Writer and actor  Sasha Baron Cohen likes to orchestrate outrageous real life situations that challenge people, to say the least.   In his new docu comedy film, Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Male,  he draws unsuspecting bystanders into outrageous situations and provokes them to say outrageous things. 

The  film has gotten an NC-17 rating on its first submission to the Motion Picture Association of America because of numerous sexual scenes that the ratings board considers over the line.  In one scene Bruno (a gay Austrian fashionista played by Sasha Baron Cohen) appears to have anal sex with a man on camera.  In another, the actor goes on a hunting trip and sneaks naked into the tent of one of the fellow hunters, an unsuspecting non-actor. In another scene Bruno appeared on a daytime program called The Richard Bey Show, as a single father trying to find a boyfriend to help him raise his adopted black child.  He pushed the audience by saying: “The baby has a traditional African name: O.J.”  Then, he pushed the audience further through a series of explicit photographs showing Bruno with other men in various stages of undress while the baby sits nearby. He added: “He’s a real dick magnet.“

Borat, which cost $18 million to make, took in $261 million in worldwide box office. Universal paid $42 million for the English language rights to Bruno.  Major Hollywood studios almost never release films with NC-17 ratings.  The film will certainly cause controvery.  As one executive said,  ”He offends everybody”.

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