THE BABY AS ACCESSORY

Just saw the film BRUNO….It’s hilarious and may be even better than BORAT….The level of humor is certainly more consistent throughout the film even the end (whereas I thought BORAT petered out at the end).

Anyway, there is a scene in the film where Bruno, in his never ending quest to be famous, adopts a black baby from Africa thus mocking Madonna, Angelina Jolie, and other celebrities who adopt babies in this way….In one scene, he goes on a talk show where they think he is a real person who has adopted a baby in this way….One of the audience accuses him of using his baby is an “accessory”.

There is an even more shocking scene right before that where he pretends to be doing photo shoot involving babies and interviews the parents of the babies who are auditioning to find out if they are okay with certain things….Here are some of the questions he asks “IS YOUR BABY OKAY WITH STINGING INSECTS SUCH AS WASPS, BEES OR HORNETS? IS YOUR BABY OKAY WITH HEAVY MACHINERY?” These parents hungry and salivating for any brush with fame readily agree to any number of horrible things (which I think was Sasha Baron Cohen’s point)….One even agrees to liposuction for her baby if it is too fat.

I recall back in the 90’s many of my female co-workers talked about their children as if they were accessories….Like New SUV’s or houses or even lesser purchases such as shoes or purses.

This can be attributed to America’s capitalist nature more than anything else….It’s dog eat dog….It’s not a far cry from that to babies as a source of income.

It’s also about status symbols….A womb is as much an indication of success as a swimming pool especially among working upwardly mobiles who marry later in life and often have problems conceiving.

This is what having a life that revolves around making money amounts to and what it has reduced humanity to.