'Bruno' Enrages LA Schools Chief

LOS ANGELES — The chief of the nation's second-largest school district is fuming over comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's magazine photo shoot with high school football players.

Los Angeles Superintendent Ramon Cortines isn't amused by the GQ magazine photos shot at Birmingham High School that feature the "Borat" star in his new incarnation as gay Austrian fashionista "Bruno."

The GQ cover story features pictures of Baron Cohen wearing shoulder pads, tight red shorts, an athletic cup and little else as he poses with football players at the school in the San Fernando Valley.

Cortines says the district "allowed our students to be used." He says the photos violate the district's policy on use of the school's name, and he has punished the principal and athletic director. Cortines would not provide details.

Comments

[DSOTM]

These kids will relish in the fame and publicity and will love every second of it, in 20 years they will be sitting down with their kids watching the movie on DVD.

Sasha Cohen is one of the most brilliant comedians alive today.

[KIVPossum]

L.A.'s a big place and has some good shopping areas. Maybe Cortines can find a shop to sell him a sense of humor.

[emncaity]

Exactly. Anybody who doesn't have your own moral code is just a humorless bastard. Right?

[snoopjohnny]

Cohen couldn't have scripted this any better if the school system and media had attended marketing meetings with him to create the news and help direct the shoot. Oh wait, maybe they did....

[ModernTimes1]

Cortines says the district "allowed our students to be used."
Ach du lieber,
But now Cortines. Mayor of L.A. fester Freund , canceled all sommer skool classes.

[nuclearmonkeys]

Sounds like somebody's a homophobe/repug.

[emncaity]

Oh, right. If you object to students who are there on public tax dollars being used for vulgar humor, you're a "homophobe­."

Jesus. No wonder people hate us progressives sometimes.

[RuinedSaint]

The point of Cohen's characters are not just the characters themselves, but how people (you, me and everyone else) react to them.

There was an old TV show called Candid Camera; for those who don't remember it, it was kinda like Punked! only without the celebritie­s... Take normal people and put them in outrageous situations and see how they respond to the situation.

And judging from all the outrage we see coming from every level of society over this, it's striking all the right cords.

[MrWampler]

Replace Bruno with Tyra in those photos. Is the outrage still valid?

[PhilipB]

Interesting view.

[CigarGod]

Have a cigar.

Of all the things we have to worry about, this is one of the silliest.

Oh my! Someone might get their precious feelings hurt.

[gorgol]

This is HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL..­if we had an Armed Forces Draft, these "boys" would soon be on their way to Iraq or Afghanistan. According to Vietnam Era Logic..the­se are MEN, not boys....I'­m sure Bruno won't corrupt their minds...bu­t this country may very well take their life.

[RuinedSaint]

In some people's minds, if these students (how's that for avoiding the boy/men issue?) are tolerant towards gays, they've already been corrupted.

[gorgol]

I hear that. Given four more years of a Evangelical White House..I'm sure "gays" would be put in prison...o­r burnt at the stake...or mental asylums. At least we've come that far...but not far enough...t­he stakes and matches are in every Evangelicals "closet"..­along with their sexual preference­s...

[thelipstickfemme]

Wow, isn't there a law that prohibits underage kids from being in sexually suggestive photos "Child exploitation laws? This is really bad taste for one and almost illegal for another.

[hegdehog]

You think that photo is "sexually suggestive"? I'd say maybe you ought to consider your own reaction a little more carefully. It says more about what's going on in your mind than it does about the photo itself.

[deluk]

I don't see Bruno behaving inappropriately with his shwantzenstucker. and his ballensac is elegantly covered.

I think you're confusing camp for "seually suggestive".

[FrankenPC]

Good Freudian call. My first reaction was hilarity.

[PengieP]

Sexually Suggestive? I'd say more like Superbly Silly. At least for me, it was pretty dang far from sexually suggestive.

[Smurfaveli]

Been awhile?

[LLisaLL]

Not only is he not funny, he's not clever.

[Ponderus]

Apropos of nothing, I thought that was a picture of Gene Shalit.

[InsideBrooklyn]

Is that the same Ray Cortines who ran the NYC public schools? Actually he was a pretty good progressive school administrator.

Hey Sacha take it like an adult and make it right somehow . . . And next time pick people who are more age appropriate. . . Homophobia is not going to be stamped out simply by being outrageous among a group of kids in high school. It's an educational process in school and at home--just like racism. And look how long that's been going on.

[YellowDogInRedCounty]

I'm not sure that eradication of homophobia is on his agenda.

[robadeaux]

Bruno wins again...

[uglygnome]

Used the kids for his own moronic exploits. What's new.

[deluk]

Ich would liebe to be used and exploited by Bruno, and then I would cast him aside, like last seasons Prada manbag....

[booker52]

This guy isn't funny nor are his antics.

[IndepBob]

It's beyond funny . . . . the guy is pushing the envelope and revealing the idiocy of American culture. So sad . . . .

[justanotherbushhater]

He's a bloody Brit. He's revealing his own idiocy --- and brilliant marketing savvy.

[snoopjohnny]

Well, he's an Englishman lampooning Euro fashion excess. The kind of fashion-fo­r-it's-own­-sake seen on runways in Milan. At least that's how he cleverly packages this one. In fact, his portrayal of the gay designer is almost exclusively aimed at pushing everyone's buttons. Of course, the American film market is his playground­....and where he is making a career mining outrage. Imagine an American doing this. Colbert gets away with just about everything a comedian can. But even he wouldn't be accepted doing some of the pointedly offensive stuff Cohen does.

He's shrewd in so far as his assessment of how far he can go and not get bogged down in lawsuits (there are a few). But is he making social commentary­?.....only if it can be outrageous and lucrative.

[fleaba]

So, I'm wondering why the coach of a sport where men physically throttle each other and then pat each other on the butt is afraid of his royal gayness, Bruno.

[princessmischka]

it wasn't the coach that is opposing this, its the superintendent of schools.

[IndepBob]

The coach was on it like white on rice . . . . . .