Is Blazing Saddles racist? Not at all – it shines a torch on a nation undergoing a serious identity crisis | Stephen K Amos
Mel Brooks’s unapologetically in-your-face western spoof broke all the rules and redefined satire – it is just as relevant for today’s polarised world
As part of a long career, Mel Brooks created Blazing Saddles, released in 1974. For me, it redefined satire for the 20th century. The film was made at a time when America was in crisis. It had just been through the Vietnam war and the civil rights movement. The country was deeply divided and in the midst of a serious identity crisis – like it is again today. Against this background, and surely in need of a good laugh, Brooks decided to make a “comedy western”, two film genres that don’t traditionally go together.
Westerns were white American. Certainly, the earliest examples are propagandist. No other culture mythologises its own creation in such a cinematic way. One tried and tested western blueprint is the tale of the great white saviour bringing the savage land to heel. Blazing Saddles turns this formula on its head. Using greed and corruption as a catalyst for ownership of the town, Rock Ridge, a group of unscrupulous characters decide to engage the services of a new black sheriff, portrayed by the excellent Cleavon Little, knowing full well that his employment alone would trigger the racist sensibilities of the townsfolk and thus drive them out. A perfect solution. As predicted the people of Rock Ridge are outraged at the very prospect of a black man being the town’s purveyor of law and order.
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