The Mel Brooks film Blazing Saddles is an unconventional take on a western and uses the satirical genre artistically. This film, out of context, is horribly offensive and frankly quite shocking. There are moments in the film which made me wonder how it was received by its 1970s audience. Upon viewing the film in its entirety, while reflecting on the racial tension which existed throughout the United States in this era, it is easy to see that there is a lot to appreciate. Though it may be difficult to approach these topics, especially in a comedy, it also is the best way to connect people. Everyone loves to laugh and this movie somehow transcends racial differences by making people laugh.

The first scene of the film wastes no time in getting to its iconic content. Within minutes, the audience is exposed to a multitude of racial epithets and the shock sets in over the desert backdrop.  This movie combines serious subject matter with humor but there are times where it is difficult to identify the punchline because it is all so devilishly humorous. The way Brooks uses stereotypes and fear that would have been typical of the 1970s, about a decade after the Civil Rights Act was passed and does so quite elegantly. Although it was not initially received well by The New York Times, the film eventually earned the respect of audiences of all backgrounds. Vincent Canby begins his piece with one gut-wrenching dagger, “Other comedies, like Mel Brooks’s “Blazing Saddles,” the best title of the year to date, are like Chinese food. A couple of hours later you wonder where it went. You wonder why you laughed as consistently as you did”. I think it is pretty typical for news media to be sensitive to public outcry and it was a safe bet that this movie had pushed the line too far. In his attempt to signal virtue, I think Canby missed the point.

The 1970s was a critical time in civil rights and in many ways, there was still a movement towards more equality between races. For one thing, the Civil Rights Act had just begun to ripple its way through society causing change and dissonance. This time was a period of important conversations about how we as a postmodern society would and could handle race.  Although this film pushes the envelope in terms of what is allowed to be funny, that is the style of Richard Pryor. I am a huge comedy fan of his and I follow comics who are rising from The Comedy Store today, the world-famous comedy club in Los Angeles. During Pryor’s time at The Comedy Store, he challenged the status quo and made a name for himself doing it. Pryor approached the mic with a certain authority and he had a way of making his point despite its controversial nature. In a lot of ways, The Comedy Store is what broke open Pryor’s freedom to shine a light on these difficult subjects. The documentary linked below describes the unique nature of the “open mic policy” at The Store. There were few places with this much artistic freedom in the world. Shout out to Mitzy Shore (Pauly Shore’s mother) here is a link to more information about the groundbreaking beginnings of The Comedy Store.

So why the tangent about The Comedy Store?  Well, Mel Brooks wanted to challenge the public with this satire on race, homophobia, and classism, and he looked to Pryor to bring the authority he commanded so well on stage to the writer’s table. The fact is, Pryor was the Godfather of thought-provoking comedy and The Comedy Store gave him the best and most liberal platform. In a safe zone like that, comics tested their audiences even further than what would be shown in mass media. It was not uncommon for Mel Brooks to make an appearance at The Store so there is no doubt he harvested some inspiration here.

Not only was Pryor a master of comedy; knew where to draw the line and he learned that on the stages of The Comedy Store.  In an interview, Mel Brooks describes his moments of apprehension, “The film is punctuated with racial epithets, including multiple appearances of the n-word. For guidance, he relied on Richard Pryor, who co-wrote the script. “Every time I said to Richard, ‘Can I use the n-word here?’ he said, ‘Yes,’” says Brooks. “I said, ‘Richard, it’s a little dangerous here.’ He said, ‘Yes.’” Of course, the He did this by combining the general premise of the typical western genre, which UC Davis’ paper describes as, ”…a combination of feature values: a moral male hero skilled with guns and horses, a greedy and unscrupulous antagonist, a struggle between primitive forces” and uses hilariously absurd exploitations of racism, homophobia, and other generally taboo topics. The paper goes on to express that audience would more than likely identify this film as either a western or a satire, ”These hybrids display features atypical of the Western genre. (Of course, most films do not fit this genre at all and are not considered to be instances of the genre to any degree.) In this sense, a schema for a label such as ‘Western film’ is a cognitive model that explains which objects are full-fledged members of the category, which objects clearly do not belong to the category, and which objects lie at”. It is pretty clear the Brooks and Pryor were attempting to exploit these out of place object. Many of the most humorous scenes featured explicit and outrageous racism even beyond the scope of what people might encounter in the 1970s.  The scholarly opinion seems to ignore that the satire in the film is exposing these prejudices that people of all kinds share by making the out-of-context, absurd, and exaggeratedly racist moments the object of the scene.

I often look at pieces of art of all kinds like this and wonder about the minds behind it. Comedy should take things to a new level. It should challenge the status quo. The only things that should be off limits in comedy are the things that aren’t funny. Comedy is supposed to challenge and shock the public but at the end of the show, if people aren’t left laughing then they’re just left shocked. It’s all about the payoff for the audience. And the payoff in Blazing Saddles is that this film is hilarious.

The Civil Rights Act

Mel Brooks Interview

UC Davis Article