Is It Woke?: ‘Blazing Saddles’

Is Blazing Saddles one of the funniest big-screen comedies ever? Yes. Is it offensive? Yes, some of it. But is it woke? I’ll answer that momentous question momentarily.

I wanted to address any new readers. Welcome. This column attempts to look at movies, and pop culture, through the lens of “wokeness.” This can be a challenge since two definitions of “woke” always compete for attention online. The first is the original meaning: woke is an adjective that describes an awareness of societal prejudices and intolerance.

The second definition is poisonous partisan rubbish. ‘Woke’ isn’t even an actual word in this context. It’s an inelegant weapon, like a paintball gun, used to smear anyone who isn’t sufficiently loyal to conservative values. If you criticize bigotry, you’re woke. If you speak out against hatred, you’re woke. If you’re a business that wants to appeal to new markets, you’re woke. You get the idea.

So back to Blazing Saddles. Is it woke? Yes. It’s woke as hell. Mega-woke. Woke, woke, woke-ity, woke. It’s so woke Ron DeSantis wants to ban it in Florida (not true, but believable!)

Director Mel Brooks’ celebrated satire of the Wild West is a buffet of self-deprecating Borscht Belt humor, ridiculous sight gags, and the most famous fart joke in cinematic history. It’s also a movie with a moral center that joyfully — and righteously — mocks America’s long history of racism and oppression. Every minute of this flick makes fun of dumbass white supremacists.

Brooks, who co-wrote the freewheeling screenplay with four others, including the great comedian Richard Pryor, comes from a long tradition of anarchic Jewish comics blowing raspberries at authority. And in Blazing Saddles, a belief in equality and social justice undergirds all the silliness. And then there are all the racist and homophobic slurs, which were as shocking 48 years ago as they are now.

The movie starts with a bigoted cowboy asking a group of Black railroad workers to sing an “n-word work song,” to which the men, led by star Cleavon Little, mock the good ol’ boy by performing a brief, fabulous, Broadway-style version of Cole Porter’s “I Get A Kick Out Of You.” Their defiance is cheeky and resolute.

When Blazing Saddles came out in early 1974, America was exhausted. In a few months, Nixon would resign from the presidency in disgrace. Meanwhile, the country still suffered from years of racial turmoil, tragedy, police brutality, and riots. And just six years after the senseless murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, it seemed as if things would never get better again.

Brooks’ comedy offered a simple salve to soothe cultural wounds: belly laughs with a side of brutal honesty.

Here’s the truth: the good ol’ U.S. of A is where, traditionally, white Christian men get to say and do cruel things to those they look down upon and have power over. This is unfair and deserving of derision. It’s not complicated. The jokes Brooks and his merry pranksters wrote were pretty simple.  For instance, one of the most consistent punchlines is that white men who use slurs are greedy, small-minded buffoons. That’s funny because it’s true.

The genre Brooks subverts in Blazing Saddles is one of cinema’s most famous: the Western. I’m a huge fan of Westerns, which, initially, told an idealized version of the frontier to Americans when, in fact, the nation’s westward expansion was rife with violence, misery, and exploitation.

The plot isn’t the point, but Blazing Saddles does have one: the only thing standing between a small town and evil henchmen hired by corrupt railroad developers is a sheriff and his deputy. The only problem is the sheriff is Black, his partner is a drunk, and the townsfolks are racists. Will they learn to judge him by the contents of his character? Or will the community come apart at the seams?

As the sheriff, Little is charming and mischievous, a hero with self-respect. Gene Wilder is his second fiddle, a has-been gunslinger who knows the great secret of America, which is that it’s populated chiefly by morons. Wilder is sly, and the chemistry between him and Little is electric.

As the main villain, Harvey Korman is a scene-stealing sneak who gets funnier whenever he has to act with his boss, Mel Brooks, who plays a cross-eyed, skirt-chasing, money-grubbing governor. Brooks regular Madeline Kahn turned in an immortal performance as a saloon singer and hired seductress Lili Von Shtüpp. Her next-level schtick is almost the best thing in the movie. She is also essential to the greatest penis joke in cinematic history. Legend. 

Blazing Saddles is overeager to please. It resembles old-timey vaudeville shows that way. The movie wants to make the audience laugh and think a bit, which can be contradictory goals.

This contrast is a Brooks trademark. His parodies all mix high and low. They’re immature and mature at the same time. But what makes Blazing Saddles so unique is it never takes itself seriously even while cooly lampooning America’s two faces, the one that says all men are created equal and the other that says, no, not all men, or women, are created equal. This hypocrisy isn’t funny, per se. But there is power in laughing at the darkness. They say sunlight is the best disinfectant, but laughter is an underrated accelerant. If you want to burn something down, make fun of it.

Blazing Saddles is one of those movies anti-woke reactionaries hold up as an example of a movie that couldn’t be made today, presumably because everyone is so uptight and woke. This little thought game is easy to play: Blazing Saddles actually COULD be made today because its “woke” message is still relevant, and there’s a whole new generation of thin-skinned racists in desperate need of constant ridicule.

“Blazing Saddles is one of those movies anti-woke reactionaries hold up as an example of a movie that couldn’t be made today … This little thought game is easy to play: Blazing Saddles actually COULD be made today because its “woke” message is still relevant, and there’s a whole new generation of thin-skinned racists in desperate need of constant ridicule.”

I’d say the best comedies of the past few decades, from TV shows like The Simpsons to Chappelle’s Show and movies like Tropic Thunder and Sorry To Bother You, to name a few, owe a debt to Blazing Saddles and Brooks’ commitment to civil rights and funny faces.

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So, is Blazing Saddles woke?  

Evidence for: Blazing Saddles is anti-racist to its core, and anyone who publicly disputes America’s long tradition of treating some people like trash only needs to watch Brooks’ satire from the 70s as proof that it was ever thus.

Evidence against: Once upon a time, conservatives were the prudes. But the newest generation is all born-again shock jocks who live to offend the libtards. Blazing Saddles has the heart of an SJW but the soul of a dirtbag that wants to upset the Puritans. Brooks loves boob and genital jokes, for instance. So I suppose, if you squint, Blazing Saddles is anti-woke because it’s crude. 

Final Judgement: This movie is a classic for a reason: it’s funny. The only people who outright dislike it are either humorless scolds or members the KKK (or both!). Blazing Saddles counts liberals and conservatives as lifelong fans, but I’ve always questioned why conservatives love a movie that blatantly insults them to their faces. They don’t get it, which is pretty funny, too. 

 John DeVore is a sensitive and thoughtful writer living in New Woke City. His favorite movie is Fiddler On The Roof, followed by Hellraiser. Follow his politically-correct narcissism on Twitter.