We all love “Blazing Saddles,” a groundbreaking comedy by director Mel Brooks that features a black sheriff in a racist town and contains an abundance of politically incorrect, racially-driven jokes. Brooks spoke with BBC Radio 4 this week and mentiond how PC culture is gonna be “the death of comedy” and that "Blazing Saddles" would never be greenlit in today's current political climate:
“No, no, I mean maybe ‘Young Frankenstein.’ Maybe a few. But never ‘Blazing Saddles,’ because we have become stupidly politically correct, which is the death of comedy,” he said when asked if he thinks he could get films like “Blazing Saddles,” “The Producers,” or “Young Frankenstein” made today. “It’s okay not to hurt feelings of various tribes and groups. However, it’s not good for comedy. Comedy has to walk a thin line, take risks. Comedy is the lecherous little elf whispering into the king’s ear, always telling the truth about human behavior.”
Despite his 91 years of age, Brooks raises interesting points about the current climate of not just comedy, but art in general in this day and age of PC Twitter backlashes etc. You can't make fun of anyone anymore without endless editorializing by overly-sensitive humorless killjoys.
Obviously, the heavier aspect of "Blazing Saddles" is that the film’s excessive use of racial slurs would render it impossible to be made in today's PC landscape. If I wanted to, I could have saved myself a ton of time and written one sentence like, “A lot of people today would freak the f*ck out if someone made a comedy that had a bunch of white people saying the N-word and other awful sh*t.” Honestly? What makes this movie so special, hilarious and all-around great is not only the acting by Little and Gene Wilder, but also the fact that it mocks every aspect of the bigotry of American history with such simplicity. It's a satire of the Western genre's racist tropes, even the white guy knows how stupid the other white people are acting. But today, that’s known as white guilt. Just watch the editorials that are about to happen condemning Brooks as an old racist man that is out of touch with today's society and doesn't know what's happening in the real world.
Do you agree or disagree with his comments? Post your reactions below.