In Brüno, Cohen arranged a sit-down with Ayman Abu Aita, whom he identified as the leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, an honest-to-goodness suicide-bombing Palestinian terrorist group that's responsible for dozens of murders. It was funny because he made fun of Osama bin Laden and pretended to be gay.

But Aita, who claims he's no longer affiliated with the Brigades and doesn't like the idea of being seen paling around with an Austrian gay man in a feature film, is threatening a lawsuit:

Mr Abu Aita's lawyer, Hatem Abu Ahmad, said that he is preparing a legal action against Baron Cohen and Universal Studios alleging that the Martyrs' Brigade reference could get his client in trouble with the Israelis and the homosexual association could get him killed by the Palestinians.

Of course, one way to avoid getting mixed up with gags like this is to not affiliate yourself with groups that launch suicide bombings in the first place, so—wait, that didn't work for Ron Paul, did it?

What's worse, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade is making its own threats against Cohen—bafflingly enough, via the "Jerusalem bureau" of WorldNetDaily, the birther outfit that's rapidly overtaking Lyndon LaRouche's place in the taxonomy of American political paranoiacs. WND's Aaron Klein, whom we last saw engineering a fake Wikipedia scandal designed to promote his noxious and fanatical beliefs about Obama's birthplace, obtained a statement from the group:

We reserve the right to respond in the way we find suitable against this man. This movie was part of a conspiracy against the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

Islamist nutjobs complaining to right-wing nutjobs about a Jewish comedian.

[Via Intelligencer.]

• The Mirror is claiming that Michael Jackson had a fourth child—a 25 year-old Norwegian named Omer Bhatti. Bhatti bears a striking resemblance to Jackson and was seated on the front row with Jackson's family at his funeral in LA a couple of weeks ago. [Mirror]
  
  
• In the Bruno movie Brittny Gastineau says some really mean things about Jamie Lynn Spears. Now she's saying it was all a big joke. Haha! [Page Six]
  
  
• Marc Anthony became a partial owner of the Miami Dolphins yesterday. JLo will hit the training room to teach some of the players the secrets to ridiculous glute development. [Gatecrasher]
  
  
• Ruth Madoff wore ripped jeans and a baseball cap on a flight to North Carolina to visit her beloved swindler husband Bernie. [Page Six]
  
  
• Billy Joel has apparently found himself a rebound bang—former Young and the Restless actress Alex Donnelley. [Page Six]
  
  
• Britney Spears' LSU football-loving father Jamie thinks that Britney is all healed in her mind and ready to be left alone to handle her affairs on her own, something he's been doing since she lost her mind her a while back. [Daily News]
  
  
• Kiefer Sutherland and his girlfriend are just making out all over town, running their hands all over each others' naughty bits and just about having sex in front of mothers with their children. Gross. [Page Six]
  
  
• If you happen to interview Sienna Miller, be sure to avoid asking her any questions about her affair with Balthazar Getty, lest you be called a douchebag. [Sun]
  
  
• Mischa Barton's recent breakdown may cost her a role on a fall television show about supermodels she was scheduled to star in. [Sun]

Every new messaging has brought studio complaints about how they're being killed with "word of mouth." Before Twitter, it was text messaging, Facebook, MySpace, "the web," email and, for all we know, AOL, television, FM radio, the telegraph and the passenger pigeon, which prevented hucksters from getting people to hand over money for what they think will be a good show, but really isn't.

So, here's the latest incarnation: Did you tweet about your disappointment in a movie, like Bruno? Did all your friends tweet back in agreement?

According to social media specialists, Universal is mad at you for driving away 73% percent of Bruno's ticket sales! When movie-goers take to their micro-blogging sites and hurl instant critiques at helpless studios, all their marketing machinery is rendered impotent. Some of this summer's alleged victims have included Bruno, Land of the Lost, and Year One.

After mega advertising campaigns, months of free publicity from hungry media outlets (and web sites looking for cheap content!), specialists hired to create Facebook fan pages and Twitter feeds, people insist on slagging summer movies on Twitter. Like, all Sascha and Universal wanted to do was expose the ugliness that lives in your heart through various stunts involving dildos and terrorists. Then you had to go off and mean about it. What's a matter with you?!

So how have the studios tried to harness the awe-striking a wrathful power of Twitter? Here's an example:

With Year One, Sony at first tried to get in on the action and created a promotional Year One twitter account that would cull all the posts tagged with "#yearone. Sad for Sony, though, most of those tags were attached to disparaging statements. So they tried to pivot and create their own Year One twitter meme!

But no amount of tweet co-opting could save the floundering flick (full disclosure, I have a soft spot for Biblical comedies that have fantastic Oliver Platt cameos, so I dug it — you're welcome, Sony!) But let's be honest here, Studios. Just between you and me, nobody else is listening right now: you really didn't expect that many people to go continue to see a shitty movie after it opened, right? You must have known that eventually people would talk. They'd tell other people how little they liked Will Ferrell screaming at the sky. Again. And though the time between seeing said shitty movie and then telling your buddies about how shitty the movie maybe has shortened thanks to twitter, you must have known from the beginning that you were pushing a shitty product.

So really there's only one way to combat the Twitter effect: Stop making shitty movies.

P.S. I really laughed during Land of the Lost! Sorry no one else did, Universal!

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — $79.5 million
Did you have to sit in the front row this weekend because all the cineplexes were packed with hooch-swillin hipsters and wonderment-enthusiasts? We did! But wasn't it grand (in spite of Snape's man bangs)

2. Ice Age: Dawn of The Dinosaurs — $17.7 million
What kind of fun-hating parent dragged their kid to see this CGI'd kind of dullness instead of Harry Potter this weekend? Shame on them! Is it because of Potter's pagan themes or sexually subversive undertones? It's a bewildering world when a project involving Dennis Leary is considered family friendly.

3. Transformers: Rise of the Fallen — $13.8 million
Bay's mediation on the illusory nature of plot still continues to resonate with movie goers. In the cacophony of noise and the visual abyss nestled between Megan Fox's chest orbs, the modern movie man can confront the terrifying absurdity of existence. I mean, it's tough now-a-days to get audiences to sit through an art flick so a drop to third place this week is still an admirable position to be in.

4. Brüno — $8.4 million
Aw, you guys remember Brüno? You know that hateful little mockumentary that shoved a mirror in Appalachia's meth ravaged face and said "Look! Look at what an ugly homophobic face you have!" And how we talked about it! As if it would be some kind of milestone in cinematic gay-straight relations. But now, just two weeks since Brüno's shoved his gadfly tushie in our bigoted faces, we realize that the culture has shifted beneath Brüno's Bavarian feet. Audiences don't seemed thrilled to witness others humiliated just to prove a political point.

5. The Hangover — $8.3 million
The man driven laffer continues to pull in the cargo-short set. And good for them! Warners hasn't made this much money with an R-rated summer comedy since Beverly Hills Cop — not to be confused with Beverly Hills Ninja which stared Chris Farley. Hm, is Zach Greekname the thinking man's Farley? Or is he like the hipsters' Eddie Murphy?

6. through 9. The Proposal Up My Sister's Public Enemies — various millions
Sandra Bullock's embargo on time travel movies has proved to be a wise decision with another $ 8.3 million for The Proposal this weekend. Public Enemies, Michael Mann's 2-hour love letter to boring made $7.6 million. What's Up is that Pixar is still being beautiful and rich at the box office with $ 3.1 million this weekend. And even though My Sister's Keeper, which made $2.8 million, looks like 90 minute paper cut we should all still think good thoughts about Abigail Breslin because she's just a walking glob of adorable talent.

Christian bingo enthusiast Richelle Olson filed a lawsuit against Cohen and the studio last month, claiming that a Brüno-caused ruckus at a supposed Christian bingo tournament (organized as a trap by the filmmakers) resulted in a head injury that caused brain damage, leaving her confined to a wheelchair or walker.

The producers of the film have since countered with a tape showing that Ms. Olson was not injured as a direct result of the cameras or the character (the scene was cut from the movie, so we wouldn't have ever seen it either way). But Olson and her dogged lawyer persist! Even if Dr. Fashion didn't push her down himself, it's his fault that she fainted and hurt herself. In a letter sent to Universal (and, we guess, to the Hollywood Reporter), Olson's lawyer says her case still has merit:

Click images for larger

Ohh, so it happened after. Hm. So the lawsuit is bullshit, but still the lady has a right to be angry. Sure a bunch of Christian idiots getting fussed about some gay dude is lame on them, but said gay dude really going to every extreme length possible to rile and upset people isn't really comedy in the same way a big fat bully slapping a kid over and over again and saying "stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself" isn't comedy.

Brüno had his moments in the sun during the long-ago run of Da Ali G Show, sure, but his big feature length movie just felt way too forced and booby-trapped. The laughs are supposed to come from the hideously unprovoked things Americans are capable of saying and doing. But haranguing three unwitting hunters for a few hours, then showing up naked, condoms in hand, at one of their tents? Totally understandable to get yelled at for that one.

So Brüno is dead. There you have it.

Ayman Abu Aita told right-wing website WorldNetDaily that he quit Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in 2003 and now represents its affiliated political party, Fatah, in the West Bank town of Beit Sahor. And rather than meeting Cohen at a "secret location," as Cohen told Letterman, he met him at a popular restaurant called Everest in the part of the West Bank under Israeli control. It would have been impossible, Aita said, for him to have a weapon as Cohen told Letterman he feared.

Now the Brigades are upset to be featured in a "stupid... homosexual film."

Or so we are to believe! All of this information comes via WND's Aaron Klein, who has himself invented news: His researcher altered Barack Obama's Wikipedia page so Klein could write about the deletion of the researcher's comments. So we have here basically a crazy-quilt of questionable information. Where does the satire end and the news begin; where does the lying start; and what ever happened to a little good old fashioned exaggeration?

P.S.



P.P.S.

1) Brüno — $30.4 million
While it started really strong on Friday with $14.4 million, the film didn't quite hold on the rest of the weekend, and eventually fell significantly below expectations. (Some had even hoped for $50 million). What this has to say about America and the Gays remains to be discussed in myriad thinkies on Slate or in the Times. For now, though, we'll just mention that the movie got a lousy C from CinemaScore, meaning word-of-mouth sales won't be nearly as high as they were for Borat. So a strong opening day, then a slight fizzle. It'll probably fall even more drastically next weekend.

2) Ice Age: Dawn of the Dead, Fallen Machines or Whatever — $28.5 million
Man oh man, people just love them some computer animated weird animals in weird situations saying weird things. We don't quite get why this movie is doing so well ($120 million in two weeks), considering it and its predecessors have so little aesthetic value. People just inexplicably love Ray Romano. That's the only answer. That's all it can be.

3) Transformers: Dinosaur Salvation or Whatever — $24.2 million
$339.2 million in three weeks! Egads. Is Ray Romano in this thing? Did people get confused when they saw John Turturro in the trailer and though it was Everybody's Raymond? Or, wait, I don't know any 14-year-old boys so I haven't heard much about this aspect of the movie, but does Megan Fox blow something up with her tits or something? Is that what it is? Does Megan Fox blow Ray Romano up with her tits? Wait, but then people would be mad and wouldn't want to see it. She blows Doris Roberts up with her tits, right? That must be it. That's it.

4) & 5) Public Enemies: Nothing After the Colon, Actually No Colon at All & The Proposal: Canadian and Fabulous — $14.1 million & $10.5 million
So Michael Mann's art house popcorn film lurches toward the $70 million mark, and we can't tell if that's a success or a failure! For a summertime Johnny Depp movie? Failure. For an artsy, high-def-shot crime picture with decidedly no robots or magic Explode-O-Tits? Success! Speaking of success, Sandra Bullock has trotted gamely across the $100 million line for the first time in nine years, so good for her. Crazy thing is, because now is such a different time than then, this flick is going to surpass Speed to be her biggest movie yet. I mean, Speed! That was a phenomenon! Money just means different things now. Sigh.

7) I Love You, Beth Cooper — $5 million
This Chris Columbus-directed annoyathon did decent business on 1,800 screens. It won't become some summer sleeper, we don't think, but it's not a complete disaster either. What this spells for Hayden Paneepenty or whatever's career, we're not sure. But we're scared it might mean good things. Or at least it doesn't mean bad things. Which is what we were hoping for. Bad things. Sorry. It's just... Heroes. Ugh.

These are from many places—the New York Times, the AP, the AFP, and others. The multiple use of "sashays" just speaks volumes about how that word will never be used to describe anything but outrageous gay men. And the topping jokes! Oh the topping jokes do, actually, indicate that people are a little more "with it" when it comes to gay man parlance (topping is a sex reference, children) than some of us thought.

We're so proud of everyone.

New York Post/AP

New York Daily News

Variety

New York Times

Hollywood Reporter

Box Office Mojo

Examiner

Richelle Olson's scene (which was apparently cut, per the comments) has her hosting a charity bingo game with a mostly elderly audience when "Bruno" starts to call out the numbers with "vulgarities." Olson, her husband, and their lawyer Kyle Madison originally alleged that Baron Cohen and her camera crew assaulted her, which caused her to run off stage crying hysterically, falling unconscious, and hitting her head on a concrete slab, which caused two brain bleeds and now has her "confined to a wheelchair."

Universal then released that it was actually Olson assaulting Baron Cohen, and showed the footage of it to Madison. He's since amended the lawsuit to drop the charges of assault and battery. But they're still pressing on:

"The amendment to the original complaint does not change the cause of the injuries plead in the original complaint," Madison says. "Mrs. Olson's brain injuries were never alleged to have been derived from an assault or battery. She suffered two brain bleeds after the confrontation ensued with Mr. Baron Cohen. According to California case law, any injuries deriving from intentional infliction of emotional distress are recoverable. Mr. Baron Cohen and those associated with the production of 'Bruno,' are accountable for inflicting serious emotional distress and the resulting injuries to Mrs. Olson."

The movie is currently wiping the box office competition all over the place; they're slated for the third-highest comedy opening in Australia, and the film's now projected by the studio to make $35.8M in the weekend wrap, which, according to Nikki Finke, would make it one of the five highest R-rated comedy openings ever.

Again, if Borat's record shows anything, it's that Baron Cohen and his respective studios set up enough legal shields to protect themselves from almost any kind of liability, anywhere. Ambulance chasers and their clients are always more than suspect; they bring to mind a particularly bad episode of The People's Court. That being said, how fair is it of Baron Cohen and his team to descend on otherwise non public-figures and film scenes with them that can potentially change the way they live their lives thereafter? Maybe not at all; many of the people got in front of the camera under somewhat false pretenses. Then again, they're in front of the camera. There's always that.

'Bruno' bingo victim drops assault and battery claims [THR, Esq.]
'BRUNO' IST BIG: $14.2M Friday Opening; Sacha Too Shocking For $40M Weekend [DHD]

Both characters were from Baron Cohen's wildly funny Da Ali G Show, so either could have been made into a movie at any time. But we're just not sure that Brüno would be feasible as a market-ready comedy character had Borat not come and paved the pseudo-real, envelope-pushing path for him. Borat is awful—a misogynistic, racist, antisemitic boor—but, sadly, he's more palatable to a broad American audience than a gay Austrian fashion maven who exists solely to point out one of the country's most dearly-held prejudices: that most gays are just silly mockeries of themselves.

Borat certainly made fun of American xenophobia and jingoism, but those are things that people can't recognize in themselves as easily as a tetchy, and heartily defended, aversion to the gays. Borat was loud and political, whereas Brüno is an out, loud, and proud creation of a more immediate social hysteria, of an issue that's been at the forefront of the American culture wars these past few years. He teases at something far more tangible and taboo and unsettling to the popcorn-scarfing masses than Borat's buckshot blast at Stupid Americans that certainly aren't us. So had oh fashion friend come first... Well, Borat might not have been possible. Because Brüno is unlikely to catch the popular wave as easily, it's already been deemed a bit too dangerous and too outsider (plus aren't we all so sick of it already? We saw this one coming a mile away). And though Borat had its fights with the demands of decency (male nudity!), Brüno is all about those strictures.

And nobody likes to be taught a lesson, especially about themselves.

(UPDATE: The complete Top Ten has been embedded below.)

CBS posted the rather hilarious preview onto YouTube earlier and we'll post the full Top Ten here later after the show has aired and it's available online, but it looks pretty funny.

One last thing re: Bruno/Sacha Baron Cohen. We were chatting with a show business "insider" earlier today who offered an interesting tidbit as to why Cohen appeared on Letterman out of character earlier in the week—Word is that Bruno isn't tracking well in middle America where "viewers might not exactly be in on the joke," or, more likely, stricken with homophobia, so the studio may have been thinking that giving these people a chance to see that the star of the movie isn't actually gay may make them more willing to see the film. We'll see soon enough.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

In an Entertainment Weekly profile by Tim Stack, Hilton says of his altercation with will.i.am,

I realize I said the most hurtful word. I don't believe being gay is bad. I'm not homophobic. I couldn't be any gayer and I couldn't be any prouder. I've got rainbow flags shooting out of my eyes.

Stack calls him "surprisingly chastened," but he doesn't really sound all that sorry in The Advocate, where he says, "I thought about calling him the n word, but I thought the f word was even worse." He goes on to say, "I reacted in the worst way possible," but the fact remains that Hilton basically wants, as Richard Lawson says, "to have us congratulate him for not saying the racist thing he was thinking." Or that he thinks gays are more marginalized than blacks? Or that homophobic slurs are worse than racial slurs? Or that the word faggot from the mouth of a gay man is worse than the n-word from the mouth of a non-black person? The mind reels.

It seems pretty likely that Hilton doesn't "believe being gay is bad." And he seems to understand that he shouldn't have said what he said. But what is the moral status of a homophobic slur spoken by a gay person to a straight person, presumed hurtful because said straight person is presumed to be homophobic? And is this homophobia ouroboros similar to the one created by Sacha Baron Cohen, a straight person playing a gay person who is (maybe) supposed to make fun of homophobic stereotypes?

Slate's Dennis Lim basically comes down on the pro-Brüno side. He writes that Hollywood has been offering up "square-jawed," humorless portrayals of gays for so long that it's refreshing and even subversive for Baron Cohen to portray a funny, no-holds-barred "sissy" — and an oversexed one at that. He writes,

Is any viewer really going to think that this hyperbolically crass and ridiculous narcissist-who wears mesh tops and eye-searing lederhosen, refers to his adopted African baby as a "dick magnet," and drops faux-Teutonic vulgarities about his waxed arschenhaller-represents "the mainstream of the gay community," as one troubled Hollywood "gay insider" put it? And are the gays who anxiously anticipate the mocking, hostile reactions of the unenlightened really that blind to Brüno's obvious counteroffensive strategy, which is to make that mocking, hostile idiocy the subject of his film? The beauty-and perhaps even the moral logic-of Baron Cohen's method is that those who're not in on his joke are invariably the butts of the joke.

And he calls the climax of the movie, in which Brüno makes out with his opponent during a wrestling match, "a brilliant tactic against homophobia: the gay-panic offense." The idea that an over-the-top joke based on stereotypes — whether racist or homophobic — is actually a joke on people who believe the stereotypes is hardly new. It's the basis of Sarah Silverman's whole career. And while Baron Cohen offers a twist on this by actually eliciting homophobic reactions and inviting viewers to make fun of those, it's hard to accept that a straight comic is totally on the gay community's side in making fun of obnoxious straight people. It's especially hard when a lot of his act revolves around talking funny and walking funny and wearing silly clothes. The idea that viewers aren't going to be laughing at these aspects of the film — or that they will be laughing at simply an exaggerated character rather than an exaggerated gay character — is a bit naive.

A homophobic slur spoken by a gay person — especially with the intent to hurt — is still a slur, and gay stereotypes are still gay stereotypes, even if they're meant to be meta. Ultimately, though, none of these things likely matter much to Perez Hilton or Sasha Baron Cohen. Hilton tells Tim Stack, "I don't care if you like me, I just care if you read my website." And Baron Cohen probably doesn't care if people like him, as long as they see his movie. Ultimately, Brüno isn't about challenging stereotypes are breaking down barriers — it's about getting laughs and selling tickets. And Perez Hilton is all about publicity — the love that loves to speak its name.

On The Offensive [Slate]
Perez Hilton Won't Shut Up [Entertainment Weekly]

Related: Perez Hilton Would Rather Be A Racist Than Bad for The Gays [Gawker]

Though he'd previously done his shtick for Conan O'Brien and arrived at the show as Bruno, Cohen trotted out to the couches as himself. Maybe the story he told—about meeting a real-life terrorist while preening as the outrageously gay Austrian fashion reporter Bruno—was just too good and could only be told in person. It's also possible that after years of his masked shtick, the real Baron Cohen wants some notice for being himself.

Or maybe the character is just a bit too outrageous? Not that Dave Letterman would mind either way, obviously, but it is possible that he's been asked by ominous Powers That Be to scale back the hard sell. Borat was a funny guy because he was a weird foreigner Muslim. Bruno is funny because he's a weird foreigner but he's also, you know, gay and that's just so tetchy these days, best to leave it alone.

Ah well. No matter what, it's a great story.

At left In this picture taken near Grand Central Station is an as-the-good-lord-made-her Bar Refaeli on the cover of Esquire. At right is dirty, dirty pornography. Below is the uncensored GQ cover. You can't even see his penis!The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

The new GQ has a story about Bruno, of course, cause what other stuff is happening this month? So they did a photo shoot of the gay-like character with an LA high school football team, and even paid the school a cool $500 for the privilege of handling their young men. Now the principal's in trouble!

"Rules were broken. The principal is ultimately responsible, but I also hold accountable the athletic director, who is also the school's filming coordinator and was present when the pictures were taken," [the head of the school district] said.

"I also want parents to know that this district will allow no one to take advantage of our students."

You know those boys liked it, heh, [MACHO]. Pretty dumb controversy considering the kids got permission slips and everything. GQ declined to give us a comment, although they did make sure we had a copy of the picture, so they must be pretty upset about the whole thing! Thanks, GQ!

• Tennis star and lover of Enrique Iglesias Anna Kournikova got into a fight Saturday night at a club in Vegas after some random woman threw a drink at her for "invading her space." [Page Six]
  
  
• Leighton Meester sings and acts in a new Gossip Girl-y video she stars in for Cobra Starship's song "Good Girls Go Bad." And yes, the song was written and the video was shot prior to the news that Meester's talented feet were the star of a new celebrity sex tape to hit the internet. [Daily Intel]
  
  
• Michael Jackson looked frail but appeared to be getting his groove on in these photos taken during a rehearsal at the Staples Center shortly before his death. [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Chris Brown was supposed to take part in a Michael Jackson tribute at the BET Awards on Sunday night, but Jay-Z stepped in and torpedoed those plans. [Page Six]
  
  
• Alice Hoffman isn't just attacking people who offend her delicate sensibilities on Twitter—She recently attacked a blogger who was moderating a discussion about her new book at a Barnes and Noble store. [Page Six]
  
  
• Actress Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame is moving to New York to attend school at Columbia, where perhaps she can follow in the footsteps of her fellow thespian James Franco and sleep her way to a degree. [Daily News]
  
  
• Jude Law, currently starring in a London production of Hamlet, strolls through the streets of the city coolly sipping on frappucinos. [Just Jared]
  
  
• Sacha Baron Cohen got a taste of his own medicine last night when a Bruno imposter showed up at the movie's Australian premiere in a pink stretch Hummer filled with a bevy of scantily clad dancers. [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick have released the first photos of their new twin girls, who were recently delivered by a surrogate mother in Ohio. [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Mariah Carey got done up as an Eminem-type rapper for her new video for her song "Obsessed." We can't wait for Eminem to respond with a video in which he dresses up like a hideous-looking Mariah Carey, because you just know he's going to do it. [DListed]
  
  
• Lady GaGa claims that she's been doing volunteer charity work since she was two years old. [UK Sun]

The Wrap is reporting that the studio already has nixed the scene where LaToya eats sushi off a naked Latino gardener and Bruno fiddles with her PDA. Supposedly this kind of extremely last-minute (the film comes out on July 10th) edit will cost Universal millions.

Kim Masters writes about the "controversy" in a more speculative tone, wondering if the edit is even necessary.

"It so transgresses the question of taste-you cut it, I think," says a former studio president not associated with the film. "You certainly have a conversation about it. You examine it very carefully."

A veteran marketing executive disagrees. "It wasn't like they shot it and [Michael Jackson] was 85 years old and they expected him to die," she says. "It's just another one on the list of controversial issues surrounding Brüno." But if the Jackson family asks that the sequence be deleted, she adds, that will create a problem.

The point about the expectation of death is a good one. To avoid the matter entirely, to blot it out like it never happened, seems a bit scaredy-cat. The intentions are what ultimately matter, and while Sacha Baron Cohen's intentions are never altruistic, he certainly never intended to make a morbid death joke.

But, yeah, if the family asks nicely? We say cut the damn thing. There's always the Special Edition "Wacko Jacko" DVD, after all.

The question with Cohen's 'Bruno' act is how much longer is this sort of act funny, if it even is any longer? How much longer can he go around acting as the embodiment of every awful stereotype of gay men before he wears out his welcome with both straights and gays? Personally, each time I see a 'Bruno' press appearance, typically filled with furniture humping and crotch thrusts to someone's face, the less enthusiasm I have for seeing the film. It's just not as funny to me anymore. Certainly I'm not the only straight feeling this way?