I am sorry to hear that GLAAD has condemned Sacha Baron Cohen’s alter-ego Bruno as a setback for the depiction of homosexuals in popular culture. I do wish to be respectful of others’ feelings on this complicated issue and acknowledge my own place as a hetero sympathizer and onlooker.

Throughout the film Bruno, we see Cohen stage increasingly elaborate public spectacles forcing unsuspecting people to bear witness to outrageously homosexual situations. One such scenario involves Cohen shackling himself naked in S&M bondage gear to his boyfriend, and wandering around looking for help to unlock them, including waddling through a gathering of anti-gay protesters carrying signs like “God hates fags.” (They totally cut out the shot from the trailer where a furious shopping mall security guard confronts Bruno profanely. I hate when they do that.)

I recognize that the flamboyantly preening Bruno draws from well-worn stereotypes of flaming gay prima donnas. But Cohen brings much, much more to his Austrian fashionista, a character he has been doing for years. Yes, he’s gay, but that is not what is funny about him; it’s the voracity of his gayness, like Austin Powers in short shorts, an id unleashed to act out in the most grandiose stunts that he can pull out of his ass. (Sorry.) It is actually liberating to see a display of such flaunting of gay lust in a still-timid place: Hollywood. Bruno offers way more fearless gay action than, say, Brokeback Mountain. Read More »

President Obama took questions from reporters today in response to unfolding allegations that the season premiere of HBO’s Entourage was lackluster.

“Across our country, Americans are wrestling with the housing crisis,” the President explained to a visibly rankled Dana Milbank of the Washington Post. “And as we can all see, living in a huge mansion with Vincent Chase can prolong a different kind of recession–a recession of maturity. Many Americans can learn from E’s struggle to decide if he should get his own fat-ass pad, and maintain his independent sovereignty from Turtle and Drama.”

“I would suggest that detractors be more worried about E’s vulnerability to Sloan,” the President observed. Read More »

Believe it or not, this is the actual size of Conan O’Brien’s ego.

This is Fargo with your Daily Roo: Fargo would like a cookie.

Joe Cytrynbaum, chilling at my old place in the East Village. R.I.P.

Observing the debate over health care reform repeatedly surge to the front lines of attention and discourse tells me that perhaps its time has finally come.

Like a patient fighting for life, the popular outcry for a single payer (government sponsored) health care option demands our attention despite celebrity deaths, reality TV, or whatever Sarah Palin just said.

Like an historical reconciliation with civil rights, our national conscience is acknowledging that we are woefully behind modern care for our citizens. And in a deepening recession, not to mention a looting of our treasury by Wall Street, the rebuilding of our economy starts now. At a time when so many Americans are oppressed by health care costs, the single-payer option could address our economic pains at the same time.

I believe we are approaching a turning point in the health care debate for our country, at a time I anticipate will be looked back on as “the health care crisis.”
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I love the Fourth of July.

Last year at this time, I was racing against the clock to release my first feature documentary, FREE FOR ALL! One Dude’s Quest to Save Democracy, which explores corrupt elections in Ohio and how citizens can fight voter suppression.

The film begins and concludes on the Fourth of July, and it was important to me to release the film on that day — not just for timeliness, but because it would be months before the 2008 elections, giving people time to act.

Releasing your own film independently is extremely difficult, especially with no money. Even putting the whole movie online for free costs money, and then you have to get people to check it out, and pray they might donate, or order the DVD, or share the link. Read More »

When I wrote my piece “What Right Wing Threat?” I might have anticipated some humorless criticism from an offended individual, outraged that I might diminish yesterday’s shooting at the Holocaust Museum by joking: “He was there to try to shoot the actual Holocaust…the Holocaust started it; this was simply self-defense.”

The response I got was not a diatribe from PC police, but people apparently offended by my dissing right wing fanatics. And these weren’t snarky comments posted in all caps. These people called my production company. One guy with a Southern accent said something about reaping what I sow. Another woman was outraged that this senile old man who had a senior incident like shooting up the Holocaust Museum was being all exploited by the media. (My poor assistant had to politely field these calls, tying up our phone lines for all those backers who would normally be calling to give us money to produce more social documentaries.) Read More »

Right-wing threats in America? Hasn’t the media jumped the gun, or shark, so to speak?

James W. Von Brunn wasn’t shooting at Jews at the Holocaust Museum because he was anti-Semitic. He was there to try to shoot the actual Holocaust, under the mistaken impression he could stop it still and make up for all the white supremacist mumbo-jumbo he’s been known for. The Holocaust started it; this was simply self-defense. Read More »