Bruno: A Glimpse into Zionism?
By
Gilad Atzmon • Jul 25th, 2009
Bruno,
Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest invention is a grotesque Austrian gay celebrity
who comes to America to try to boost the ratings of his fashion television
program. Bruno is one of the most repugnant characters ever to appear on the
big screen, something Baron Cohen probably takes pride in. Bruno is Cohen’s
third gross character in succession. At times it seems as if Cohen is
seeking pleasure in being repelling. After mimicking an ignoramus stereotype
of a non-black suburban male who revels in Black and Jamaican culture (Ali
G) and a Kazakh misogynist, racist buffoon and anti-Semite (Borat), Bruno
can be grasped as another creative attempt to challenge the Western liberal
discourse.
Those who insist on approving Cohen’s intellectual aspirations argue in
his favor that he manages to bring to light some of our inherent Western
diseases: racism (Ali G), xenophobia (Borat) and homophobia (Bruno). I am
slightly doubtful of such an interpretation of Cohen’s intellectual
endeavor. None of Cohen’s protagonists can evoke empathic feelings amongst
the people they harass. Instead they seem to compete amongst themselves for
the ultimate Vulgar Award. Whether it is Borat, who approaches his host’s
dinner table and his guests with his excrement in a plastic bag, or Bruno,
who shares with us his anally intimate love games, Cohen’s protagonists are
rejected for being truly and genuinely disgusting.
Yes, Cohen’s characters can be entreating, they can make us laugh; yet,
the fact that they are rejected contemptibly is far from telling about our
society. However, these scenes may throw some light about their creator, Mr
Baron Borat Bruno Ali G Cohen and the social conditions he himself is imbued
in.
Two years ago while in the process of gathering information about Cohen
previous film Borat, I found out that Cohen had put back his wedding to
former Home and Away star Isla Fisher due to some deep ‘religious’
reasons. "The couple," so I learned, "have postponed the big day so Isla
could study the Bible in Israel before converting to Sacha's religion of
Judaism." This was enough to convince me at the time that Cohen wasn’t that
different from his chauvinistic, tribally-orientated protagonist Borat. For
those who fail to understand the meaning of the above, Cohen is not just
Jewish, he didn’t just ask his fiancée to join his extended family, he
didn’t send her to a London Rabbi either. He really went for the ‘full
Monty,’ that is: the Israeli experience. Cohen is in fact a devout Zionist
and it would be interesting to elaborate and analyze his work from a Jewish
Identity-politics perspective.
Though Ali G, Borat and Bruno have nothing to do with Judaism or Zionism,
their identity struggle is, interestingly enough, a complete repetition of
the Zionist identity complex. As in the case of Zionism, Ali G, Borat and
Bruno are in a state of a complete dismissal of others. As if this is not
enough, they are also celebrating their symptoms in public and at the
expense of their victims.
Zionism, similarly, is a celebration of a newly-invented Jewish Identity.
The Zionists set themselves to do it all on the expense of the Palestinian
people. Until recently, some Zionist leaders refused to acknowledge the
existence of Palestinian people. Zionism is a political setting that
inherently dismisses others. One can look at the IDF’s brutality towards
Palestinians, another can reflect on David Ben Gurion’s famous quote: “It
doesn’t matter what the Goyim say, all that matters is what Jews do”.
Interestingly enough Ali G, Borat and Bruno are celebrating a very similar
form of dismissal. They are self-centered protagonists who care mostly about
themselves and their own unique actions and symptoms.
However, as much as Bruno is by far Cohen’s most repulsive character to
date, he is also, emotionally at least, the most developed character out of
the three. Unlike Ali G and Borat, Bruno is self-conscious. He has clear
desires and he struggles to fill his inner void. In fact the audience is
mobilized as a witness to Bruno’s evolving self-awareness. As great as
Bruno’s desires are, his repeated failures are no less than a total
devastation. He is desperate to be accepted as a celebrity. He would do
whatever it takes to get there. He would swap his iPod for an African cute
little toddler just to ‘appear’ like Madonna; he would try to drag Ron Paul
into a porn scene just to hit the news with an ‘item’. He interprets success
in symbolic terms rather than anything that is related to merit.
Jewish nationalism is very similar. It is a project run by Israelis who
crave to be a people like other people. But for some bizarre reason they
fail to understand what the notion of ‘other people’ stands for. They can
only understand it symbolically in terms of a set of material identifiers.
When you ask an Israeli ‘how can you be so cruel to the Palestinians?’ The
answer will be thrown back at you, “Haven’t the Americans been cruel with
their Indians? Didn’t the Brits do the same in India?”
The Israeli may even interpret state terrorism and barbarism as a natural
symbol of sovereignty.
Bruno yearns to be a celeb amongst celebrities. The Zionist is craving to
join the family of nations. Like Bruno, Zionists understand their nationhood
in symbolic terms, they have a flag, an air force, nuclear bombs and wars.
For some reason, it is just a genuine compassion which they lack–probably
because genuine feeling and authenticity cannot be reduced into mere
symbolism. It is the real love to their alleged ‘historic land’ which the
Zionist fail to exhibit when shredding it with walls of separation. Like the
Zionist, Bruno is pretty much stuck; he cannot transcend himself beyond the
symbolic order. As much as the Zionists find it difficult to become an
ordinary nation considering their symptoms (non-ethical existence together
with racial supremacy), Bruno finds it very hard to integrate into society
considering who he is (lacking ethical awareness and imbued in his gay
solipsistic (1) universe).
While in his early work Baron Cohen managed to fail to distinguish
between Identity and being, in his latest work he may have become aware of
this crucial dichotomy. Gay and homosexuality, for instance, are very
different categories. While ‘Gay’ refers to an Identity largely associated
with a set of symbolic identifiers, homosexuality refers to a sexual
preference.
Interestingly enough, throughout the film Bruno operates as a Gay icon.
He is totally imbued within the Gay symbolic realm, he swings his buttocks
without leaving any room for doubt about who he is and what he stands for:
he wears the right clothes and uses the right manner of speech. But then,
towards the very last scene, it all changes, Bruno for the first time
surrenders to his true authentic sexual desire.
At a certain stage Bruno realises that in order to become a celebrity he
would have to be ‘straight’. In the final scene we meet Bruno in a wrestling
arena surrounded by rednecks. Bruno, the natural chameleon (2), is now an
anti-Gay macho figure. He manages to evoke cheers from his new crowd by
spitting some rabid homophobic statements. For a second it works. For the
first time in the film Bruno is accepted by his surrounding social reality.
Very much like the Assimilated Jew who follows Moses Mendelssohn’s (3) line
of thought ‘be a Goy in the street and a Jew in your dwelling’, Bruno is
mimicking the ‘straight’ on stage while keeping his true identity hidden,
but the truth is chasing him and cannot be concealed.
All of a sudden, his ex-assistant, an authentic homosexual who has been
loving Bruno all the way through appears from the crowd. “You are Gay” he
shouts to Bruno as he makes his way through the throng. The assistant's role
in the film is similar to Herzl’s and Weizmann’s task within the Zionist
epic narrative. Herzl and Weizmann are there to tell their fellow
assimilated Jews, ‘stop pretending at being American, French, British,
Bolsheviks, Cosmopolitans and Atheists, you are primarily Jews and you
better behave accordingly.’
In the film it doesn’t take more than a few seconds before Bruno and his
assistant depart into a same-sex act of genuine love making. Seemingly, for
the first time Bruno follows his heart rather than banal symbolism. This is
obviously a repetition of the Zionist message. As opposed to Mendelssohn
deceitful dualism, the Zionists would tell their followers: do not pretend
to be a Goy, do not pretend to be a cosmopolitan, do not pretend to be a
Marxist, just surrender to your real and true Jewish reality.
But here we do encounter a slight problem. While Bruno has a homosexual
reality to safely land upon, it is not clear at all whether there is any
Jewish coherent genuine reality except Judaism. The Jewish socialist
identity (bund) collapsed half a century ago. The Zionists had been trying
to claim a valid and coherent Jewish national secular identity, but all they
really present us with is merciless conduct and a barbarian state terrorism
that have very little in common with humanity. If there is a Jewish humanist
school, the nature of its (uniquely Jewish) value system remains unclear.
The lack of a coherent and consistent Jewish secular Identity may explain
why all forms of Jewish secularity are highly engaged in symbolism. Whether
it is Zionism, Jewish anti-Zionism, Jewish secularism or even Jewish
humanism, it is almost always engaged in conveying a symbolic image rather
than aiming at the real thing (4).
As much as I find it hard to cope with Cohen’s latest repugnant
character, I may as well have to admit that in light of the above
realizations of Bruno as an insightful metaphor, the film may not be that
bad after all.
1. Solipstic: the belief that the only thing somebody can be sure of is
that he or she exists, and that true knowledge of anything else is
impossible.
2. Not only is Bruno is a chameleon he is also invented and performed by
Britain's NO 1 chameleon namely Cohen.
3. Moses Mendelssohn (September 6, 1729 – January 4, 1786) was a Jewish
thinker largely associated with Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) and with
ideas to do with Jewish assimilation.
4. Judaism is also saturated with symbolism, yet, one would expect that
Jewish secularization would lead towards an authenticity that goes beyond
mere symbolism.
http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/07/25/gilad-atzmon-bruno-a-glimpse-into-zionism/
published initially on:
http://www.counterpunch.org/atzmon07242009.html
