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Things that would never "fly" today
- Thread starter basscooker
- Start date
The History of The World Part I
There is essentially nothing in Blazing Saddles that can pass the review of the pecksniffians.
There are many people in our country who are continually looking for an opportunity to be offended at something; anything. Blazing Saddles offers a smorgasboard of offenses.
My sixth grade teacher, (1966) . She was known to throw books at us if we weren't paying adequate (absolute) attention to her. She broke a wooden yardstick on a girl's legs three times and shrapnel was flying, bouncing off other students. The kid sitting in front of her laid his head on his desk and went to sleep. She slapped him out of his desk on the side you don't got out of, said, "Since we have been so rudely interrupted we will continue our lesson" and went on with the class like nothing had happened. She was my brother's teacher seven years prior. He told me that the teacher made one kid get in a locker one morning. She let him out for recess and then made him get back in the locker for the rest of the day.
I missed every day of school that year that I could and still pass.
I missed every day of school that year that I could and still pass.
It's becoming a country of 'I'm offended on someone else's behalf'
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
original Bad News Bears. Tanners rant " All we got on this team..."
Blazing Saddles is available right now on at least a half dozen platforms, as well as the Sundance channel.
Of course it is, because it was already produced.
Today you couldn't get it produced anywhere, you couldn't get the finances. It is totally impossible to get a project like that produced today. Mel Brooks has said as much more than once.
There are already-produced movies that are in fact very hard to find, because they go far beyond Blazing Saddles in how they traffic in racist stereotypes. Birth of a Nation is one example, and Disney has clamped down on things like Song of the South (mentioned earlier in this thread).
Also, movies with white people saying *that* word, for example, are still getting made. Django Unchained is an obvious one. I love Mel Brooks, but I disagree with him on this.
I'm getting so tired of the misplaced moaning about "PC" and "being offended." It pretty much all seems to come from the same demographic.
When I was a kid in the early 80s, the karate/ninja movie craze was in full swing. Many of my friends had throwing stars, nunchucks, and knives. There was a store in our local mall that sold karate gear in addition to other things that would definitely be considered weapons. And they didn't care how old you were if you wanted to buy something.
My parents wouldn't let me have any of it, but I do remember eventually getting a pair of nunchucks with rubber padding on the outside of the sticks. And a friend of mine gave me a throwing star, but I had to keep it hidden.
My parents wouldn't let me have any of it, but I do remember eventually getting a pair of nunchucks with rubber padding on the outside of the sticks. And a friend of mine gave me a throwing star, but I had to keep it hidden.
heck we bought throwing stars every summer, would sharpen them up and get to work
Personally, I'm not moaning about it. I'd love to see more movies like Blazing Saddles produced. I don't think we change anything by hiding pointed comedy that points out issues that make us uncomfortable.
One thing I've learned from supervising people is that every person has a hot button, and much of the time the other person's hot button is something you personally don't care about and would never have suspected was a big deal to them. Therefore, by definition, you can't make a movie that doesn't hit any hot buttons if everybody has one. Where does that leave us? Maybe with nothing but Disney princesses and rom-com movies.
I'd rather that movies were made with controversial figures and biting satire in them, and let the box office determine whether that was a good idea or not.
At this point, it seems to me that this conversation could overlap into "trigger warnings," which is something I have very mixed feelings about. As a product of the 60's, I thought we were making the American dialogue more open to controversial thought and challenging people's comfort levels, especially on the university campuses where I spent nearly 40 years of my career. I think the same kind of thinking that makes satirical movies hard to make is also constraining conversation at universities - which is something I do not support from either end of the left-right political continuum. But that may be heading into a dead end.
As I pointed out, though, controversial movies are still being made. Django Unchained was a clear hit. "Pointed comedy that points out issues that make us uncomfortable"? Check out the new Borat movie, it's plenty transgressive. And Amazon says tens of millions watched it opening weekend.
It would seem that, more and more, well-reasoned dialogue is out in favour of emotional reasoning and dogma. Very sad.
Django Unchained, and Blazing Saddles come from very different places, to Birth of a Nation, or Song of The South.
Intent, and context are important.
There's a world of difference between a movie about racism, and a racist movie.
In kindergarten, they bused us across the street after school (super busy arterial) so we could walk home. I went to a babysitter's, and although there were a gang of us 5-year-olds for the first two or three blocks, the last block of my 9-block trip was solo. There was no 'government grass' or similar - it was just a very busy 4-lane with a sidewalk adjacent to the street.
I walked a mile to and from school by myself starting in 3rd grade. I'd be home alone after school until mom got there. Homework came first, then chores, then I could shoot hoops or whatever, as long as I didn't leave the premises. Sometimes she'd have me set up to change the oil in her motorcycle, or make a batch of bread by myself.
In middle school and high school, I always had an apple in my lunch. But I hate chomping into those things - always get skin stuck in my teeth. So my paper lunch sack included a paring knife. Nobody thought a thing of it. I beat up a kid real bad my junior year, but it didn't cross my mind until right now that I guess I could have used that knife as a weapon.
I walked a mile to and from school by myself starting in 3rd grade. I'd be home alone after school until mom got there. Homework came first, then chores, then I could shoot hoops or whatever, as long as I didn't leave the premises. Sometimes she'd have me set up to change the oil in her motorcycle, or make a batch of bread by myself.
In middle school and high school, I always had an apple in my lunch. But I hate chomping into those things - always get skin stuck in my teeth. So my paper lunch sack included a paring knife. Nobody thought a thing of it. I beat up a kid real bad my junior year, but it didn't cross my mind until right now that I guess I could have used that knife as a weapon.
