCam]

Yup.

[News4usall]

Funny how so many, even in the "artist" community, will say that art is often MEANT TO OFFEND.

Evidently until it offends you. Then NO.

A lot of hypocrites on this vid.

[srb4887]

"Woe to him who seeks to please rather than appall" - Herman Melville. Enough with the P.C. bullshit. Funny is funny, plain and simple. I like a bunch of the people in this clip but please, as if they haven't perpetuated stereotypes? Their nelly asses haven't been knocking down walls and progressing the cause. I don't mean nelly as necessarily a bad thing, god knows I'm sick of every fucking dude describing himself as "straight-acting". We don't need to actively "integrate"... be yourself

[Equality4ya]

Did the guy at 13 seconds just Kanye West us! lol...

[osomy]

Hey liberal gays, not all straight guys think gays are crap or that gays should be worhsipped.

We might have family members who are gay. Posh gays think they are oppressed. They are not.

It's like middle class women bleeting about glass ceilings, they are priveledged matriarchs.

[osomy]

HOMOCULT

Google HOMOCULT,

[MycologicalBlasphemy]

@Ericjpomeroy It's not so much gays against the world...it's the world (the vast majority of it) against gays. Even in countries where gay people AREN'T murdered and executed, (Europe and the US and others), there's still a huge amount of abuse and prejeduce against gay people, and a long way to go until equality.

[killerskillet]

Because MY asshole's JUST for shitting!

[TheThordir]

@BigEastAndy

In other words women should go back to the kitchen, blacks at the plantation and queers in the closet.

[TheThordir]

@rbk2000

I was offended by Borat. But then again I am from Romania. His so called home town is a small vilage in Ro. He tricked the people there, didn't pay them and said some pretty offensive stuff about them (without them understanding a thing he has said). The only role of his I liked is that of Segniour Pirelli in the Sweeney Todd film. So much joy, so much carnage and cannibalism.

[TheThordir]

@Ericjpomeroy

This is the most intellectually dishonest post I have ever read in my life. There are many straight only institutions, in fact society is straight only, no matter what you say. Police brutality against lgbt people is very common. Bayard Rustin would be spinning in his grave if he heard you.

[WhoTFisLeroy]

Pfff so Sacha is funny if he portraits an ignorant white male or an ignorant middle easter but if he plays an ignorant gay is not funny, Shut up, Bruno is hilarious and Sacha got the balls to play Straight Dave´s scene and so many others against intolerant people, so he does more for "the cause" than most gays will ever , face it.