Could "Blazing Saddles" be made today?

[Brigid]

Would the younger generation get that the racist comedic element come from every racist character in the movie being a complete idiot -- or does it just seem racist and nothing else? Younger DUers, your thoughts please.

[rcrush]

1. Too many people on DU would complain.

You know its true.

[sarge43]

3. It's twue. n/t

[BlooInBloo]

10. Yup.

[Fire Walk With Me]

14. Like DUers need any reason at all to complain.

May as well make it one as good as Blazing Saddles.

And pray that they don't try a remake.

[dana_b]

2. no

we have that on DVD and I was thinking the same thing. To blatantly use the "N" word and the rest of the un-PC things that were done/said - wow, no. i think there would be protests. I think people (younger especially) are smart enough to know the difference and that the racists in the movie are stupid but some people like to get upset and raise a huff. Look at Palin and the palin-ites. They get so bent out of shape over "Family Guy" and stupid crap like that - I can't imagine what the uproar would be like over "Blazing Saddles".

[Posteritatis]

4. Most decent shows couldn't be made today

Anything with even vague niche appeal would get axed in the first season, because everything has to appeal to everybody.

[sarge43]

7. The irony is that two of the most popular series ever televised,

M.A.S.H. and Cheers, had miserable ratings the first season.

[HopeHoops]

5. No fucking way. Mel Brooks goes into that at some length in the commentary on the DVD.

They pushed the envelope about as far as it could be pushed - and knew it.

Funny as hell, eh?

[old mark]

6. It is amazing that it was made at all - I recommended that a friend from work -

(she is black) rent the movie because the TV version is so shredded it makes no sense at all.
She did rent it, and was still laughing the following week. It may be the funniest movie ever made. There is something in it to offend everyone, and it does it all very very well.
Thanks, Richard and Mel - you are the best.

mark

[fishwax]

8. Sure, but it wouldn't make as much sense

The movie is pretty firmly rooted in the '70s. That doesn't mean it doesn't hold up--it's still hilarious and still loved by folks of all ages. (I teach college students, and they're almost all familiar with it.)

There are rumors that Mel Brooks is working on a stage adaptation ...

[jobycom]

9. Of course, but the humor would have to be updated.

The reason it was so funny was because it was so attuned to its time. The mocking of racism was understood because it so accurately portrayed racists of the time, and showed them in a context which made them look ridiculous.

You could do that now, but you'd have to modify it. Racism is different now, so you'd have to portray a different racism. Of course there are still the blatantly ignorant types of racists, but now racism is more subtle, more hidden. It's in the complacent assumptions of the majority, and because it's frowned upon now, it doesn't get spoken aloud as much. Blazing Saddles just took people off the streets, took comments you could see them making on the evening news or at a local barber shop or town meeting, and it put them in a different era and costume so you could see how ridiculous it was.

Now, people don't talk like that openly as much, and those who do are immediately condemned for doing it by mainstream society. A comedy couldn't get away with mocking those statements the same way Blazing Saddles did because those statements would already be rejected by most people., The comedy wouldn't be reflecting reality back at people, it would be digging up old wounds for cheap laughs. That's why it would be condemned now.

A comedy like Blazing Saddles now would have to address the racism that happens now. The white town would hate rap music, ban loud speakers in cars, run people out of town for oversize rims or baggy pants. It would have to offend people today by pointing out their racist attitudes and parodying them, and making all of us see how ridiculous some of our attitudes and assumptions and actions are today.

People now see Blazing Saddles and think "Wow, it's really attacking those racists out there," without fully understanding that it was attacking everyone, pointing out to everyone (white everyones, anyway) that there might be a touch of those assumptions in them. That's what satire does. It doesn't attack "the other," it attacks the viewer and makes them try to see "the other" in them. It doesn't want us all to hold hands in our superiority and laugh at the idiots, it wants us to look in a mirror and say "I don't want to be that person." If it only mocked the other, if it only agreed with the majority, there'd be no point to it.

So yeah it could be made today, but if you just made it the way it was made then, it wouldn't be "making it today." It would just be a commentary on the past. Blazing Saddles attacked contemporary society. If it were made today, it would have to attack today's society.

You want proof, go see Borat.

[underpants]

11. Thankfully no- but it was a great movie

it set the standard of what you could do and it has been diminished since then-as it should be


"WORK! WORK! WORK!" I do that line at work from time to time- LOVE IT

[edbermac]

12. Absolutely yes! Especially nowadays.

There is racism in the movie, but the joke is all on the racists. In a remake they'd all look like a bunch of frontier teabaggers.

Even Obama joked about using a fake ID to go see it a few months ago. I bet he still thinks it's funny.

[Blue-Jay]

13. "The sheriff is a ni*BONG*!"

"He said the sheriff is near."