Men know how retarded and pointless our humour and distractions are and we need women to elevate our condition, not pander to it.
But there is one invaluable reason for taking a girlfriend to see it. Men are generally useless at dumping women, stringing them along while lacking the courage to let them go.
Take her to see Brüno and laugh dementedly at the crassest moments and then talk endlessly about how it's the best film ever, while mimicking the character at every opportunity — that's a sure-fire way to make her decide to cut you loose for good.
ESTHER SAYS
You're right to think twice about whether to take your brand new girlfriend to see a film as controversial as Brüno.
It goes out of its way to make you squirm: Brüno staggers — leather-clad and chained to his gay lover — into an anti-gay demonstration; he tries to seduce Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul and he starts snogging a man while in the ring at a cage fight.
There's a horrifying 30-second close-up shot of a huge, waggling penis and explicit sex scenes — the crucial parts only barely covered up by black squares — at a swingers' party.
It's not that your girlfriend will be mortally offended, it's just that unless you like that omigod-I-can't-look style of satire, it's pretty stressful to watch Brüno miming extravagant oral sex in front of a medium and confusing "hummous" with "Hamas" at Israel/Palestine peace talks.
But the actual watching of the film isn't the issue — if she went to see it with friends she might well think it was a hoot — the point is how she will interpret your choice.
So just ask her if she wants to see it, right? Wrong! In new relationships, girls would rather die than appear prohibitive, demanding or a nag. Later she won't care but at the start she'll want to seem relaxed.
When you suggest Brüno, she won't say she'd rather eat wasps than see it, or that she thinks Sacha Baron Cohen is about as funny as cancer or that she walked out of Borat.
She will sweetly swear blind that Brüno is an excellent choice and that she can't wait to see it.
But as you buy your popcorn and settle down in your seats, I promise she will be thinking, "I can't believe he's making me see this stupid film!"
Then she'll start to wonder what you're "trying to say" to her by picking out this film for you both to watch.
Then she'll worry you're not compatible — and by the end of the film she'll have been practising her "Listen..." speech in her head for the last half an hour.
Later on down the line you can thrash out, honestly, the kind of films you can watch together but at the start, it's best to play it safe.
Save Brüno to see with your mates and take her to Public Enemies instead; it has guns and gangsters for you and Johnny Depp in a vest for her. Bliss.
