VIENNA - AUSTRIANS could be forgiven for bristling at Bruno. After all, the film character boasts that his fame is second only to Hitler's and says he just wants 'to achieve zee Austrian dream - find a job, get a dungeon und raise a family in it.'

Yet rather than recoil at British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's new spoof about a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashionista, most Viennese are taking Bruno's own advice: 'Get ueber it!' Judging from a smattering of look-alike contests and websites cheerfully hawking skintight T-shirts and short-shorts, some even seem to be embracing their inner Bruno.

'We can all learn a lot from Bruno: style, zest for life, versatility, fearlessness,' Doris Knecht, a columnist for the Kurier newspaper, wrote in her blog ahead of Universal Pictures' worldwide release on Friday.

'This man is proud of his homeland, so we're proud of him,' she said, proclaiming: 'Austria has a new ambassador. Thanks, Bruno!' Not everyone shares her enthusiasm - least of all a real ambassador: Emil Brix, Austria's top envoy to Britain.

In an interview with Austrian public broadcaster ORF aired Thursday, Mr Brix denounced Bruno as 'completely improper and unsuitable.' He said he found Baron Cohen's flippant references to Hitler and to Josef Fritzl - convicted in March of imprisoning his daughter for 24 years in a dungeon and fathering her seven children - cheap, crass and offensive.

'Everyone should speak out against such a thing,' he said, warning that it will tarnish Austria's image. ORF panned the film in a review. 'A lot of expense for a few punch lines,' it said.

Most Austrians, though, seem to be taking 'Bruno' in stride. They're used to being ridiculed for the country's past complicity with the Nazis, its flourishing far-right political fringe and the Fritzl affair, which came less than two years after a similar case involving a young woman who escaped after being held captive 8 years in an underground cell.

They've also taken a ribbing over Austria-born Arnold Schwarzenegger, initially for his Terminator films and most recently for becoming California governor. Outsiders have made cracks about lederhosen and yodeling ever since 'The Sound of Music' - still unseen by the vast majority of Austrians - debuted in 1965.

'Austrians like to laugh at themselves as long as no one gets hurt,' Foreign Ministry spokesman Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal said on Thursday. Underscoring the mischievous mood, he quipped: 'I hope the lederhosen industry gets a boost from Bruno in this time of recession.'

'How could mein film be ein PR-disaster for Austria?' the daily newspaper Oesterreich quoted Baron Cohen as saying in characteristic zis-und-zat 'Bruno-speak' in an interview published on Thursday.

'Hitler, Fritzl, Bruno. Zat has to be ein upswing!' -- AP