Would Blazing Saddles "work" as a movie today?

[jberryhill]

Someone on another thread mentioned Blazing Saddles.

Would a parodic treatment of racism like that work today, or would the producer be crucified?

[elshiva]

1. Good question. But what about Spike Lee's "Bamboozled?"

Maybe Lee could get away with it because he's African-American? :shrug:

[Carnea]

7. Lee didn't get away with Bamboozled

He was roundly criticized from all sides.

[elshiva]

11. Really? I did not hear that, sorry.

I love your avatar. Brazil is a great movie.

[Inchworm]

2. Blazing Saddles is an accompainement to good sex and wine now

I made that up, but you can't steal from good humor :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Vdrfcnjstw

*licking your eyebrows*

[Inchworm]

29. Good gawd.. shut up ya damn drunk!

or..

mebbe I was abducted by aliens...

:yoiks:

[newmajority]

3. "The President is a ............

.....BONNNNNNNGGGGGG!

[jberryhill]

4. The thing is...

A lot of the humor is offensive.

But, looking at the movie, Bart is the sanest, smartest character in the film.

[newmajority]

12. That's kinda where I was going.

Bart made all those rednecks look like idiots.

....Like when he held himself at gunpoint :evilgrin:

[JoDog]

25. That was part of the point

Mel Brooks was trying his darnedest to make the racists look like idiots--thus to show the audience that all racism is stupid. One of the easiest ways to take power away from a person or idea to make it appear utterly ridiculous. Which is what this film does.

I don't think this movie could be made today. Brooks and crew camped out on one of our society's third rails, but it was at a time before political correctness. "Blazing Saddles", is a paradox because it uses the most politically incorrect language and scenes possible to accomplish a very politically correct goal: telling people to get over themselves on the topic of race.

It's one of my favorites. My family's Mardi Gras party had a Mel Brooks theme, and I went as Lily von Shtupp.

[MrSlayer]

24. That was the point. The racists were a bunch of idiots.

The funniest parts weren't the racist lines but Bart's counterpunches.

[harmonicon]

5. yes/no

I think the movie is funny and a product of it's time. For that, it's still good today, and such a movie could be made now and be funny if it was more contemporary. However, I don't think any type of subversive humour is allowed in major movies anymore. In that way, it could never happen. People just want Eddie Murphy in a fat suit, or young stars getting married combined with fart jokes. I think "Idiocracy" was one of the funniest movies that I've seen in years, and it was burried. It didn't deal with racism (directly), but it did deal with a lot of social and economic problems in our country right now, and was thusly just barely allowed to see the light of day.

[obamaftw]

6. Great Movie

I loved that movie. I don't know if it would work today.

[jberryhill]

9. Well, that's what I mean

Why did it work then, and would not work today?

I'm wondering if whether overt racism was still common enough that it was "worthwhile" to mock it; whereas today, it would seem more like "dredging it up".

Or, to put it another way, would it have the inadvertent effect - sort of like Chappelle's Show - of actually appealing to racists, in a way that it wouldn't back in the day?

[harmonicon]

15. I think that may be part of it

The overtness, I mean. When I was a kid - and I mean in the '80's, so not that long ago - it wasn't all that uncommon to hear the "N" word. I barely hear people say that at all these days. So, yeah, I'm sure the prevalence of racism did make it a more worthwhile, or at least more poignant thing to attack. However, I think that the humour probably also did appeal to racists back then who just didn't get it. Things like that go on these days too - homour that's popular, but that goes over the heads of most viewers.

Did Chappelle's Show appeal to racists? Did they know that Dave Chappelle is black, or do you mean that people thought his mockery of white-dominated media was an insult to people based on race and agreed with it (what they may have perceived to be a racist attack on whites)?

[jberryhill]

17. Apparently, yes

Chappelle's Show did appeal to racists, which is why he quit doing it, IIRC. The sophistication required to understand the frame of "this is how the media portrays African Americans" was beyond the grasp of those operating at a level of "hey, here's a black guy making fun of black people" - because on a very direct level, that's what it was.

There were right wingers who originally thought Colbert was intended to provide "balance" to Jon Stewart. Concrete thinkers have a tough time with parody and satire.

But parody can be "too subtle", at which point an increasing number of the audience are going to start to wonder whether it really is parody, or whether it is an attempt to sneak the overtly apparent message "under the radar" by saying - "oh, it's just parody".

Any parody or satire is not going to be appreciated by anyone to whom the point is too close to home, because of the negative emotional response to the subject of it.

[kentauros]

21. Good points.

:)

Did you ever see the 2002 movie, Undercover Brother ? On imdb.com, anyway, it seems to have gotten the same treatment as Chappelle's show (whom is also in UB.)

I'm "caucasian" (I prefer "beige" :P) and thought Blazing Saddles was wonderful, and Undercover Brother was such a great parody of blaxploitation movies, too :)

Chappelle played "Conspiracy Brother"
Conspiracy Brother: George Washington Carver made the first computer! Out of a peanut! A PEA-NUT!

[jberryhill]

30. I'll put it on my list /nt

[madrchsod]

8. they would`t help if the towns people

would`t accept the Irish.......

[Swamp Rat]

10. The troll is working up a post count.

[Carnea]

13. Unfortunately no

Too many sensitive people today. :cry:

[Fenris]

14. Racial content wise, probably.

I don't think the movie would work today because at the time there was a proliferation of canned, hammy Westerns. Westerns now are terribly serious, lacking in a lot of the silliness and lack of invention that plagued earlier films. "Blazing Saddles" was obviously mocking the conventions and cliches found in pretty much every Western up until the late 1960s. Cardboard characters, Hollywood interiors and exteriors, ridiculous dialog, etc. But that's just my opinion.;)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. Right, it was the era of

Texas Across the River
Cat Ballou
Support Your Local Sheriff

and F Troop on TV.

Comedy Westerns were practically a genre all their own.

[Initech]

16. Actually yeah.

After all, Bad Santa got a wide release.

[jberryhill]

18. OMG, that movie is just.... indescribable

There's a lot of "shock humor" in there, but I'm wondering what socially sensitive issues were addressed. It seemed more along the lines of, "Can you imagine anyone as depraved as this guy?" And not only is the main character just dreadful, but by the end of the movie you are on HIS side.

I laughed the second time I saw it. The first time, I just had my jaw on the floor a lot.

"Goodnight, Mrs. Santa's sister"... oh, that kid is just.... what is WRONG with him?

[jobycom]

19. Satire usually has to work in a context. Borat is today's Blazing Saddles.

Blazing Saddles addressed the form of racism current then--overt, unashamed, barely out of mainstream. Many people the film mocked knew they were racist, but didn't believe they were wrong, and even believed they were superior. Brooks had to mock that certainty and self-superiority as well as mocking their ideas, or the target group would have missed it. He also used a common movie genre of the time, one that stood for the "greatness" of America, to make the satire more clear. Satire works when people expect a certain set of rules or formula, and get something different. The satire is made obvious because the viewer/listener/reader is told by the format that all is not as it seems.

"Borat" does that, to today's form of racism/bigotry. It mocks attitudes of Americans towards race, class, gender, and other countries, and it uses the documentary format--one that is usually factual and straightforward--to further heighten the sense of satire, or the diversion from the expected.

Look back at "Huckleberry Finn," or "To Kill a Mockingbird" (the latter isn't satire, but it uses satire). Some people cringe now at the constant, almost casual use of the 'N' word, but rationalize that "people just talked like that back then, so it doesn't mean the same thing it does now." But that rationalization isn't completely accurate. Mark Twain is in full control of every use of that word, and uses it to show the dehumanizing nature of the word, and the attitudes behind the word. The entire story is a condemnation of racism and the attitudes of society, with the only unqualified "hero" of the novel being Jim. Twain uses the word not because people talked like that, but because he hated that people talked like that, and wanted to show them what they were really saying. Same thing with Harper Lee in "To Kill a Mockingbird." Both books make this explicit at times. Scout uses the word near the end, and Atticus Finch tells her not to. She argues that everyone else uses it and asks what's wrong with it. "It's common," Atticus says. The whole novel is a demonstration of the sins of what is "common." It's a lecture on rising above what is "common."

Satire ALWAYS works best in the context of its time, and much of "Blazing Saddles," thankfully, is out of context now. The very mockery the film uses seems uncomfortable because what it is mocking is so unacceptable now.

[jberryhill]

22. "The very mockery the film uses seems uncomfortable..."

Ah, I think you nailed what I've been trying to wrap my arms around about my own reaction to the film now, versus my reaction to it when it came out.

I have a harder time with Borat, though. I didn't like it much. I can see where the Borat character "draws out" people's reactions to him, and there's good commentary value in looking at the way that people explain what America is to him. But on the direct level, one could take it as a stereotypical and mean portrayal of an Eastern European / Central Asian. The characterization of Borat's virulent anti-semitism made me uncomfortable. There were some laughs in there, but quite a few queasy moments.

[jobycom]

27. Blazing Saddles struck a lot of people the way Borat struck you.

It was supposed to make you uncomfortable. The message was not only in laughing at how people reacted, but also in how the viewer reacted to those uncomfortable moments. Trust me, as a Southerner watching Blazing Saddles, I felt uncomfortable knowing that I (or at least my neighbors) was being mocked with views more extreme than most of us (them) would hold or express. Borat does that to Americans. On the one hand, you say "I don't hold views that extreme. I don't hate anyone." On the other, you ask yourself "What is he really saying? Is he mocking people who have such anti-semitic views? Or is he mocking Americans for believing that 'foreigners' all have such views, and such backwards lives?" As with all great satire, the message can't be paraphrased. Some have even pointed out that in addition to mocking Americans, it portrayed them favorably, showing them as patient and tolerant (usually) to this ridiculous caricature of a man that most believed was just an uninformed foreigner.

Cohen, I'm sure you know, is Jewish, as were the producers of the film, and he wrote his historical thesis on Jewish relationships in America. The anti-semitism was not meant to be favorable. Even the ADL had a cautious response to the film--they understood it, but they were still concerned that the anti-semitism was so caustic that some might miss the satire and take it at face value, reinforcing the stereotypes that it was mocking. That happened with Blazing Saddles, too. I remember as a kid having friends laughing at the film, and describing the sheriff as "so stupid," and having adults condemn the film, saying it promoted racist stereotypes they were trying to fight (there were plenty in the South trying to change things, too). They completely missed that they were the ones being mocked, and at that age, I didn't really have the language to explain it to them, though I instinctively understood it.

Borat is uncomfortable. I doubt I'll ever watch it again. But I think it was the most daring film I've seen in decades.

[jberryhill]

28. Wow... I missed that level completely

Is he mocking people who have such anti-semitic views? Or is he mocking Americans for believing that 'foreigners' all have such views, and such backwards lives?

I never even thought of the second question there relative to Borat.

I travel abroad quite a bit, and my mother is Austrian which is not-quite-eastern-european, but I can't say I know much about the cultures of anything from western Turkey across the various Caucasian republics. I'm not a complete dolt, but I'm conscious of what I don't know.

How did Borat play in, say, Fill-In-The-Blank-istan? Did any particular region or country see Borat as "the stereotypical American perception of us" or did, say, the Uzbeks think it was the Azerbaijanis, and the Azerbaijanis think it was the Kazakhs, and so on?

On Edit: And reflecting on my own pejorative use of "Fill-In-The-Blank-istan", I think I can see the problem presented by your second question that I quoted above. Good one.

On further edit: this is fascinating:

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/11/bdf83982-a615-4991-be8a-e91beb1daeeb.html

“The reaction <of the Kazakh government> did evolve and the reaction evolved because people in responsible positions are becoming more aware of what the character <Borat> is really about," Vassilenko says. "And what I mean is that those who have seen the movie have a very different position about Kazakhstan from those who are basing their position on just hearsay. As more and more people become aware of what the actual movie is about and as they understand that this is a satire and especially a satire which is not directed at Kazakhstan but at a very different country. And Kazakhstan basically is just an artistic ploy.”

[cemaphonic]

31. Yeah, he's mocking our provincialism too.

Although he surely picked Kazakhstan because it is a country that even the more geopolitically aware Westerners know very little about.

There's a great segment from his show where he convinced a bunch of Oklahoma City politicians to hold a ten-minute moment of silence in memory of a completely fictional massacre.

If you even halfway liked the movie, watch the 2 seasons of his HBO show on DVD - the Borat segments from the show are much better than the movie.

[jberryhill]

34. But if I laugh at the characterization of Kazakhstan

...while not really knowing much about Kazakhstan, then what is it that I'm laughing at?

Let me see if I can unfold this... I see the bumpkin stuff from his home... He thinks it is normal to have a sister who is a prostitute, drink horse urine, hate jews, and so forth, and I chuckle at this characterization of "This dumb isolated Kazakh idiot and his perverse culture".

Then, he comes to America, demonstrates idiocies in our culture, and ultimately the joke is on me because even if I get the satire of America, it turns out that Kazakhstan is nothing like the portrayal of his "homeland" which I found funny because, really, I know jack shit about Kazakhstan.

Okay, I think I can see how "that atrocious film" was more sophisticated than I thought.

[cemaphonic]

36. but did you *really* think that gypsy-catcher is an actual profession in Kazakhstan?

I think it works partly because offensive material can often be pretty funny, but if it is not framed in a certain way, it is hard to get past the offensiveness. Back to the OP for a minute, Blazing Saddles is clearly not a racist message, because all of the racists are presented as total dimwits.

Borat's obnoxious boor is so over-the-top that I think Cohen trusts his audience to figure out that his character is simply a sort of blank-slate Third-Worlder, rather than an actual (or even stereotypical) representative of Kazakh ethnicity. (Perhaps a more valid assumption for his TV show than a wide-release movie to an audience that has no idea who 'Ali G' is) This stance is more evident in the TV show, since the "backward Kazakh culture" stuff only comes out in comments to the Americans he is talking to, usually as a device to either draw out racists, or just to see how long his targets will put up with him. The village intro bit in the movie for me crossed the line from just being a theatrical device to being pointlessly insulting to Kazakhs, and is one of the reasons that I thought the movie was inferior to the Borat segments from his show.

[jobycom]

38. Or, was the point of the opening (and closing) segments in "Kazakhstan"

to play the same trick on the audience viewing the movie as the character Borat played on his "victims" in the movie? To yank the chain, to show the clever, smug audience that yes, they, too, fell for the stereotype, just like those in the film? To make the audience a part of the film, rather than just viewers of the film?

The final, dopey-sweet scene, when Borat marries the overweight black prostitute was just as interesting as the rest of the film. She is the one genuine person he found in America, after realizing how false the Hollywood stereotype image of Pamela Anderson was (cudos to Pamela for playing the part). Contrast the ideal to the reality. But more, notice what he's saying about race, weight, ideals of beauty, ideals of sexual purity, and how we, the audience, react to it. As with the naked fight scene, we are supposed to laugh because we are revulsed, and analyze what our revulsion says about us.

As noted a couple of posts above, officials in Kazakhstan at first criticized the stereotypes in the movie, then after viewing the film, understood that it wasn't Kazakhstan being mocked, not even in the first and last scenes. It was all about us.

[whistler162]

20. I doubt it but...

I always chuckle at how Mel Brooks got Frankie Lane to sing the theme song.

[MrSlayer]

23. Mel Brooks himself says no on the DVD commentary.

He feels they only really got away with it then because Richard Pryor was a lead writer. No way would that fly today. In my top 3 funniest movies of all time.

[realisticphish]

32. no, and it would have nothing to do with racism

it would just be another "pop culture reference" satire, with a formulaic "Black fish out of water" story, probably starring a Wayans brother. It would be ho-hum, and forgotten almost immediately :shrug:

[Elidor]

33. Would The Producers "work" today?

Oh, wait...

The director is the thing. A talented writer/director can still pull that kind of thing off. But there aren't many who could equal that film, with all its bravura offensiveness. I sometimes put Brooks down as a retread vaudevillian, but he did have a lot of nerve. Most people simply wouldn't dare try half the crazy stuff he's done. I give him credit for pushing the limit. I can't think of anyone quite like him today, not even Brooks himself.

[jberryhill]

35. "retread vaudevillian"

That and the cheap bathroom and sexual humor. Dunno how much of that they did in vaudeville.

You have a good point. Even if one doesn't "get" The Producers, one gets that "Well, it's a Mel Brooks movie."

How about _Shanghai Noon_ Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson - "Kung Fu meets Blazing Saddles"?

[DS1]

37. If it was funny, yes probably

Undercover Brother comes to mind, which for me was screamingly hilarious. The first time I watched it, anyway.

[LeftinOH]

39. 'Bamboozled'...if it was a comedy at all..was a very, very dark comedy

(no pun intended)..maybe a dark satire, but there was nothing humorous in it.

[LanternWaste]

40. I don't thing so...

I don't think the major studios would touch that script today-- I would imagine that special interest groups would be crawling out of the woodwork denouncing "unfair portrayals of minorities/women/family values/animals/the GLBT community/religion, etc."

That (I believe) the portrayals were actually targeted at the perceptions of the groups and those who hold those perceptions, rather than the groups themselves would be all but forgotten as "martyrdom for the cause" has become a very trendy hobby as of late.

Funny thing is, the first time I'd seen that movie was at a church-sponsored youth event when I was younger, immediately followed by 'Rocky Horror Picture Show'. I'd be surprised (to say the least) if that particular double-feature was shown again-- either at a religious event, or even your typical city-sponsored Picnic & Movie Night at a local park.