The whole point of Blazing Saddles, well one of the whole points of Blazing Saddles, is to make racism seem fekin' stupid.
I mean, 'Ok. We'll give some land to the niggers and the chinks. But we don't want the Irish.'
How does that make any sense?
But people think that way.
Is Blazing Saddles racist?
No of course not.
And if you think Blazing Saddles is racist YOU are racist.
In fact, I think Blazing Saddles should be required 7th Grade viewing.
The kids might actually learn something.
It's Blazing Saddles week hear at William Stroock dot blogspot dot com, so for today's TT we'll be tallying some of our favorite scenes from Blazing Saddles.
-The musical number. Best line, 'Watch! Me! Faggots!'
-The Klan scene. Best line, 'Hey where're the white women at?'
-Sherriff Bart's arrival. Bes line, 'Hold it men. He's not bluffing.'
-Bart meets Gov. Lapetomaine. Best line: 'Washington, Jefferson, [Lincoln] Lapetomaine!
Go ahead and weigh in below. You know you want to.
Last week marked the 45th anniversary of the classic comedy Blazing Saddles.
That film was revered like a Golden Calf in the Stroock household, where Mel Brooks was worshipped like Set or Kek.
We first saw Blazing Saddles when were seven or eight. It must have been among the first movies our father ever rented.
Our dad always said he busted out laughing at the first line of dialogue, 'Dock that chink a day's pay for napping on the job.'
Our grandfather said he felt bad for laughing so hard in the theatre until he saw a black man sitting in front of him laughing even harder. We had wondered about that ourselves until college, when we met a black student who loved the film and laughed at all the same lines as us. For all the talk of Blazing Saddles being a Mel Brooks film, Richard Prior was a co-writer. For all the Jewish humor therein we suspect Blazing Saddles was also a window into how black people dealt with racism.
