"Hey, Hey, He Gay, He Gay . . . Okay" . . . Or Is It?: The Sociological Importance of Bruno

Sacha Baron Cohen is a British comedian who has garnered a great deal of controversy over the years. Through his characters, Ali G, Borat, and Bruno, he attempts to trick people into letting down their guards and revealing any prejudices (racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, misogyny, et cetera) that they may have. In doing so, each of his three characters has sparked a debate concerning the different issues they bring up: with Ali G, it was whether the character was racist or exposed racism; with Borat, it was whether the character was anti-Semitic or revealed anti-Semitism; and with Bruno, it is whether the character reinforces homophobia or mocks it. I am concerned with the last of these three debates, specifically in relation to Baron Cohen's film Bruno. Many say the film reinforces gay stereotypes and is thus harmful for the gay community, while a seemingly equal number of people say it effectively mocks homophobia and is thus beneficial for the gay community. Using the data I collected from thirty-one interviews conducted after five separate screenings of the film, I argue that Bruno is not harmful for the gay community as audiences understood that the Bruno character is based on exaggerated stereotypes of homosexuals. That is, the film did not reinforce any negative stereotypes. But, I also explain that the film did not change any opinions on homosexuality either. Also in this work, I argue that within the world of cinema, Bruno fails to fit into any pre-existing genre, including the 'mock-documentary' genre where it is most commonly placed. Rather, I suggest the film is better categorized as what I call a Real Fake Mock-documentary. While 'mock-documentaries' are made up of fictional characters in fictional situations, this new term encompasses the fact that Bruno involves a fictional character placed into real situations. I conclude by noting that the content, release, and debate surrounding Bruno all reveal that it is still difficult to bring up the issue of homosexuality in American society, even forty years after the Civil Rights era.

The Operatics of Cabiria (1914): Intermediality in Early Italian Cinema

This article presents an intermedial analysis of the Italian silent film Cabiria by Giovanni Pastrone within the cultural context of its time. Employing theories developed by Werner Wolf and Irina Rajewsky, the article lays out the intermedial and transmedial relationships of Cabiria with other media, in particular opera, literature, and painting, and illustrates that operatic references are incorporated recognizably during key moments of the film. By contrasting these references with specific cinematic techniques, Pastrone demonstrates that film is able to elicit an operatic sensation and that film is a distinct and valuable form of art.

A Social Network Analysis Of Hamadryas Baboons

The study of animal sociality investigates the immediate and long-term consequences that a social structure has on its group members. Typically, social behavior is observed from interactions between two individuals at the dyadic level. However, a new framework for studying social behavior has emerged that allows the researcher to assess social complexity at multiple scales. Social Network Analysis has been recently applied in the field of ethology, and this novel tool enables an approach of focusing on social behavior in context of the global network rather than limited to dyadic interactions. This new technique was applied to a group of captive hamadryas baboons (Papio hamadryas hamadryas) in order to assess how overall network topology of the social group changes over time with the decline of an aging leader male. Observations on aggressive, grooming, and proximity spatial interactions were collected from three separate years in order to serve as `snapshots¿ of the current state of the group. Data on social behavior were collected from the group when the male was in prime health, when the male was at an old age, and after the male¿s death. A set of metrics was obtained from each time period for each type of social behavior and quantified a change in the patterns of interactions. The results suggest that baboon social behavior varies across context, and changes with the attributes of its individual members. Possible mechanisms for adapting to a changing social environment were also explored.