Antichrist, Bruno and The Sun

Antichrist, the new horror from Lars Von Trier, has been passed uncut by the British Board Of Film Classification (BBFC) and British "newspaper" The Sun doesn't like this one bit.

Now "The Sneak" may have some genuine beefs with the film, and from descriptions he/she may be correct. I can't say that it sounds like my cup of tea. It certainly sounds like it would be the worst date movie since Schindler's List, although there will be someone out there who takes someone thinking "a bit of horror, should get her horny", only to face a situation a bit like when Travis Bickle takes Cybil Shephard to a porno theatre.

But there's one paragraph that reveals the real reason this piece appeared in the paper at all:

"The most talked-about film of the moment is SACHA BARON COHEN’s latest offering, Bruno.

But while the antics of the OTT fashionista can be eye-wateringly shocking, it is ridiculous that the film has the same 18 rating as Antichrist. All the sex in Bruno is slapstick."

Bruno certainly is the most talked about film of the moment...by The Sun. Everyday for the past couple of months Bruno has gotten some sort of bumming up in the Sun's pages, including a review about a month before the film was even released, a puff piece about Sacha Baron Cohen being Britain's funniest comedian and the very day I write this (6/7/09) Bruno "guest edits" the Bizarre segment of the paper.

So is it really just that The Sun's a tad pissed off that Bruno getting an '18' certificate means that much of the audience for a film full of gay jokes, teenage boys, now can't legally see the film, hurting potential profits? I'm not exactly sure of The Sun's interest in Bruno doing well, but the amount of space given over to it, tenuously linking to any of Cohen's characters at any given chance, means that this announcement from the BBFC is a stinger. There is definitely an argument here about what the BBFC's role is in film censorship and whether Antichrist goes too far, but reading between the lines this piece has been written under false pretences.