Just wanted to say, the metaphor at the heart of this review is simply inspired, and well done.
Also wanted to say, that since Richard Pryor was one of the writers on the film, the creator was very much \"in\" on the racial context of the jokes and the use of the \"N-word.\" Will also say that Mel Brooks is no slouch when it comes to recognizing the dangers of dehumanizing a social or ethnic group. He is as anti-fascist as they come.
Interesting thing, if my memory serves me correctly, I don\'t believe the F-Bomb is ever used in Blazing Saddles. I remember watching \"All the President\'s Men\" in the theater and being a bit annoyed that every other sentence in that movie had an \"F\'ing\" something in it and the the supposedly rude and crude \"Blazing Saddles\" never used. Someone can tell me if I am remembering incorrectly. :-)
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The Watchmen of Crude Comedy
When this movie was released, in 1974, it was unprecedentedly vulgar. Today, it may not seem that way as much as, except for the racial humor, everything this movie was pioneering (the cuss comedy, the sex comedy, the fart jokes) has become mainstream, or at least a prominent tributary. But Seinfeld is not unfunny, the movie still holds up to this day.
Part of that is its unabashed over-the-topness (for instance, the fart joke of the movie is not just one little "poot", but rather a full scene of almost nothing but rip-roaring raspberries), which makes this movie essentially Crosses the Line Twice: The Movie. And part of that is the sense of an utter lack of malice. Character stereotypes abound and the n-word is thrown around like confetti, but the latter is done only by vile villainous characters who clearly are not supposed to be, and the latter range between the Affectionate Parody end of things and just off-kilter enough that you can tell the creator was in on the joke (for instance, the Indians are clearly non-Native actors in Halloween-level costumes, which would be a bit offensive... except they're also speaking Yiddish, which pushes things into a surrealist realm where it's clear that the creator knew what they were doing had only the loosest basis in reality).
Like the slew of angsty, violent superhero books that followed in the wake of Alan Moore's boundary-pushing work, aping its novelty while ignoring its nuances, much of modern entertainment follows in the spiritual footsteps of Blazing Saddles, from fart jokes to cluster f-bombs. But they tend to play the crude comedy safer, and meaner. It may be a less direct than between Watchmen and its inspirees, but the analogy still holds, both works reflecting the modern landscape, while also holding up in a way that only a true innovator can.