The "social context" disclaimer of "Blazing Saddles."
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Ed Morrissey comments:
It’s often been said that Hollywood wouldn’t dare make Blazing Saddles in these days of political correctness. Now they won’t even show it — at least, not without an opening paternalistic lecture about the “social context” of Mel Brooks’ broad social satire against bigotry and racism. HBO Max has given Blazing Saddles the Gone With The Wind treatment, the Hollywood Reporter related yesterday, even though the two films couldn’t be farther apart in messaging and “social context”...
Harrumph! There is nothing so subtle in Blazing Saddles that its overarching “social context” could possibly be missed. Brooks clearly takes aim at all kinds of racist tropes in the film (as well as Western movie tropes), and sets them up for maximum ridicule. All of the bigots are either idiots or “eeeeeeevil,” as Harvey Korman describes himself and his allies in his hilarious monologue. All of the good guys are enlightened, and even the townspeople get forced to confront their own bigotry and take in all sorts.
Even the Irish, in fact. Now that’s enlightened.
Perhaps HBO Max has a big enough grip on cable entertainment that it can afford to treat its customers as though they are morons. Apparently they think that these points will escape their paying audience unless it comes in a delivered lecture...
That should prompt this reaction from HBO Max customers, who might say they’ve had enough of this kind of elite condescension:
Link to videoAudiences have “put the bigotry and racist language in context” in Blazing Saddles for forty-six years without ever once coming to the conclusion that it was advocating bigotry and racism. We worried that political correctness might kill social satire; now we have to conclude that political correctness has eclipsed social satire.
The real lesson taught by HBO Max is that people should buy their favorite movies on physical media, and watch them without interference from an industry that used to trust its audience a whole lot more 46 years ago than it does now.
