Funny story Mel Brooks actually did an animated version of Blazing Saddles called The Legend of Hank to prove that he absolutely could make it today.
It’s basically the same concept but with samurai instead of cowboys.
“Ain’t no business like shogun business.”
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 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.
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.
I feel that people who think Blazing Saddles is too risque to get made today are the butt of the jokes they thought were funny.
As a side note: I thought I liked Westerns because I loved Blazing Saddles. Then I watched a few Westerns during the pandemic and now I realize I just like Blazing Saddles. lol