Bruno gets Sacha Baron Cohen's ass into more legal hot water

Is there anything that can stop Sacha Baron Cohen?

The inexorable comedian's outrageous antics have crossed many lines. Not just taste and political correctness, but also ethics and legalities.

On Sunday, May 31, Cohen first drew headlines after dropping his bare buttocks into Eminem's face at the MTV Movie Awards. (Talk about an ass-kissing wardrobe malfunction.)

Most onlookers took it to be an accident. But the show's head writer Scott Aukerman acknowledged on his blog that it was, in fact, staged and rehearsed.

However, after punk'ng MTV audiences, Cohen was slapped with a lawsuit for an incident during a California shoot of his forthcoming release Brí¼no (in which he stars as a flamboyant  gay Austrian  fashionista)    that left a woman with severe physical injuries.

According to the lawsuit (as reported by the Associated Press), Richelle Olson alleges that she tried to take a microphone away from Cohen (as Bruno) at a charity bingo tournament when he started to use vulgarities. As Cohen and Olson struggled, Cohen's crew moved in to attack her to provoke a "dramatic emotional response". When she ran from the stage crying, she fell and hit her head on a concrete slab.

Olson now requires a cane or wheelchair for mobility.

Cohen's previous film Borat also drew lawsuits (which were rejected by courts) from people (including etiquette and driving teachers, and some frat boys) who felt they were deceived and humiliated on camera, and legal threats from the government of Kazakhstan.

On Friday, May 29, Vancouver's DOXA Documentary Film Festival featured Mercedes Stalenhoef's documentary Carmen Meets Borat, which chronicles the impact that Cohen had on the impoverished Romanian village of Glod after Cohen filmed scenes there for Borat.

Stalenhoef (who the Straight's  Jessica Werb interviewed for an article  about DOXA's panel on filmmaking ethics)  happened to be filming a documentary about the daily life of a 17-year-old girl there when Cohen arrived with his film production. He paid the villagers  small amounts of money  to appear in his film, which they claim they were informed was going to be a documentary.

When they discovered that the film used them to pretend to be and ridicule Kazakhstan, they were deeply angered and humiliated.

U.S. lawyer then descended on the town to convince the villagers to launch a lawsuit. The attempt (which included an ill-conceived, unsuccessful  publicity stunt  by  the  lawyers, who  sent three of the villagers, who don't speak  English, by themselves  into the London office of 20th Century Fox with a copy of the lawsuit, only to have them confronted by security, who they couldn't communicate with)  failed, and the villagers felt doubly duped.

In a post-screening Q&A session via Skype, Stalenhoef said she felt that the failed lawsuit attempt was  just as  troubling as Cohen's film  because she knows how desperately poor the villagers are (they don't have running water, and don't have enough money to fix bridges or roads) and how much the promise of money meant to them.

Although many villagers requested money from her for being in her documentary, she  pointed out that the  offer  of money would interfere with the documentary-making process by altering or influencing  their behaviour.

However, when she was able to raise funds for the villagers, instead of giving it to any single individual (which would create jealousy or other problems), she asked the villagers to decide what the money could be put towards that would benefit everyone in the entire town. Consequently, the villagers agreed to use the money to renovate the church.

Similarly, Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle (after much public  concern  was expressed about the slum conditions its child stars were living in)  has set up a trust fund for the Oscar-winning  film's  impoverished child actors, and the Indian government is giving the children new houses after their shanty homes were destroyed.  

It remains to be seen if Cohen or 20th Century Fox will do anything similar for Glod.