In light of the controversial blackface appearance in the newest project, Alligator-Horses, this reference to blackface seems interesting.
“Baron Cohen’s Brüno is a gay minstrel, in the most literal sense of the word. Just as the characters of the burnt-cork vaudevillians had, bound up ineluctably with their dark complexions, traits like being shiftless, lazy, and ‘a-feared of spooks’ as their eyes bugged out in Neanderthal, superstitious terror, Brüno’s homosexuality comes bundled up with a lot of unattractive software.” –David Rakoff
