Posted on 03/03/2010 11:10:17 AM PST by Responsibility2nd
One of the finest comedy movies ever made was the Mel Brooks classic Blazing Saddles. Its a cult classic thats still aired on TV today. The films dialogue is riddled with racist, sexist, bigoted speech. The N word is used 17 times. Yet, 36 years after the films debut the N word is bleeped whenever its broadcast on television. It isnt because the movie was insensitive to racism in 1974. Quite the opposite. The bigotry is an intentional punch line at the expense of the bigoted. Sensitivity to mere words has neutered an extraordinarily important commentary on race in film.
Mel Brooks, like so many entertainers of his era made his living skewering racial, religious, ethnic, and social mores. Brooks, a Jew, was quite fond of poking fun of his heritage. His movies have lampooned Hitler, Nazis, and the Holocaust. It makes the N word seem like Sesame Street.
(Excerpt) Read more at bighollywood.breitbart.com ...
He said “The Sheriff is a-near.”
You could never get away with this today:
“doc that chin a days pay for napping on the job!”
“...stop dancing around like a bunch of Kansas City faggots!”
Me too. She was in a league by herself. Doubt most remember, but I adored her short-lived show ‘Madeline’ back in the 80s, Tuesday nights on ABC just before Hart to Hart.
“They lose me right after the bunker scene.”
Perhaps Mel is an acquired taste or too sophomoric for some, but like Monty Python, you either like it or you don't. There's no take it or leave it. I realize you have to stay young at heart to appreciate it, but to this day I can make my son — a tough guy Marine — smile when I say, “Put the candle back.” He first laughed at it when he was five and has never failed to smile when it's repeated.
Laughter and smiles — no matter how serious life gets — that's why Mel's our patron saint. I think he (and his lovely wife) have been a great blessing to many.
mark for later
The fact that you reduce the film to a fart-joke simply shows that you've either never seen it, or just don't get good satire.
"I wuz born 'ere, an I wuz raished 'ere, and dad gum it, I am gonna die 'ere, an no sidewindin' bushwackin', hornswagglin' cracker croaker is gonna rouin me bishen cutter! "
That is one of my favorite lines/scenes out of any movie.
I posted it in 53, I say it everytime I pull up to a toll booth:)
Don’t forget ‘High Anxiety’!!!!
"More Schnitzengruben?"
"Affairs of state have to take precedence to... affairs of state."
Another case of art imitating life.
From the fashions I thought it was set in the 1880s-1890s. Definitely the "Jim Crow" era, but not Ante Bellum.
Uncle Remus could not have been a slave since near the end he was planning to leave the plantation.
I've had three copies of Song,: one Japanese version (VHS) with subtitles; one UK (PAL) version (it was withdrawn from the market soon after I got my copy); and a (bootlegged, I'm sure) DVD version I bought at a flea market a couple of years ago.
Great movie. My kids love it, and the movie is pretty faithful to the original Uncle Remus stories, unlike a lot of Disneyfied stuff.
Since I have a copy, I'm OK with Disney leaving it off the market. Can you imagine all the bowin'& scrappin' they'd have to do to release it? Whoopie would probably be included in every other scene as a nanny-scold.
85 posts and not one mention of Maxwell Smart? Mel’s early work was pretty good as well.
I was trying to think of the title. Thanks.
“Please, baby, I am not from Havana!”
Just do a search online for “song of the south dvd” and you’ll find several sources for purchasing a copy. I have one. And as I recall, it was around $20.
The first two links on the search I just did don’t work anymore (one was the site I used, I think). But I did find one still selling for $14.99, a transfer from the Laser Disk, which is probably the same as the dvd I have.
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Funny? Yes.
“One of the finest comedy movies ever made”? No.
One of my favorites!
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