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liberaltrucker Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 03:05 AM
Original message
If "Blazing Saddles" was produced today.....
Uh, never mind. Way too un-PC. Even with Mel Brooks as a Jewish Indian, er, Native American.

Hilarious in 1977. Most likely offensive today. When did we lose our sense of humor?

:shrug:
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CaliforniaPeggy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 03:07 AM
Response to Original message
1. My dear liberaltrucker!
Have we lost our sense of humor?

I don't know...

I never saw that movie, but I hear it's hilarious!

And what on earth are you doing still up?

Hell, why am I still up?

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liberaltrucker Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 03:11 AM
Response to Reply #1
3. Just stuck in a motel room
Waiting to get the truck out of the shop(routine maintenance).

Nothing better to do!

:hug:
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Contrary1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 03:19 AM
Response to Reply #1
5. Do yourself a favor and rent it...
Cleavon Little in his role, is something that should not be missed.

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ghostsofgiants Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 03:44 AM
Response to Reply #1
8. It is hilarious, you should definitely check it out, Peggy.
Edited on Sat Jan-10-09 03:44 AM by primate1
:hi:
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Lasher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 07:55 AM
Response to Reply #8
15. It's twue, it's twue!
Mongo like candy.
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yellowdogintexas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 12:50 PM
Response to Reply #15
30. oh you must. One of the most hilarious movies ever made.
I watched it the other day while doing some of my holiday baking.
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XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 03:26 PM
Response to Reply #1
37. Here's the opening scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPcLPzItOQs

If you think it's funny, you'll probably enjoy the film. If you're offended, you probably won't enjoy the film.
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CaliforniaPeggy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 06:06 PM
Response to Reply #37
42. Thank you, my dear Xema!
I have to admit...I did laugh!

It sure isn't PC though...

:hi:
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jobycom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 03:10 AM
Response to Original message
2. I didn't like it back then.
Of course I was 12 when it came out. The only part I liked was the line "You'd do it for Randolph Scott!" which can be used in many threads on many boards many, many times a day.

Other than that, it seemed like the same style of humor my half-literate redneck compadres in Mississippi laughed at during junior high bathroom breaks.

As for when we lost our sense of humor, I don't think we have. I think we just decided that laughing at the expense of people our society looked down upon and oppressed wasn't really as funny as we once thought it was. Blame our struggles to overcome racism, antisemitism, sexism, and homophobia. Not that we've overcome them, just that we've at least made an effort on most of those.
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liberaltrucker Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 03:16 AM
Response to Reply #2
4. Good point
Hadn't thought of like that. Perhaps we all need to re-examine our sense of humor.
Except, of course, for the fart jokes. Stephanie Miller lives on those! :rofl:
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JohnnieGordon Donating Member (415 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 04:00 AM
Response to Reply #2
9. I wouldn't like a return to that period's mentality either
Another Brooks' movie at the time, Silent Movie, used "fag" as a put-down incessantly. What else did that teach kids but that it was it was hilarious to call people that? Fine I guess, as long as you're not one of the ones being called that every day in school. When you might prefer to, you know, be getting a good education.
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jobycom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 04:09 AM
Response to Reply #9
10. To quote another of his films, it's good to be the king.
But the jokes aren't as funny when you are the subject instead.
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JohnnieGordon Donating Member (415 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 04:18 AM
Response to Reply #10
11. I remember seeing Silent Movie with my best friend in the 6th grade
And he thought the fag jokes were hilarious. Once the other kids started figuring out I was too girly (I was very androgynous and often mistaken for a girl), so I must be a "fag", I was no longer one of the cool kids and that guy stopped being friends with me.
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cemaphonic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 06:00 AM
Response to Reply #2
13. Mississippi rednecks know about Busby Berkeley and Hedy Lamarr?
Yeah, there's a bunch of pretty lowbrow stuff in there, but a fair bit of clever humor too.

Also I don't see at all how the humor in the movie can be said to be directed at opressed people. Sheriff Bart was by far the most competent, decent and intelligent person in the movie, and most of the plot is a send-up of the classic John Ford-style Hollywood Westerns where the Wild West is tamed and civilized by the likes of John Wayne.
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TommyO Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 08:18 AM
Response to Reply #13
18. That's Hedley....
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RoyGBiv Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 11:26 AM
Response to Reply #18
22. Win!!!

:thumbsup:
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cemaphonic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 11:56 AM
Response to Reply #18
26. Heh - Poor Hedy
If it wasn't for cell phones, she'd only be known as the punchline to a fairly inexplicable joke by now.
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Tuesday Afternoon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 11:58 AM
Response to Reply #13
27. some people
just don't get satire.
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Dyedinthewoolliberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 12:01 PM
Response to Reply #2
28. Ummmmmmmm
I think maybe, just perhaps, in a teeny, tiny way, you've missed the point of that movie.
The stereotypes, racism and anyhting else, except the bathroom humor were there on purpose to expose that kind of thinking. To make fun of IT, not the person.
Does that make sense? Mel Brooks is anything but racist etc etc
:shrug:
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jobycom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 02:37 PM
Response to Reply #28
33. Oh, even us illiterate rednecks got that point, but that doesn't change the level of humor much.
I guess if you laugh at farts and big black dick jokes, it was funny. I liked the criticisms of small town close-minded mentalities, which is why I loved the Randolph Scott line, but other than that, I didn't see much in the way satirical eye-opening high-brau stuff.

The last comment I made was more a generalized statement about "where our sense of humor went," and why "PC" isn't a bad thing in general, not a commentary on Blazing Saddles. Mel Brooks isn't racist or overly-bigotted, and neither are his films, in general. But even so, some of the language and stereotypes in the film would be uncomfortable today, no matter how well-meant and well-placed they were at the time.
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XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 03:24 AM
Response to Original message
6. I blame the cult of the PC
PC-land is a place where "role models" don't smoke or screw around, and every person of color has to be a dignified caricature of a dignified person of color.
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Eurobabe Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 03:30 AM
Response to Original message
7. Are you CRAZY?
That remains one of my all time favorite movies. RIP Cleavon Little.
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meegbear Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 04:54 AM
Response to Original message
12. I blame OJ Simpson and Mr. Magoo ...
The OJ trial where now everyone is required to say "the 'n' word" as opposed to "nigger" (but then, he could make the character gay, "faggot" is still an accepted word).

And Mr. Magoo. About 20 years ago USA Network started to show the old Mr. Magoo cartoons (cool!). Magoo was still bumbling and rambling, but his houseboy Charlie's voice was overdubbed, so he'd yell "Mister Magoo!" instead of "Mister Ma-GLUUUUUUUUUUUEE!". That was before the phrase 'PC'.
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leftyclimber Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 07:33 AM
Response to Reply #12
14. Interesting parallel to your first example in your second
It's now not OK to make fun of houseboy Charlie with a stereotyped ethnic accent, but it's still OK to portray blind/visually impaired people as bumbling and incompetent in the name of "comedy."
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YankeyMCC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 08:04 AM
Response to Original message
16. Same point could be made about TV..."All in the Family"
would never been made the same way today.

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DemocratSinceBirth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 08:16 AM
Response to Reply #16
17. What's More Amazing Is That Carrol O'Connor Was A Lefty
~
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surrealAmerican Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 03:29 PM
Response to Reply #17
38. Why is that amazing?
It's much easier to play a closed-minded bigot if you understand the flaws in their reasoning. Watch how accurately people here can imitate freepers sometime.
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JohnnieGordon Donating Member (415 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 11:28 AM
Response to Reply #16
24. And Will &Grace never could've aired in the 70s in any form..nt
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YankeyMCC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 02:24 PM
Response to Reply #24
31. Probably true which goes to show
it's a complicated subject. There is something very difficult to pin-point about what American culture - which is so hard to define anyway over the expanse of the country but that is what national TV networks must try and deal with - will accept and not accept. Shows like "All in the Family" and movies like "Blazing Saddles" somehow pushed buttons without crossing some line, and they pushed buttons that should still be pushed today I think. Yet as you point out some themes would not be accepted on whole on their own.
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pokerfan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 08:46 AM
Response to Original message
19. Can you imagine SNL airing the Racist Job Interview sketch today?
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yellowdogintexas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 12:49 PM
Response to Reply #19
29. OTOH, could you imagine Chappel doing ANYTHING even close to what he does
even 20 years ago, much less in the 1970's?

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deutsey Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 11:11 AM
Response to Original message
20. Mel Brooks and Richard Pryor (who wrote it) were blasting apart racial stereotypes
in that movie, along with satirizing the Western movie mentality and just about anything (and everyone) else they could think of.

I think there was a different sensibility in the mid-'70s (coming out of the civil rights, anti-war, anti-Nixon movements) in which people responded to the race/sex references not as putdowns but as sort of cathartic releases using humor to subvert those references. The goal was to show us all as flawed human beings capable of laughing at ourselves.

Unfortunately, the movie doesn't translate well outside that context. We've become accustomed to cheap shots, grossouts and putdowns in our "humor" today but without the underlying cathartic release/shared sense of humanity that I think Brooks, and Pryor, and others like them (Carlin, Lenny Bruce, etc.) were going after in their humor.

And I believe Blazing Saddles came out in '74.
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Catshrink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 11:33 AM
Response to Reply #20
25. I didn't know Pryor wrote it...
Edited on Sat Jan-10-09 11:35 AM by Catshrink
I love Mel Brooks. I know a lot of his humor is stupid, but it's purposely stupid. Spaceballs is one of my all time favorites just because it's so goofy and a great commentary on the movie industry. And it is infinitely quotable.

Who else here is an asshole?
Great, I'm surrounded by assholes.

Why didn't you tell me my ass is so big?

We've been jammed.

I'm half man, half dog. I'm my own best friend.

Are you combing the desert?

And the best: What's the matter, Col. Sanders, chicken?

Prince Valium. Dark Helmet. The Schwartz. Pizza the Hut. Lonestar. Dot Matrix. President Scroob.
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Fire Walk With Me Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 02:36 PM
Response to Reply #25
32. "Pizza the Hut"...
lol :)
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SacredCow Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 02:52 PM
Response to Reply #25
34. Yeah, Pryor wrote it, and was supposed to be the star...
but the suits decided that his stand-up was too controversial so they opted to have a lesser known actor take the role, and thus- Cleavon (rest his talented and woefully under-appreciated soul).

It's satire. If one takes satire "seriously," sure- they can be offended.

Loving the Spaceballs quotes- that's way up in my list of Mel Brooks faves, too! I could never take "Melrose Place" seriously when Daphne Zuniga was on-screen (OK, OK- I never took it seriously....)

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pokerfan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 02:53 PM
Response to Reply #25
35. Brooks wanted Richard Pryor to play the sheriff
but WB was concerned about Pryor's drug use and the belief that he was crazy. They already had replaced Gig Young with Gene Wilder because Young was suffering from delirium tremens on the set due to his alcoholism.

Lots of info at the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blazing_Saddles">Wiki page:

After screening the movie, the head of Warner Brothers Pictures complained about the use of the word "nigger", the campfire scene and the punching of a horse, and told Brooks to remove all these elements from the film. As Brooks' contract gave him control of the final cut, the complaints were disregarded and all three elements were retained in the film with it holding the distinction of being the first film to display flatulence.

(It's good to be the king.)

Mel Brooks wanted the movie's title song to reflect the western genre, and advertised in the trade papers that he wanted a "Frankie Laine-type" sound. Several days later, singer Frankie Laine himself visited Brooks' office offering his services. Brooks had not told Laine that the movie was planned as a comedy, and was embarrassed by how much heart Laine put into singing the song.


John Wayne was impressed with the script, but politely declined a cameo appearance, fearing it was "too dirty" for his family image. He is also said to have told Brooks that he "would be first in line to see the film, though."


Madeline Kahn's role, Lili Von Shtupp, is a parody of Marlene Dietrich's in the 1939 western film Destry Rides Again, while "I'm Tired" is a parody of Dietrich's "Falling in Love Again (Can't Help It)", a song written by Frederick Hollander for The Blue Angel (1930).
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astonamous Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 11:55 PM
Response to Reply #25
45. Richard Pryor watched Blazing Sadles at least once a week...
up until his death in 2005.

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jakefrep Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 11:13 AM
Response to Original message
21. Compared to the coarse, low-brow crap that passes for comedy now...
I don't see how Blazing Saddles couldn't prosper today.
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whistler162 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 11:27 AM
Response to Original message
23. And when looking for a Frankie Lane type voice for
the theme song. Frankie Lane wouldn't be asking for the job.

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skygazer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 03:03 PM
Response to Original message
36. I don't know
I find it kind of ironic that we talk about political correctness as if its a negative thing to try to respect people's cultures and sensibilities. Brooks wasn't making jokes at the expense of minorities or ethnic types - he was exposing the hypocrisy and idiocy of bigotry. In that sense, it was an enlightened film, couched in a lot of humor and I don't think it would be offensive today.

I also don't think viewing racist or demeaning "jokes" as uncool is a sign of a lack of humor. I think it's a sign that we're finally trying to live as members of the human race and not just the male white European race.







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RFKHumphreyObama Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 06:01 PM
Response to Reply #36
41. Yes precisely
That's precisely word-for-word what I think as well:thumbsup:
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msanthrope Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 05:17 PM
Response to Original message
39. Richard Pryor's script was one of the finest pieces of work
Edited on Sat Jan-10-09 05:19 PM by pacoyogi
he ever did---his co-write with Mel Brooks made it one of the best things Mel ever worked on, too..

A fine assemblage of rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperadoes, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, half-wits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and Methodists.
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RoyGBiv Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 11:26 PM
Response to Reply #39
44. "...and Methodists."

:spray:

:rofl:

:thumbsup:
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Lorien Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 05:43 PM
Response to Original message
40. It's still hilarious
and it's only offensive to ignorant right wing racists, imho.
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Mendocino Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-10-09 06:31 PM
Response to Original message
43. New cast
I'm not suggesting that it should be remade, remakes generally suck, but here it is:

Sheriff Bart-Don Cheadle

Hedley Lamarr-Kevin Kline

Waco Kid-Owen Wilson

Lili Von Schtupp-Reese Witherspoon

Mongo-Brad Garrett

Taggert-Randy Quaid



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Starbucks Anarchist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-11-09 12:01 AM
Response to Reply #43
46. That's an excellent list.
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Patsy Stone Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-11-09 12:04 AM
Response to Reply #43
48. Not bad at all.
:thumbsup:
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Patsy Stone Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-11-09 12:02 AM
Response to Original message
47. 'You... You will only be risking your lives.
Edited on Sun Jan-11-09 12:05 AM by Patsy Stone
Whilst I, I will be risking an almost certain Academy Award Nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Now go do, that voodoo, that you do so wellllll!'

RIP, Harvey and Madeline. :loveya:, Mel.

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