Did you hear about the latest romantic comedy to come out of Hollywood? A quirky and confident protagonist finds true love, but throws it aside in pursuit of fame and fortune. Will the lovers eventually get together? Will ambition forever keep them apart?

One last question: Did you know this is Brüno?

The gay community has been divided for years over how we're portayed in the media. One side says our "embarrassing" members -- assless-chapped leather daddies, drag queens, Tina'ed twinks in metallic hotpants -- should stay away from our Pride Parades so they don't end up front and center on the Kansas evening news. The other side says, hey, fuck 'em. If hetero America won't accept everybody in our community, they're not getting any of us.

Sasha Baron Cohen probably doesn't give a damn about any of this. Instead, he's created the most ridiculous fringe figure the gay community has ever seen, and set him as the sympathetic star of a film.

Take that, Bruce LaBruce.

Brüno sets out to push the envelope in outrageousness. You cringe in your seat, sure the next stunt is going to get Sascha Baron Cohen killed. He has the balls to confront terrorists, to antagonize angry crowds, to hit on a septuagenarian Ron Paul. In the end, though, you realize he's pulled off something far more subversive.

He's made an audience fall in love with an "embarrassing" gay man.

Some critics are complaining that a few scenes seem set up, that some of the victims must be in on the joke. Who cares? Call this a scripted comedy that occasionally ventures into real life. Some say Brüno reinforces stereotypes. Frankly, nobody with a double-digit IQ will believe for a second that this is anything other than a character played by a comedian. And, I'll repeat, a sympathetic character. There was no reason to complain about Borat, and there's no reason to foam at the mouth over Brüno either. Making the message crystal clear, the film's homophobes are equally challenged with both brains and teeth.

Brüno is a landmark gay film. For the first -- and probably last -- time in history, an audience roots for a flamboyant gay man to shuck off his conversion therapy and go chase that boyfriend, a sentiment that seems positively anarchic considering an hour earlier he was getting reamed by a bicycle-powered dildo.

Let me be the first to ask Mr. Cohen: next year, could Brüno lead our Pride Parade?

See Brüno proudly, and laugh your chapped ass off. This is a terrific film. In the immortal words of Snoop Dogg, "He gay. He gay. Okay."