this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2024
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Huh. TIL.
Though the actual argument for why you couldn't make Blazing Saddles now is the the entire genre it's lampooning is dead.
The humor is pretty much still fine and flies, other than Mel playing a Native American, but even that is still kinda-maybe-sorta-okayish-maybe? since Mel's character isn't the butt of the joke, but other than that brief scene I can't recall anything that watching now makes me cringe.
I think the Mel Brooks scene is satirizing old Hollywood's habit of casting whites in the roles of poc. Plus, I don't see how a yiddish speaking native could be offensive to anybody.
3 weeks after release Israel starts setting up fences around a small bit of Arizona and calls it the very west bank.
Missed opportunity for wild west bank.
Oh, that is much better.
You might be right, and maybe the reference to old Hollywood was more subtle and went over my head.
I think it's the fact that he speaks Yiddish in that scene rather than...well anything else. I can kind of read it as a comment on the tendency of the Western genre to cast white actors in deerskin clothing and feather headdresses instead of actual Native Americans...so I'm kind of willing to file it in the same folder as Robert Downey Jr. wearing blackface in tropic thunder. For that scene to be made today I'd want to see that point more clearly made, and I'd want real Native Americans involved in the production to be on board with it.
I think the big difference with Tropic Thunder is that the IDEA of black face is very explicitly the joke. Robert Downey Jr's character and the idea of black face is what is being made fun of.
You might be right that it's a commentary on Westerns, and it went over my head, and maybe because it was made when it was you didn't have to be as explicit with the target of the joke it was just more subtle. The scene certainly doesn't feel hateful, but it's definitely odd to watch today. But given how explicitly the movie is making fun of racists and racism I'm certainly willing to give it some benefit of the doubt.
Yeah the blackface in Tropic Thunder is very much in the text of the film. I seem to remember it being a direct parody of a Vietnam War movie where a white actor unironically played a black man, but I may be Mandela Effected because I can't find any references to this.
Mel Brooks playing an Indian Chief in a short scene in Blazing Saddles...doesn't really have room for it to be in the text, but given the movie has an overall theme of racism in Westerns I think the subtext at least could be there. Especially since this movie leans on, breaks, then demolishes and spills out through the fourth wall, it has that same "we're actors playing roles" mechanic that Tropic Thunder does. Slim Pickens even delivers the line "I'm working for Mel Brooks!"
Men in Tights, however...
What's wrong with Men in Tights?
They roam around the forest looking for fights.
I watched it recently with my kids and it was a bit cringey, in that the humor seems to be targeted at teenage boys. Spaceballs was much better.
Every decent joke in the film was a repeat from a previous, better Mel Brooks film.