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Django Unchained and Black Dynamite both came out within the last five years, on the other hand, so...
!2 Years A Slave was made even more lately, and was more blatantly racist than either!
But I agree with Mel. I don't think a comedy like Blazing Saddles could be made today. Racism is too serious now to ever succeed in a comedy. Even when it was ridiculed in Blazing Saddles. Mel is an equal opportunity ridiculer, and Blazing Saddles picked on rednecks, cowboys, and Jews too, all done hilariously. He even picked on horses.
Sure they could. SNL does that kind of humor a lot as do other shows of that nature. You totally miss what makes the movie so funny if you don't understand that it's making fun of stereotypes which isn't the same thing as making fun of the people being stereotyped.
Django Unchained and Black Dynamite both came out within the last five years, on the other hand, so...
Bingo.
Django Unchained was more racially provocative than Blazing Saddles could ever hope to be, and it got made.
I don't even know what Mel Brooks is talking about. He sounds senile.
For one , he made Blazing Saddles less than a decade after the end of the height of the Civil Rights movement when the NAACP was at its zenith.
I mean, this was less than 6 years after the death of Martin Luther King, and he doesn't think people were sensitive THEN!
Idiot. There have been plenty of movies that are easily as racially provocative as Blazing Saddles. You think 12 Years a Slave was a walk in the park? You think the Color Purple was child's play?
And what "great service to black people" is Brooks talking about? It was film for crying out loud. There was only one black star in the thing. Let's not get carried away as if it was the cast of Raisin In the Sun. Geez.
I love the movie and it was revolutionary, but if it got made today no one would give a damn...least of all a toothless NAACP.
It wouldn't be made because Mel Brooks' style of humor has dated badly.
Also because it doesn't have superheroes in it.
Agreed. Has nothing to do with political correctness. The type of Borscht Belt one liner humor that Brooks grew up on (that I love by the way) is outdated and most kids don't relate to it. My son likes the movie and he's 24, but he could never love the movie as much as I do and he's said so himself. It just seems dated to him...he thinks it's funny in a corny kind of way.
It wouldn't--not couldn't--be made today because the particular absurdities of life in 1974 America--that gave rise to the hilarity of certain situations--are not the same in 2014 America. Nobody would make all sorts of older movies, television shows, music and other art in our time because it wouldn't make sense to most people.
I'm 38 and I certainly like Blazing Saddles, but I think there are things in it I will never "get" the way my parents did.
Agreed. Has nothing to do with political correctness. The type of Borscht Belt one liner humor that Brooks grew up on (that I love by the way) is outdated and most kids don't relate to it. My son likes the movie and he's 24, but he could never love the movie as much as I do and he's said so himself. It just seems dated to him...he thinks it's funny in a corny kind of way.
Stuff like The Hangover is what sells nowadays.
I can't help but picture the interviewer's expression... trying not to let on that Mel Brooks is no longer relevant.
I really don't think that that would have gone over so well... it was probably best just to let him go on.
I caught Blazing Saddles on tv a while ago... I couldn't make it through the first half hour. I'm sure it was edgy in its time, though.
"All in the Family" couldn't be made either. Archie Bunkers blatant racism and sexism could never be expressed, even when denounced by the "meathead." I don't know what is going on, but for some reason, popular culture: music, TV and movies seems to have gone into the toilet. They just don't seem to be able to produce the quality of programming that was available before about 1990. Since then its just seemed to go to hell in a a hand basket. The last network comedy that really caught on that was pretty good was "Seinfeld". Now TV is mostly just reality shows and if a movie isn't an animated flick or about a superhero, most of them just don't do very well.
[MOD CUT/off topic]
Last edited by Ibginnie; 05-12-2014 at 09:38 AM..
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