READ THE UPDATE: Cameraman drops suit against Cohen.
This time “Bruno” went too far, claims a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Funnyman Sacha Baron Cohen's alter ego and his crew assaulted a man at a Prop 8 rally, alleges the suit that seeks $25,000 in punitive damages and reimbursement for medical
expenses and general damages.
]
Mike Skiff, a gay cameraman who often films LGBT community events,
says he was “shoved, pulled and wrestled in a vicious and blatant
attempt to keep him from filming the event” in West Hollywood in 2008.
Bruno
filmmakers “deliberately incited at riot by carrying 'Yes on Proposition
8' signs,” claims the suit, which acknowledges it was done to “enhance the
dramatic effect of what they may capture for their film,” but in doing so they violated Skiff's “right to go about his business free from violence and
intimidation directed at his sexual orientation.”
Bruno/Cohen may have thought the realityish comedy about an Austrian fashion reporter who's a bit light in the loafers would expose gay haters. But even before it was released, the Human Rights Campaign, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and other groups complained parts of the film were problematic and offensive, and that it should have began with a disclaimer informing viewers it is not okay to beat on members of the LGBT community.
You know, like Mike Skiff.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.