There are a thousand and one reasons why it would be hard—though, as Django Unchained proved, not impossible—to get a movie like Blazing Saddles made in contemporary Hollywood, from the declining public knowledge of the Western genre conventions it parodies to the general demise of big, mainstream comedy movies from the major studios.
But the idea that you couldn’t make Blazing Saddles today is not about any of that. It is, more than anything, about the prodigious number of N-words the film jams into 93 minutes. “You couldn’t make Blazing Saddles today” is the rallying cry of people who think politically correct cancel culture is a major force in American society even as the U.S. slides deeper and deeper into Christian-nationalist fascism. The irony, of course, is that were Blazing Saddles to be erased from memory Yesterday-style and then unleashed on the world afresh tomorrow, Elon Musk would spend more time crying about it on X The Everything App than he has about Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey having Black people in it.
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Can someone really be antifa after so gleefully playing Nazis for years?!
/s
Though using Django Unchained, a fourteen year old movie, instead of The Naked Gun (2025) or a few other much more recent funny movies… What the hell?! Blazing Saddles could absolutely be made today.
The real question is: why is Hollywood so full of greedy cowards that only want safe bets?
Because we only treat art as an investment vehicle. We need more public funding for the arts. And that primally requires less capitalism in general so people can afford to support the arts.
The real question is, why is Hollywood so full of greedy cowards that only want safe bets?
Easy question, the answer is unmistakably we need more gender affirming care for powerful heterosexual white men undeniably past their prime.
…you have watched Bojack Horseman right?
…you have watched Bojack Horseman right?
Modern day masterpiece.
Wait what? There was a naked gun movie made last year??
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God damn it, however did i not hear about this
Don’t be too sad about being unplugged from Hollywood. There’s a reason we were all surprised at how good it was!
liam neeson blew me away in that. i had no idea he could do comedy.
Art in capitalism only exists to generate profits. Executives only want to make money. No lose money.
I must say, it’s been backwards the whole time. Blazing Saddles couldn’t be made today because it has a black main character and pokes fun at racists, explicitly calling them idiots.
But who is telling investors that’s a bad idea?
People who think you couldn’t do Blazing Saddles today because of its usage of the N word clearly don’t watch enough film.
