American Movie Classics is showing "Blazing Saddles" right now. Help me, I love this movie. I find it completely outside of all social mores and I love it.
In fact, when I was Coordinator of Residence Life at Lamar Community College, I used to keep Slim Picken's response to Dom DeLuise being the director on the back of my door.
How outside of good social standing is this movie? The N-word is used 17 times (thanks Wikipedia for counting) and is the first movie ever to feature audible flatulence.
I wondered if this movie could be made today, evidently it almost didn't get released when it was made for all of the same reasons it is offensive today.
Still, what it's a satire. It lampoons stereotypes and bigotry and punctures greedy politicians and their lackeys. This is still the kind of thing that needs to be lampooned.
Sure, it's a tacky little movie that made the AFI Top 100 comedies list at #6. It needs to be seen in its full context as satire and not picked for its language, fart jokes or Alex Karras punching a horse.
Oh, and while we're on the topic of language, I have noticed that television standards folks have begun to edit the word "asshole" by clipping out the second syllable. What is it in the word "hole" that makes that this so much more offensive? If we're going to edit for the sake of the children, shouldn't we keep the hole and edit the ass?
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