It’s certainly no accident that The Wrap’s Sharon Waxman found out about and reported on Bruno initially receiving an NC-17 rating from the MPAA. After all, what raunchy docu-comedy wouldn’t want additional buzz focused on how “objectionable” some scenes were? Universal and Sacha Baron Cohen obviously pushed the envelope in order to both see how much they could get away with and to draw attention to themselves with a desired NC-17. Hasn’t anyone been following Hollywood the past 10 years? Here are a few benefits to both garnering the unacceptable rating and having news of that “unfortunate” rating leaked to all the fanboy bloggers:

• Typical outrage over the MPAA’s dealings guarantee postings (including this one), which continue to give attention to the film.
• Excitement over how hard the ultimate R-rating will likely be continues the interest from moviegoers interested in raunchy content. And if they’re upset that it won’t be as dirty as the original NC-17 version they can always…
• …look forward to the Unrated DVD release, which will most definitely include the censored “objectionable” scenes either in the movie or as supplement material.

Of course, news of the ratings controversy does draw potentially unfair complaints regarding the MPAA’s reputation for typically having problems with homosexual themes. For once, though, the gay community can leave the ratings board alone on this one, since the studio and filmmakers most certainly wanted all of this. Of course, if you do decide to protest, make sure you mention the film title often. That will help the marketing, too.

And now some of the unnecessary complaints from my fellow internerds helping with the film’s buzz:
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