I'm a huge fan of Mel Brook's legendary 1974 western satire, Blazing Saddles. I saw it as a kid and honestly can't remember how many times I went back to see it. It was a brave film at the time to tackle race as a comedy, no small part thanks to the great Richard Pryor who encouraged not to hold back on using the N word in the script. According to Pryor, "“When I thought it was getting to be too much, Richard said, ‘No, we are writing a story of racial prejudice. That’s the word, the only word. It’s profound, it’s real, and the more we use it from the rednecks, the more the victory of the black sheriff will resonate.’ ” Plus Mel wasn't afraid to make fun of Jews, Germans, politicians, simple minded farm folk, and homosexuality during the production number with Dom Deluise directing the "French Mistake (Voila!)". It's a laugh riot top to bottom. So when I came across this article from John Nolte on Breitbart.com called 10 REASONS TO BELIEVE THE LEFT WILL EVENTUALLY BAN 'BLAZING SADDLES' I swallowed my vomit and tried to understand "what in the wild wild world of sports is going on here". Follow me over the squiggly thing. This gets good...
First of all, his counting is generous at best. It's not really 10 reason, it's more like four or five and even those reasons are so fantastic that it's beyond the pale. First off, I don't recall events where "The Left" has wanted to ban stuff. He claims it was the damn liberals who banned Disney's Song Of The South and that's why it's not available on video. I'm sure he probably doesn't understand this is Disney we're talking about. I'm certain if Disney thought they could make money on it, they'd release it in a heartbeat. But I dunno, maybe presenting racial stereotypes might be bad for business? If he wants to know why it hasn't been available on DVD, maybe he should ask Disney why it hasn't been rereleased. He claims it's the same people who were upset over the slavery skit from Saturday Night Live last week. Again, he somehow doesn't understand that maybe portraying black people as subserviant could be considered offensive. The reason Black Bart works so well in the movie is because he doesn't take that. Instead, he uses his skills and smarts to win the town over and to show we can all get along ("But not the Irish"). I haven't heard of any ban that he's talking about. If he wants to talk about banning stuff in schools like creationism and Harry Potter books, I'm all game for a discussion on it. Along those lines, he claims schools are banning Huckleberry Finn because of the N word. Again, this is about as common as FEMA camps.
On a fairly related topic, he blames the left for the episode of South Park where some censoring was done as to not offend Muslims. Mr. Nolte seems to have forgotten that just prior to the airing, there was an attack on a French newspaper that ran a cartoon of Mohammed and people were killed. This also lead to death threats at Comedy Central. So we'll just blame the left for that too.
Then he lumps a bunch of reasons because the film makes fun of effeminate male dancers doing "The French Mistake" and compares that with Sam Kinison making jokes about AIDS, world hunger, and gays which he was chastised for. John Nolte obviously lacks context, no surprise. After having to deal with a Republican president who everything possible to deny that AIDS existed and did nothing to help, there was an epidemic of AIDS throughout the United States. People were dying of this strange disease we were still getting our heads around. So yes, Sam's jokes were deemed by many to be inappropriate. In Blazing Saddles, we got a portrayal of gay men doing a production number, but it wasn't mean. In fact they were proud of what they were doing. They roared into the now infamous fight scene because they weren't going to let no western actors push them around. Sometimes they even liked each other ("I'll see you over by the commissary!"). It's a ridiculous comparison. Maybe if Mr. Nolte would watch the upcoming HBO movie version of The Normal Heart, he'll get it.
Another reason why the left will ban the film is due to, um, global warming. Seriously, he says that. It's reason #7. This is a two-fer. First all, what in the name of Sam Hill has this have to do with Blazing Saddles? ANYTHING??? He doesn't make any correlation at all. He also seem to ignore that 97% of peer reviewed studies show that global warming is real, so basically he's just pulling crap out of his ass. While he's at it, why doesn't have a Benghazi reason is beyond me.
Then he goes on to accuse Charles Schumer and the left from banning free speech on college campuses. I don't even know where to begin on that one so why bother.
If Mr. Nolte is an aspiring film critic, he should be justifiably laughed at almost as much as we laugh at Blazing Saddles. Mr. Nolte is one long bad joke.