by Isaac Bouyack
The film Blazing Saddles addresses racial issues throughout by poking fun at the ridiculousness of racism and prejudices. The town people in the film request a sheriff but they are disappointed when they find out that he is black. Even the nice elderly lady of the town addresses him with a racial slur. Then he saves the town from Mongo so the elderly women decides to apologize, but not without additional racism. She says, “Of course, you'll have the good taste not to mention that I spoke to you.” So even after he becomes a town savior, the community is still unable to accept him. The Waco Kid jokes, “See, in another 25 years you'll be able to shake their hands in broad daylight." This could be a joke at the expense of how slow racial equality progresses in the United States.
The movie not only addresses racism toward African Americans but also the victimization of several other races. For example, when Hedley Lamarr is putting together a gang to ransack the town, the camera pans over the line of villains. There is a group of Mexicans that are dressed in typical bandito outfits. There are also Middle Eastern men dressed in an extremely stereotypical way; they are even riding camels. Right along with these people are KKK members, Nazi Soldiers, and rapists. The line of villain characters represents how Hollywood criminalizes certain races through stereotype. Mel Brooks exaggerates this to a large degree in order to give it a comedic effect.
The film Blazing Saddles addresses racial issues throughout by poking fun at the ridiculousness of racism and prejudices. The town people in the film request a sheriff but they are disappointed when they find out that he is black. Even the nice elderly lady of the town addresses him with a racial slur. Then he saves the town from Mongo so the elderly women decides to apologize, but not without additional racism. She says, “Of course, you'll have the good taste not to mention that I spoke to you.” So even after he becomes a town savior, the community is still unable to accept him. The Waco Kid jokes, “See, in another 25 years you'll be able to shake their hands in broad daylight." This could be a joke at the expense of how slow racial equality progresses in the United States.
The movie not only addresses racism toward African Americans but also the victimization of several other races. For example, when Hedley Lamarr is putting together a gang to ransack the town, the camera pans over the line of villains. There is a group of Mexicans that are dressed in typical bandito outfits. There are also Middle Eastern men dressed in an extremely stereotypical way; they are even riding camels. Right along with these people are KKK members, Nazi Soldiers, and rapists. The line of villain characters represents how Hollywood criminalizes certain races through stereotype. Mel Brooks exaggerates this to a large degree in order to give it a comedic effect.
Sheriff Bart does this as well by representing himself to the town people as the most racist representation of a black person possible. He acts like he is very unintelligent and lacks basic grammar in order to trick them, but it is always made clear that the only fools in this movie are the racists. Bart also tricks some KKK members by saying, “Hey, where are the white women at," feeding off of the racist idea that black men want to steal all of the white women. Overall, this film makes fun of racist actions in numerous ways throughout and uses exaggeration to show how ridiculous they are.
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