Sacha Baron Cohen Film Gets 18 Rating
By Marion McMullen on Jun 18, 09 12:32 PM
SACHA Baron Cohen’s latest film Bruno will not be seen by a large portion of its likely target audience after it was given an 18 rating. The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) decided that strong sexual content in certain scenes meant the movie was only suitable for adult audiences and not for a 15 certificate. The surprise ruling means huge numbers of teenagers will not be able to see the gay Austrian fashion journalist’s outrageous escapades at the cinema when the movie is released on July 10. Baron Cohen’s two previous films, Ali G Indahouse and Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, were both given 15 ratings.
Like Borat, Bruno is a mock documentary in which the lead character, played by Baron Cohen, exposes the prejudices and bigotries of people he interviews while pushing boundaries of good taste to their limit. The BBFC said three scenes in particular made the film unsuitable for a younger audience: one involving Bruno’s pygmy flight attendant boyfriend, one in which Bruno mimes oral sex with a dead member of German dance act Milli Vanilli and in which Bruno attends a real swingers’ party. A spokeswoman for the BBFC said they had suggested cuts that could be made to Bruno to get a 15 rating, but the film-makers had declined.
