Who wants to guess this lawsuit will go the same way as this one? It makes you wonder whether folks sue Sacha Baron Cohen just so he’ll get more press. TMZ: “Richelle Olson has sued Cohen, NBC Universal and others claiming they told her Bruno was a celeb and would appear and call numbers at the charity bingo game she ran for the elderly in Palmdale, CA. Olson was none too happy when she saw Bruno, whom she describes as an ‘extreme, outrageous, offensive caricature of a gay man dressed in sexually revealing clothing with an Austrian accent…’ Olson alleges Bruno used ‘vulgar and offensive language’ and when she tried taking the mic from him, a ‘physical struggle ensued’ and Cohen “offensively touched, pushed and battered” her, causing her to fall to the ground.”
CelebLulz
lol this mans a genius he sure knows how to get publicity for a movie.
badlydrawnbear
ummm you forgot a bit of the story …
“She then claims three cameramen and others rushed the stage … “where defendants attacked [her] for a period of one to five minutes to intentionally create a dramatic emotional response … while [they] recorded her humiliation and embarrassment.”
After the alleged assault was over, the suit says Olson went into another room where she was “sobbing uncontrollably” … then was rendered unconscious … “falling forward onto the thinly covered concrete slab, passing out and causing her to hit her head.”
The suit says Olson was rushed to the hospital with a “diagnosis of two brain bleeds” — and that she has been confined to a wheelchair and walker ever since.”
hospital records should easily prove or disprove the brain bleeds and her current physical state. Assuming the brain damage is real, the only thing for the jury to really decide is if Sasha’s actions were cause or significant contributing factors to the fall that caused the bleeds.
Drake
Why do gays give money to Sasha Cohen ? His caricatures of gays fuel many homophobes, and add fuel to anti-gay bullying in middle schools and high schools. Just as blacks do not see value in portrayals with blackface or Uncle Tom style caricatures, gays should wake up and realize that Sasha provides lots of material for hate-mongers everywhere.
Fitz
Suing him is not going to go anywhere. Someone just needs to find him and his family and go vigilante on his ass.
Miss Understood
I like him. He looked hot in his green Borat-thong!
Mark.of.Antares
haha! Serves him right! I really don’t like him.
takeaneffingjoke
I have a better idea. Why don’t we make comedy completely illegal? Get a sense of humor whiners. I’m gay. I can’t wait to see the movie. Get over yourselves.
takeaneffingjoke
@Fitz: You are RIDICULOUS.
Puck
or just not watch his stunts, stop reporting them in the news, don’t spend money on his movies and tell our friends not to watch him either
fruxforte
He’s not offensive. He’s hilarious.
Bad Touch Football
For all of those out there who don’t understand why Cohen has created these characters, perhaps you should look up “satire” in a dictionary
AlwaysGay
He is offensive and bigoted.
Kbutterum
Unfortunately, more gays need to be outrageous and in your face. I think Sacha Baron Cohen forces people to deal with it. Be it through Bruno, Borat, or Ali G.
hardmannyc
I’ll be first in line to see this movie. It sounds hilarious.
badlydrawnbear
ummm … guys/gals … he is not being sued for his character he is being sued because allegedly his physical actions injured the woman and she now requires the use of a walker or wheelchair.
Henry Holland
If the allegations are true, he’s a scumbag of the first magnitude. Way to go, you desperately unfunny one-trick pony, a woman is in physical pain just so you could get some footage for your horrible movies. Go away, please?
Bitch, please!
I know some people find him funny but, hey, Hasselhoff is a great singer in Germany too! I don’t find anything funny about thinly veiled bigotry served up as a comedic routine. In my opinion, the people laughing at it are happy to see it being said what they would like to say themselves.
TANK
Not a fan of cohen. This is the next era of jewish humor? I hope not.
Martens
I can’t believe so many oversensitive queens here accuse Cohen of being homophobic. Just as his Borat persona was not made to make fun of Kazach people – but of our own prejudices and ignorance about these people – so is the Bruno persona there to make fun of bigots and homophobes whom he forces to “deal” with his over-the-top stereotype, many of them secretly think to be true.
Sure, if an idiot sees comedy, he or she may take it for reality and this may reinforce the bigotry – but then again Cohen is a comedian first and foremost, not a social worker or a politician. But anyone who accuses him of homophobia simply needs to get a sense of humour transplant.
dgz
@badlydrawnbear: i’ve been wondering why this hasn’t happened sooner. sounds like a text book assault and IIED case.
————
and regardless whether anyone thinks he’s funny or not or exploitive or not, i just think it’s wrong to publicly embarrass people to make money from their shame.
but personally, i wouldn’t find blackface funny even if it “forced people to confront stereotypes.” that doesn’t mean i don’t have a sense of humor, it means i have a different sense of humor.
alan brickman
he’s a homophobe’s wet dream…
Baron? Please.
YES to Badlydrawnbear and Bitch, Please!
Cohen isn’t JUST making fun of homophobes, he’s making fun of gays too. He gets more joy out of seeing us think we’re in on the joke, when the joke is really on us. He doesn’t give a shit about gay rights or any other issue. He only cares about making himself famous. This isn’t humor or satire, its personal aggrandizement at everyone else’s expense.
And it’s not funny, unless your sense of humor leans to the Jackass franchise.
sal(the original)
i think his characters are outrageous to test the real tolerance of people
sal(the original)
..the REAL point of view of the people he interacts with
Shawn
I can see both sides of these argument actually.
He definitely seems to be portraying the most outrageous stereotypes to push straight people’s buttons.
But I do think that by acting so aggressively, he does fuel some homophobia. I can easily imagine a pent-up hetero guy feeling okay with his hatred of us based on how much he is irritated by Bruno’s antics. I’m irritated by Bruno’s antics and I’m gay, so I can just imagine Bruno fueling hetero hate.
I also think that Sasha Baron Cohen really is just out for himself. I don’t think that he has any grander design than getting people to watch HIM.
I thought that there were a few parts of Borat that were clever and funny, but I didn’t think it was all that. The reviewer were raving about him being some kind of genius or something. When I finally got around to seeing the movie, I didn’t quite agree.
dgz
@Shawn: i think you’ve hit it on the nose.
sebastien
Cohen caricature gays and fuel homophobic reaction. As a gay , I can’t stand “Bruno” , so what if I was a straight guy who doesn’t know anything about gays. He’s not funny, “Bruno” is not funny, what hw did to Eminem was not funny and what he did to that woman was not funny.
The guy is a jerk, we’re in 2009 and we don’t need to be caricatured that way .
I hope this douchebag will lose this time and that he’ll lose all the others lawsuits to come.
Get lost Sacha. We didn’t ask you to test people tolerance against us and if we had to, we’d do it in a much funnier , constructive and glamorous way.
Dan
firstly the woman was stupid for 1) letting him host something befor interviewing him 2) agreeing to it being filmed.
Sasha is far from a one-trick pony (example would be sweeny todd) but he does tend to go over the top a little with these sort of movies.
F123
Its not really a Caricature of gays, have you seen Bobby Trendy, Cojo, etc..? They are gay…Sometimes gays ourselves dont do much to break the stereotypes and straight people see us in a very weird way..
Casper O
So when will the U.S. fix the f’d up tort law system?
Shawn
F123, yeah, Cojo and Bobby Trendy are definitely flamboyant, and they probably do get air time because they reinforce hetero’s concepts of what it means to be gay. They are “safe” for the hetero viewing audience because they are so completely stereotypical and unidentifiable (meaning that straight men in general wouldn’t relate to them and can feel safe to laugh at them).
But Cojo and Bobby Trendy are, more or less, being themselves. Now, we can all argue about whether or not they are kind of like our “Amos and Andy” or “Stepin Fetchit”. And probably there is some of that, but “Bruno” is different (for me) because Sasha Baron Cohen is not gay, but is a straight actor who is using all of that to attract attention to his movie and to his performance.
Some people argue that he’s some genius who’s playing stereotypes to bust them. They said that about “Borat” but I didn’t think that the people who saw that movie and most needed to have their views challenged actually came away from the film more open minded. I think it actually gave them a license to feel okay about their prejudices. And I fear that “Bruno” will do that same.
I’ll probably see the movie when it comes out. I’m hoping that he’s smart enough to put other kinds of gay characters in the movie to balance Bruno’s antics–but I’m not so hopeful about that!