Posted on 07/08/2009 11:14:42 PM PDT by Cedar
Our organization has just viewed the upcoming “R-rated” movie “Brüno,” which is scheduled to come out in local movie theaters Friday, July 10. Having attended a screening of the movie, we can factually state that the movie contains the following obscene, pornographic and offensive material (and more besides):
• Extremely graphic sex scenes (including depicted heterosexual intercourse, depicted oral sex (including anal licking), depicted homosexual sodomy, and sadomasochistic whipping of a homosexual in his bikini briefs by a fully nude female “Dominatrix”); • Scenes of full frontal male and female nudity (including extended close-ups of a man swinging his fully nude penis) • A mocking, sexually explicit interview with a pastor who specializes in “making gay people straight” that is clearly intended to provoke the pastor by crudely offending him in a vulgar manner; • Adopting an African child as a fashion accessory and “man magnet” to be “in” with American culture like Madonna and Angelina Jolie (then shipping that baby – whom the protagonist names “OJ” – on a plane through checked baggage in a cardboard box); • Images of a black baby from Africa in a hot tub with white adults who are clearly interested in performing sex acts at some point with one another; • Making light of the Holocaust and Jews, including mentioning Adolph Hitler in a positive light and a homosexualized outfit mocking traditional Jewish dress; • A sequence mocking African Americans and black people; and, • Explicit verbal descriptions of sex acts.
Regardless of your views on sexuality, or your definition of humor, one thing is clear: the content of this movie should not be seen by children of any age, including underage teenagers. Originally rated NC-17, “Brüno” has since been given an R rating. An R rating simply suggests that theaters restrict viewing by children under 17 unless they are with an adult. However, Federal Trade Commission studies have shown that almost half of movie theaters do not enforce the Motion Picture Associations restrictions, and that one-third of unaccompanied 13-year-olds have purchased tickets for an R-rated movie. Additionally, many children sneak into R-rated movies or get tickets from some sick adult who finds it humorous to flood an impressionable child’s mind with obscene content. Clearly, however, “Brüno” still contains NC-17 content as well as pornographic content.
With this reality in mind, we formally ask your City Council to file an injunction against the showing of this movie in your city, or at least restrict the film to 17 and over regardless of adult accompaniment. To determine whether this movie fits the community standards of your locality, as legally defined by the United States Supreme Court, you may have to require your local movie theaters to screen the movie ahead of time for the Council, or a duly designated committee of the Council, to determine what formal action to take regarding “Brüno.”
Please let us know if there is something we can do to help you in this battle for our children.
Sincerely,
Ted Baehr, Juris Doctor Publisher of Movieguide®
Movieguide® has sent a letter asking local government officials throughout the U.S. to consider stopping the screening of the controversial movie "Brüno" starring comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, Movieguide® Publisher Dr. Ted Baehr announced today.
In the letter, Movieguide® asks officials to get an injunction against screening the movie on Friday until officials can look at the movie and determine whether it should be banned because it does not fit the "community standards" in their area, as defined by U.S. Supreme Court rulings on obscenity and pornography.
"This movie has been cut to get an R rating," Dr. Baehr said, "but it still contains much pornographic, offensive content."
Among the "pornographic" content in the movie, according to Movieguide® and Dr. Baehr, are "extremely graphic" sex scenes, including depicted intercourse, depicted homosexual sodomy, a depicted orgy, and depicted oral sex (including anal licking); explicit shots, including extensive close-ups, of full male and female nudity; and, "obscene" language about sex acts.
"The movie also contains scenes mocking Jews, African Americans and Christian evangelicals," Dr. Baehr said.
He noted that a 2000 Federal Trade Commission study showed that nearly half of all movie theaters in the U.S. actually sell tickets to children and underage teenagers trying to get into an R-rated movie by themselves, without an adult.
"Supreme Court rulings on obscenity allow local, state and federal governments to ban such movies like ‘Brüno,' or at least restrict them to 17 and over regardless of adult accompaniment," Dr. Baehr added.
"Government has a duty to protect the community, especially vulnerable children and underage teenagers, from this kind of pornographic material," he concluded.
Dr. Baehr is chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission® (CFTVC) ministry which publishes Movieguide®, CFTVC's family guide to movies and entertainment. CFTVC and Movieguide® are an international non-profit ministry dedicated to "redeeming the values of the entertainment industry by influencing industry executives and by informing and equipping the public about the influence of the entertainment media."
I’ll tell you what you can do with your First Amendment...
No doubt. Censorship isn’t the answer. Ask Tipper Gore.
This is child pornography and not free speech.
Sacha Baron Cohen should whack himself.
Yeah, I’m sure the Founding Fathers meant for explicit pornography to be shown everywhere..../sarc
Didn’t Frank Zappa write a song about her silly antics?
My guess is that citizens will not be forced at gunpoint to march into theaters to watch this movie.
That being the case, the government should not prohibit adults from voluntarily seeing Bruno.
In that case how is changing the rating going to matter?
How about some parental responsibility?
The author’s concern here is for children (who easily get in to see movies).
Seems like bad parenting, doesn’t it?
Oh yes, I forgot. It is always for the Children!
However if that is the case, why did the writer pen the following?
With this reality in mind, we formally ask your City Council to file an injunction against the showing of this movie in your city...
I don’t know. How many good parents have children who sneak into bad movies? It happens.
This movie apparently is exceedingly pornographic and should have strong restrictions.
From the description of it, I think most people would agree.
Hey listen, go see the filth if you want to. But if someone wants to complain about pornographic film possibly available to children, I’m glad they are complaining.
Well, good parenting should be able to offset anything the kids will see in a two hour film. This is still a FREE REPUBLIC, right?
I’m glad they are complaining as well. That doesn’t mean I think the film should be banned.
“we formally ask your City Council to file an injunction against the showing of this movie in your city, OR AT LEAST restrict the film to 17 and over regardless of adult accompaniment. To determine whether this movie fits the community standards of your locality, as legally defined by the United States Supreme Court...”
Why thank you, Mr. First Amendment! Without your permission to view a movie of my choosing, it would be like I lived in Red China or Iran.
But if someone wants to complain about pornographic film possibly available to children, I’m glad they are complaining.
And yes, the people that are complaining about the movie are not only exercising their First Amendment Rights, but they are also effectively working as a PR Machine and free advertising for the movie Bruno.
I am sure Sacha Baron Cohen very much appreciates your effort to promote his movie.
Only the real perverts would want to see this movie after reading the article.
The First Amendment is the FIRST refuge of a scoundrel!!!
I took my son to see Borat in the theater a few years ago and it was a riot. We watched it again a week or so ago with my daughter and we all laughed.
I will likely see Bruno with my son and perhaps my wife.
We are all mature enough to understand satire.
Primarily, I want to see the scene in Bruno that features Ron Paul.
Help yourself to the porn.
Kinda like the Second Amendment is the first refuge of homicidal maniacs, right?
And help yourself to the First Amendment.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
And would you please stop promoting Bruno, I do not want the movie theater to be jam packed.
You can keep telling yourself the Founding Fathers were in favor of pornography being shown all over the country, but I still don’t believe that was their intention behind the First Amendment.
In fact, they would probably consider the producers of such movies to be traitors to the country.
I think the correct way to deal with this is for concerned citizens to picket and boycott any theater that shows this. Leave the already-oppressive government out of it. Oh, and if you see Cohen, whoop his ass.
Are you similarly glad that the reviewer is specifically complaining about things that could not possibly be construed as pornography as well? The review specifically list making fun of Jews and African Americans as things that are objectionable in this movie.
In this one review, the reviewer manages to go from complaining about sex in the movie to complaining about ideas in the movie.
I don't make fun of Jews or African Americans, but that is my choice. It shouldn't be illegal to do so and government should play no part in stopping it.
So much for the free exchange of ideas, right? Gotta protect people from thinking.
Years ago a movie like this would never have been shown. The local people all across the country would run out of town anyone who tried to show something like this.
Nowadays, minds are numb to pornography. So, those who have a conscience remaining are forced to turn to the government to try to put a stop to it’s easy access. Sadly, the government doesn’t care much either.
I’m sure the basic complaint is the porn in the movie.
I’m surprised it wasn’t rated PG-13. Too many NC-17 movies are rated R and too many R movies are rated PG-13 because the lower rating always earns more money. There are no standards anymore other than make a buck.
The longer I live, the more I’m sure that people’s brains have been anesthetized. How can they sit through the filth that is being paraded around as entertainment today.
Michael Jackson, a fifty year old man who liked to sleep with young boys, dies and is feted by the world. A Duke University official is arrested for molesting a very young black boy he adopted, but few make barely a sound to condemn him. Now a film comes out depicting the very same degenerate acts performed on that little baby, and there are people on this site who are indignant that anyone dare denounce the deviant acts. They run to hide behind the First Amendment which never was created to protect these obscenities.
Just makes you want to vomit.
Well said.
Oh, so you mean if the Founding Fathers could see what passes for free speech today, they would without question object?
That argument reminds me of the anti Second Amendment leftists who say, "If the Founding Fathers could see the automatic weapons of today, they would without question object.
However, it is my view that the Founding Fathers were intelligent enough to understand that technology as well as social and political discourse change over time and that is why they left the First and Second Amendments free from petty stipulations.
Why does this not qualify for an NC-17 rating?
The tone of this article would be more appropriate if it called for a re-evaluation by the MPAA of the rating — but once you get government involved, the hairs on the back of my neck start to raise.
Inform, investigate — but ultimately leave it to the people to support or reject. This movie sounds even more vile than Borat honestly.
Borat had some hilarious moments (the Running of the Jew parody killed me) but I couldn’t sit through it — and I couldn’t stomach it.
Bruno sounds like something Caligula would have commissioned.
And I'm sure you're wrong. There are eight bullet points in the second paragraph outlining the reason the author would like the film banned. Four of them deal with mocking ministers, African Americans, Jews, and adopting a baby as a fashion statement. Those have nothing to do with pornography.
A full half, 50% of what the author finds wrong with the film and would like it censored for are ideas. Words.
People who want to ban ideas from the marketplace are scary. They can't seem to help themselves once they're on a roll. The jump from sex to ideas so quickly, it's horrifying.
I feel sure, without any doubt, the Founding Fathers would never want this film shown anywhere in the country.
In fact, they’d be horrified at the thought.
Since the author apparently hasn’t asked for the many TV shows making fun of Christians, ministers, etc., or the many movies which in the past have done the same, to be banned solely for that reason...
it’s because of the porn.
it’s because of the porn.
You say it's because of the porn, but the evidence, the author's own words, says otherwise.
If the author didn't mean for those non-porn reasons to be considered, why did he mention them along with the porn, interspersed in the same paragraph?
Why do those non-porn reasons take up a full half of the reasons given?
Why the sudden leap from "porn" to ideas?
Well, if you feel that strongly on the matter you may want to ask your member of Congress to introduce an Amendment the the Constitution that reads:
The First article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
All speech shall be approved by "Ceder" in accordance to how he believes that Framers of this Constitution would feel about said speech, writings, art or discourse.
However, until such an amendment is ratified, the First Amendment will stand.
I think the correct way to deal with this is for concerned citizens to picket and boycott any theater that shows this.
“I am sure Sacha Baron Cohen very much appreciates your effort to promote his movie. “
Which is the very effect the dissenters are providing. Far more people will go see it now because it’s being labeled in the press as controversial.
It would be nice, but it obviously isn't working out.
IIRC, there were a lot of FReeper comments on Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ controversy threads stating they would go see the movie simply because it was being boycotted.
That sounds like Anarchist philosophy to me.
I think Cohen has hit upon something.
The way to avoid being called a racist, agist, sexist, homophobe, heterophobe, beastialist, pedophile and boot-lickin’ Austrian is to offend
E V E R Y B O D Y !
Haven’t and won’t see the movie, but sounds like
only Hitler comes out smelling like a rose.
Hey anyone who goes to see this......lemme know if Frank Lombard is credited as a writer.
>>Which is the very effect the dissenters are providing. Far more people will go see it now because it’s being labeled in the press as controversial.<<
Bull.
More people would have gone to see it if it were NC-17.
R movies are the PG movies of yesterday.
Besides, Harry Potter is coming out. It will blast away all other movies.
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