By Jessany Brown & Eva-Marie Ayala, McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Fri, Jul. 10, 2009
A pro-family group is calling on cities to ban screenings of "Bruno" because it says the movie is offensive and loaded with inappropriate sexual content.
"It's a pretty vile movie. The word I would use is `perverse,'" said Ted Baehr, publisher of Movieguide, which reviews movies, videos and television shows from a biblical perspective.
In "Bruno," Sacha Baron Cohen - he of "Borat" fame - plays a flamboyantly gay television host who moves to Los Angeles to become "the biggest Austrian star since Hitler." Many scenes depict a variety of sex acts.
Movieguide sent letters asking that officials watch 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," according to a news release.
Officials in the Texas cities of Arlington, Fort Worth and Southlake said they had not received complaints about the movie, which began showing in theaters Friday.
"It's a First Amendment issue," said Bill Begley, a spokesman for Fort Worth. "If we got calls of complaints about it, we'd have a right to take a look at it to see if it is obscene under the law."
The law says that if material is deemed obscene, action can be taken against the person showing it, said Paul Collins, assistant professor of political science at the University of North Texas in Denton.
"If local communities determined that they felt the movie was obscene, they could take steps to block it," Collins said. "It rarely happens. With an R rating, I think it would be an incredibly difficult hill to climb."
Jeremy Devine, vice president of marketing for the Dallas-based Rave Motion Pictures theaters, said the company has not been contacted about discontinuing the film.
"It is a rated-R film, so adults can choose to see it or not see it," he said.
Of about a dozen people watching a midday showing Friday at Rave Motion Pictures in Hurst, Texas, four left before it was finished.
The film includes frontal nudity of men and woman - all too graphic for viewers Elmer Phan, 20, and Hien Nguyen, 20, both of North Richland Hills, Texas.
"It's a little much," Phan said. "I wasn't offended; it was just a little too much. No other movie has taken it that far."
The movie should be rated NC-17, Baehr said.
"We are not expecting people to show up with signs," Baehr said. "... We are telling people to be careful and not go see it."
No comments:
Post a Comment