One of the special SXSW screenings I passed on earlier this month was the sneak peek at approximately 20 minutes worth of footage from Sacha Baron Cohen’s follow-up to Borat, Bruno. It just seemed like one of those things that would end up being a bigger hassle than it was worth, and I felt confident I could wait until July to see the whole thing. That may not be as easy as it once seemed, as the film has just been saddled with the MPAA’s dreaded NC-17 rating “because of numerous sexual scenes that the ratings board considers over the line.”
Anyone who saw Borat – I’m specifically thinking of the scene in which Cohen and obese, hairy co-star Ken Davitian rassle face-to-junk in the nude – has to be wondering how Bruno could possibly be so much more offensive as to warrant the NC-17 rating, which tends to limit the number of theaters that will agree to screen the movie as well as the number of outlets willing to advertise it. And of course, all hardcore fans of Cohen and his characters have to be chortling with glee in anticipation of whatever it is he’s done to raise the MPAA’s hackles.
Entertainment Weekly correspondent Karen Valby did attend the SXSW sneak preview, and offers her own take on the three scenes screened, including this one: “Bruno arrives in a ‘ghastly s---hole called Texas.’ (The fellow Texans in my audience gave this line a round of applause. What's wrong with us?) Bruno appears on a crap daytime talk show called Today With Richard Bey, appealing to a largely African American audience. He swans onto the stage for a segment devoted to single parents, blabbing about how his adopted African baby boy is a ‘dick magnet’ and that he traded his iPod for the kid. The audience wanted his hide. Then a gleeful producer wheels out a gorgeous little black baby boy wearing a ‘Gayby’ T-shirt and leather pants. Bruno declares that he's named his son O.J. -- child protective services intervenes.”
Of course, there’s always the strong possibility that Cohen submitted a version of the film containing over-the-top material he never intended to include (until the release of inevitable unrated DVD, of course), simply so he could trim it from the offending cut and resubmit the version he intended all along. The MPAA would then think they’d done their job and reward Bruno with the R rating that will allow the core teenage audience to enjoy Cohen’s antics over and over again. “For the moment, Baron Cohen is doubtless playing the uncompromising artist,” Richard Corliss writes in Time, “insisting that every frame of his film be shown as is; and Universal, I'd guess, is exerting its muscle both on the MPAA to approve a version with some shock value and on their star-auteur to throw the board a few boners and get the damn R. Baron Cohen shoots a lot of footage in his docu-comedies, and, the studio spokesman told Waxman, ‘With the quantity of material available, I cannot foresee a problem. It's not even April and the film comes out July 10 so it's nonsense to say there's a struggle of any kind.’”