2024 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Mel Brooks’ classic comedy Blazing Saddles, and earlier this month on the occasion of its release the usual suspects like clockwork all crawled out to ‘praise’ the movie by declaring “you couldn’t make Blazing Saddles today”, often backing it up by specifying the supposed political correctness or “woke” plague on Hollywood. It’s a statement that has been made numerous times over the years, including a few years ago by Brooks himself; and it has the effect of propping up Blazing Saddles as some bastion of raw, politically incorrect comedy from some golden age before the movies became progressive. A western satire that was meant to offend and surely epitomizes the values of American traditionalism. And there’s something true there -Blazing Saddles does epitomize values of American traditionalism in terms of actively subverting them. And it is indeed meant to offend -but not the folks those making this argument think.
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Blazing Saddles if you don't know, is the story of a black rail-road worker named Bart (played by a fantastic Cleavon Little) who is named sheriff of the small town of Rock Ridge as part of a ploy by an unscrupulous politician to sow discord and run a new rail-road through it. Initially, Bart does indeed meet the violent ire of the town of dimwitted racists, but eventually manages to win them over as he outwits the locals, the governors, and every obstacle sent his way. The film was released on February 7th, 1974, Mel Brooks's third feature film and first genre pastiche -ultimately so successful at undermining the tropes and fundamental dishonesty of the American western that it is often credited with having killed the genre. Brooks wrote the movie with a collection of other writers, though his most foundational collaborator on it -even though he left the project early into production- was legendary comedian Richard Pryor.
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And that black voice, Pryor's voice specifically, comes through in this movie that is at its most basic, about how stupid racists are. From the figures of power like Harvey Korman's Hedley (not "Hedy") Lamarr pulling the strings, to the country rustlers represented by Slim Pickens's Taggart, to the homogeneous frontier townsfolk -the customary sympathetic underdogs in a story like this. With the sole exception of Bart's friendly though alcoholic deputy Jim ‘the Waco Kid’ (an extremely dark joke that most likely came from Pryor), played by the great Gene Wilder, every white person in the story is either a sinister or clueless racist imbecile. By the definition that the right has invented for themselves, it sounds pretty “woke” to me.
Still, the overt left-wing politics of Blazing Saddles are lost to many who seemingly see the movie for only that one scene of blatant homophobia and the regular use of the n-word for comic effect. But of course there has to be more to it than that, otherwise it wouldn’t be so persistent an argument to cite the movie as a hallmark of good old-fashioned non-PC media. There has to be something there that actually does appeal to conservatives.
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Let’s start by really looking at the notion that Blazing Saddles is a movie that you couldn’t make today. In some obvious respects, this is certainly true. The western genre is no longer a prime relevant target for mockery (again in part because of Blazing Saddles), and a lot of the cultural references just no longer have any resonance (ask anyone under the age of forty who doesn’t follow film history who Hedy Lamarr or Count Basie are). The circumstances in which Blazing Saddles was made don’t exist either: the mere fact that it is a studio comedy, shot on a comfortable budget and on location -these are practices nearing extinction in the current landscape. And of course the fact that a lot of the brilliance of the movie comes from very specific and original creatives operating at a particular time in their lives and careers and responding to a cultural moment that has of course shifted tremendously. To try to do the same now would simply mark a movie as woefully out of date. And none of this has to do with the content of the movie -though even there certain things like Brooks’ depiction of a corrupt governor seems like too easy a stereotype now, and one that doesn’t really say anything or challenge any particular power. In these kind of respects, yes, Blazing Saddles couldn’t be made today -just as any other movie from fifty years ago couldn’t.
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But what about the n-word stuff? That’s what really seems to fuel this line of thinking, and it is of course absurd. Anyone can point to the fact that Quentin Tarantino is still successful, that period movies about racism still often tend to invoke the slur without any kind of hand-wringing to disprove that point. In spite of this I think the reason it continues to be brought up is borne out of two big misconceptions about the use of the n-word in Blazing Saddles. One, that it is used more often than it is. Having just re-watched the movie, even I was a bit surprised that it doesn’t come up overwhelmingly, and in fact there are several smart fake-outs around it instead, such as the gag of Brooks’ Governor calling Bart a “nit”. It’s not downplayed by any means, but it doesn’t feel indulgent at all -it comes up way less than in something like Django Unchained.
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The second misconception is that the n-word was more liberally used just in general back in the 70s. And I have no doubt that it indeed was, even perhaps in some of the families of those now making this complaint. But it certainly wasn’t a common practice in film, and you can feel that in the movie itself -the first time it is uttered by Burton Gilliam’s rail-road overseer there’s clear weight to the delivery, it is palpably meant to shock. Much like today, the n-word was usually reserved for movies on racial themes or coming out of characters as a means of denoting them as racists. It was already taboo to use flippantly by 1974, something that can’t be said for slurs towards homosexuals, the disabled, and people of other cultures. Again, Blazing Saddles itself demonstrates this, with f-slurs dropped in a more casual manner, less as a ‘punch’ in the dialogue. On this count, Blazing Saddles was contentious fifty years ago arguably as much as it might be today. Those who point to the n-word as the major element of the movie, the reason it supposedly couldn’t be made now, are telling on themselves -indicating that to them that was the movie’s primary attractive element and source of humour. When that was not the intention.
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And yet there is something to the way it’s dropped that can be easily misconstrued. As pointed out, it is consciously emphasized in the dialogue. It’s not all that hard to see how viewers with a similar sensibility maybe to the people of Rock Ridge could see that as the comedy aspect and not the characters themselves. For a movie so broad and outrageous there are aspects to Blazing Saddles’ comedy that are actually pretty subtle. Lindsay Ellis in her video essay on the film, pointed out one that had gone over my head as well -that the example of an ‘n-word song’ the white rail-workers encouraged the black men to sing, “Camptown Races”, was written as a minstrel song; and here fittingly were a gaggle of white idiots performing it. Blazing Saddles is incredibly smart with its satire, which it maybe doesn’t get enough credit for; but in this it leaves room for some narratives to be attached that aren’t connected with the principal goal of the piece. Though every white person is portrayed as a racist, it is a pretty simple kind of racism; divided cleanly into two camps: the villains and the morons. And there is a certain implication that the morons can be redeemed for it.
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The citizens of Rock Ridge are being exploited by Lamarr as much as Bart is -they are framed also as underdogs in this power structure, and the movie progresses along a path towards a reconciliation between them and Bart. After subduing the tough rabble-rouser Mongo (Alex Karras) through a Bugs Bunny routine, the townsfolk warm to Bart, and before too long they join forces with Bart’s black labourer friends to foil Lamarr’s scheme and that “other gang” of racists. Though the Rock Ridge denizens never lose their inherent stupidity, their racism is easy to cast as a character flaw that can be overcome. And it’s not that Brooks deems them as beyond reproach -this beat very much is meant to symbolize a kind of growth, but for certain audiences it dilutes the understanding of racism the movie operates under. Because racism is not a character flaw, otherwise everyone in Rock Ridge wouldn’t be so lock-step with it. It’s a symptom of larger institutional injustices and indoctrinated suppositions. The fact that it’s ultimately so easy for David Huddleston and all the other community Johnsons to accept and work together with the black rail workers is its own joke on their feeble-mindedness -how quickly they are swayed and without introspection. It further paints them as inherently stupid, while also painting racism as far more insidious a force. But not everybody will see it that way. It makes perfect sense that some white people, not identifying so much with Bart or the general tenor of the story’s themes, and seeing how little the citizens have to do to ultimately be “good guys”, will see a story about whites and blacks coming together to stop rich elites, and not pay attention to any of the surrounding context.
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Of course these viewers wouldn’t need any cognitive dissonance to accept the other aspects of bigotry seen in the movie, presented largely without criticism. Blazing Saddles has its fair share of problem blind spots -the kinds of things it would legitimately not be able to get away with today. I’ve alluded to the homophobia, but even still it’s worth noting how dated that Dom DeLuise corner of the movie is, both in the types of gay stereotypes and the overarching idea of gay entertainment. Related to this is the ever so slightly effete characterization of Lamarr, allusions to his own sexual proclivities, and that running gag where he is addressed with a woman’s name. Women are treated quite poorly by the movie as well -obviously the women of Rock Ridge have no agency, but it’s still troubling the mundaneness with which their possible sexual assault is raised. Those connected to the powerful are simply sex objects -even Madeline Kahn, sharply funny though she may be (even still, she is much better as this character type in Brooks’ subsequent Young Frankenstein). And of course it must be acknowledged Brooks’ own donning of redface to play a Native American chief in Bart’s flashback sequence. Granted, it seems intended to parody the trend of white actors playing Indigenous people in Hollywood movies and more broadly white America’s ignorance and disinterest of Native culture (the big joke of the scene being the chief speaking in Yiddish), but it doesn’t land with enough clear self-awareness to justify itself -and the “they’re even darker than us” line especially reads as tone-deaf.
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These are legitimate issues with the movie, or more directly with the pervading attitudes of the people and the culture that produced it, and they deserve to be interrogated as reflections of that. The exclusion of any one of those elements would not dampen at all the greater points or the structure of the movie though. They’re also not for the most part particularly funny scenes around the stereotypes. And it’s those same viewers who don’t see the larger meaning behind the film’s themes on racism who find the stereotypes alone the funny bits. There are some to whom Blazing Saddles is only funny because it uses the n-slur and f-slur and depicts a white man in a Native American headdress. It falls in line with the general track of conservative humour, where something is only funny if it does something to offend the undesirables -regardless if any thought or effort is put into the joke itself.
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And that more or less crystallizes why Blazing Saddles has shown up so much in ‘culture war’ discourse to the degree I worry that younger, impressionable folks will just write it off as some movie the racists like. Because as much as there are those who genuinely don’t get it, there are others who deliberately obfuscate its heavily anti-racist agenda to paint it as the kind of comedy that only reinforces their bigotry. The problem with that of course is it means pointing to just the use of one word or one unflattering caricature and ignoring the stuff in the movie that is actually really funny. It’s a hard thing to do, but not impossible for the dedicated white culture warrior.
“These are just simple farmers, these are people of the land, the common clay of the new west. You know, morons.”
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Whatever else you can say about Mel Brooks, you can’t deny that one of his greatest joys is making the most hateful people out to be utter buffoons. It’s by now fairly common knowledge that fascism and other ideologies bent around classifying people into in and out groups, cannot withstand mockery (it’s why so many fascists even in the modern age have thin skins when it comes to criticism). And Brooks is one of the great mockers in film history. Blazing Saddles, like his earlier The Producers, is merciless in how utterly ridiculous it makes out bigots and bigotry to be. He takes the perpetrators of violent hate crimes and turns them into cartoon villains without a shred of sympathy. That others can find common ground with the racists of Rock Ridge or interpret their slurs as jokes in and of themselves says a lot about them.
I don’t know that the refrain that Blazing Saddles “can’t be made today” is ever going to change. Most of those who make it are content in their narrow way of viewing both the movie and the dimensions of the film industry as they exist now. But every time they do it is worth calling out their argument as bullshit and questioning the rationale behind why they think it is. Because Blazing Saddles is a pretty great movie and even an important one for reasons completely at odds with their interpretation of its humour and appeal. In the end perhaps the greatest reason Blazing Saddles could not be made today is because there are still too many people out there who don’t get the joke.
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