Austrian minister Emil Brix - newly appointed ambassador to Britain - is so upset with the Sasha Baron Cohen movie, Bruno, he has called for a protest. Brix has a problem with 'cheap gags' that in his view cast Austrians in a bad light.
Sasha Cohen plays a gay Austrian fashion reporter in the movie. At one point he says that he wants to be the most famous Austrian since Adolf Hitler. This is one of the gags Brix finds offensive.
Emil Brix
It's unclear how anyone could cast Austrians in a worse light than they cast themselves when it comes things Nazi-related. This is the nation that handed the far-right Freedom Party and Movement for Austria's Future 29% of the vote last time out.
Not so long ago a well known Austrian TV personality, Klaus Emmerich, made headlines when he said with reference to the election of Obama: 'I do not want the western world being directed by a black man. And if you say this is a racist remark, I say you are damn right it is.'
When Austrian far-right pin-up boy Jörg Haider was killed in a car accident, he was granted a state funeral. A high-end send off for a man who Carinthian writer, Egyd Gstättner, described as the center of a "fuhrer cult."
Bruno's Hitler joke is definitely topical when you consider what's been going down in Austria in recent years.
Brix also has a problem with incest related humor in the film. Bruno jokes at one point that the “Austrian Dream” is to “have a job, find a dungeon and raise a family there”. This is a reference to Josef Fritzl, the man who imprisoned his daughter in a basement and used her for years as his personal sex slave.
Brix wasn't amused: “It’s totally inappropriate. Everybody should speak up against that.”
That's the trouble - Austrians don't speak up. They're too polite or possibly repressed. You could run a Charles Manson-type cult out of your basement in most small Austrian towns and as long as you have a well trimmed moustache and tip your hat to the neighbors nobody is likely to interfere.
Ironically enough Brix praised the films of Austrian director Michael Haneke. He said Haneke's films gave a much more accurate portrayal of Austria.
Presumably this includes the Haneke film, Funny Games. It features two pyschotics who lock a family in a cabin and make them sadistically attack each other.
Not so long ago a well known Austrian TV personality, Klaus Emmerich, made headlines when he said with reference to the election of Obama: 'I do not want the western world being directed by a black man. And if you say this is a racist remark, I say you are damn right it is.'
When Austrian far-right pin-up boy Jörg Haider was killed in a car accident, he was granted a state funeral. A high-end send off for a man who Carinthian writer, Egyd Gstättner, described as the center of a "fuhrer cult."
Bruno's Hitler joke is definitely topical when you consider what's been going down in Austria in recent years.
Brix also has a problem with incest related humor in the film. Bruno jokes at one point that the “Austrian Dream” is to “have a job, find a dungeon and raise a family there”. This is a reference to Josef Fritzl, the man who imprisoned his daughter in a basement and used her for years as his personal sex slave.
Brix wasn't amused: “It’s totally inappropriate. Everybody should speak up against that.”
That's the trouble - Austrians don't speak up. They're too polite or possibly repressed. You could run a Charles Manson-type cult out of your basement in most small Austrian towns and as long as you have a well trimmed moustache and tip your hat to the neighbors nobody is likely to interfere.
Ironically enough Brix praised the films of Austrian director Michael Haneke. He said Haneke's films gave a much more accurate portrayal of Austria.
Presumably this includes the Haneke film, Funny Games. It features two pyschotics who lock a family in a cabin and make them sadistically attack each other.
Brix said: “Films by directors like these really deal with Austria.”
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