Austria predicts a ‘catastrophe’

month before the release of Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest film about a gay fashion fanatic who wants to be “the most famous Austrian since Hitler”, and the Austrian press are already on the defensive

British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen currently still has a massive fan base in Austria, but that is soon to change as the media dubs his latest film “dull”, “insulting” and a threat to the country’s world image – and economy.
Picking up on Baron Cohen’s most controversial lines in the film - “I want to live the Austrian dream of finding a partner, buying a dungeon and starting a family” and “K is for 'Kampf, mein... ze fashion bible written by Austria's black sheep Adolf Hitler” - ‘People Today’ columnist for heute.at, Lisa Trompisch, describes Baron Cohen as a “dull sub-culture clown”.
She writes, ‘it’s hard to decide which is worse: the insult to Austria, or that Hitler should merely be portrayed as a “black sheep”’.
Austrian writers are anticipating that the country may have a similar experience to Kazakhstan, which is still recovering from the pitiless satire directed at the nation by the British comedian’s last film ‘Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan’ (2005).
Baron Cohen’s Borat upset officials in Kazakhstan by portraying the small town of Glod as existing in a backward land of poverty and bigotry. Baron Cohen was threatened with legal action by his Kazakh cast (reportedly paid £3 for their roles in the film), and by the country’s officials.
"We do not rule out that Mr. Cohen is serving someone's political order designed to present Kazakhstan and its people in a derogatory way," Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Yerzhan Ashykbayev said in a press conference on the issue. The New York Times later argued that their attempts to set the record straight resulted only in inflating the film’s worldwide profile.
“Kazakhstan is still suffering their enormous loss of identity… Austria could soon be going the same way,” says the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) in an article headlined, ‘Will Nazi replace our Dirndl image?’
How 'Austrian' is Bruno? Papers are speculating that Bruno is based on a real television presenter, Alfons Haider. However, his character is far from typical, says ORF: “Bruno portrays Austria as a country where men holding hands is prohibited by law and draws staggering parallels with the US: in the south, both countries have the same attitude towards homosexuals and foreigners.”The result, this article concludes, is that Bruno could be a “catastrophe” for tourism in Austria.