Movie: Blazing Saddles (spoilers)

I am probably going to spill a whole can of whoop ass all over myself with this one. But I've got Brawny, so that's OK.

I want to like Mel Brooks' parodies, I do. But starting with Blazing Saddles and just about everything afterwards, I just can't. There's plenty of reasons why, but let me jump into the really big ones.

First, you know what's really funny? Rape. Mel Brooks finds rape to be an unending source of amusement. If you were playing a Blazing Saddles drinking game and took a shot every time there was a rape joke, you'd die of alcohol poisoning. The movie can't go 15 minutes without a rape joke. Because rape is just so funny.

That's to say nothing of the sexism. Look at the female characters in this movie, look me in the eye, and try to tell me you don't see a problem.

This is especially ironic in a movie about the evils of racism, but perhaps even more ironic is the rampant anti-gay jokes. Not nearly as common as the rape jokes (because nothing could be), but still, day-um. Don't be trying to tell me that homosexual rights weren't even on the radar in 1974, because the sheer number of gay-bashing jokes in this movie gives lie to that. Now, you could argue that viewpoints were radically different 35 years ago and maybe that's fair, BUT it does IMO show a lack of critical thought at the time. Did Mel ever stop to think "you know, I'm making commentary on how wrong discrimination is and at the same time I brutally bashing this other group any chance I get. Is this problematic at all?"

So, you take out the rape jokes, the gay-bashing jokes, and sexism jokes, and... You don't have a whole lot of movie left. What you do have... Frankly, it's not funny. For example, one line that's supposed to be hilariously funny is the schoolmarm reading a telegram she has composed to the governor, in which she tells him that this "just goes to show that you are the biggest asshole in the state."
....
This is one of your best jokes, Mel? Because, see, I live in Illinois. To me, "the governor is the biggest asshole in the state" is just a statement of fact. (The whole Blagojevich thing? "OMG, a corrupt Illinois governor! Who woulda thunk it?")

There was a study done in the 1990s when shock jocks were popular that found that people don't actually find that kind of humor funny when they're alone. It's only in groups that they laugh at it, and then it's a shared embarrassment response rather than a true humor response.

So, since most of Mel's jokes involve throwing out something vulgar and waiting for the lolz, you should probably see this one with a group of friends.

The only good thing in this movie is Gene Wilder. And he does get some good lines. ("You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons.") But he can only do so much on his own.

'Fraid this one's going up on the DVDSwap shelf.