I'm a self-admitted movie snob, but not so much that I can't enjoy the good raunchy thrill of a vulgar comedy, when one comes along that seems to celebrate bad taste and intentionally push buttons that need pushing. And yet, I wonder, if in today’s overly politically correct climate, Mel Brooks would be able to bring his seminal raunchy western comedy “Blazing Saddles” to theater screens as he did in 1974. Now, it’s true that the raunchy comedy has always enjoyed success of a degree at the box office, and from “American Pie” to “The Hangover”, there have occasionally been films that predicted a return to the success of very explicit comedies, but “Blazing Saddles” seems to be a horse of a different color, as it were. The film’s reliance on racial stereotypes in comedy is still something that we as a nation don’t seem entirely comfortable with. The audience laughs, yes, but is it truly the laughter invoked by humor, or is it the nervous “this is the part we’re supposed to laugh at, isn’t it?” with one eye looking over our shoulder to see if our neighbor is laughing too.
Besides the racial component of the comedy (which was partially scripted by Richard Pryor), there is also a reliance on the humor of bodily functions that was not seen in a major studio film up to that point in time. Yes, I refer to the film’s infamous campfire scene. Can we as an audience imagine a world in which this scene did not exist? If so, would Jim Carrey had ever had a movie career to speak of?
Then there is the sexual component, most pointedly delivered in the persona of Lili Von Shtupp (a blistering parody of Marlene Dietrich that earned Madeline Kahn an Oscar nomination for the role). The name itself is a vulgarism, and her scenes with Cleavon Little as the Sheriff mine the racial and sexual territories of the script for comic genius. Gene Wilder, who would soon appear brilliantly in Brooks’ next film “Young Frankenstein” is somewhat wasted in the tame role of the gunfighter who helps save the town of Rock Ridge. Harvey Korman, as the unctuous politician Hedley Lamarr is gleeful in his litany of bad deeds, and his good-hearted evilness adds a lot to the picture. Brooks himself, as the goofball governor (as well as a suspiciously Yiddish Indian chief) pushes too hard in his scenes, taking the comedy off track and putting his own personality through too much rather than creating a comic character; it’s just Mel Brooks being Mel Brooks.
But here’s the thing about “Blazing Saddles”, unfortunately, when it isn’t pushing buttons on how far into bad taste we as an audience will accept in the name of comedy, it isn’t very interesting. There are plenty of missteps in the film, to my mind the entire finale fails to work as it has destroyed the illusion of the movie that we’ve invested our time in for the past hour and a half. The juxtaposition of the cowboys and a roomful of sashaying chorus boys is funny, as is their fight, but to me it seems that Brooks ran out of ideas, or energy, and just chose to end the film this way rather than finding a suitable conclusion for the whole mess.
If I prefer “There’s Something about Mary” to “Blazing Saddles”, it may be because I don’t share the tender affection for the old west in quite the way that Brooks’ film depends on to truly appreciate some of the humor. Or perhaps I find the Farrelly Brothers efforts at gross-out humor to be, ultimately, more successful.
The jokes this time still include humor based on bodily functions, but I find the Ben Stiller- Cameron Diaz hair gel scene a delight of comic vulgarity, but as gross as it is, it still retains a bit of sweetness, and gives one of the best sight gags in the film. ‘Mary’ celebrates adult humor, but it’s not dumbed down for it’s audience; there’s an intelligence to it.
Ben Stiller plays the perfect sort of everyman character, one who it totally believable catching his business in his zipper on prom night. Stiller’s grounding of his character in reality helps the wacky work done by costars Matt Dillon, Chris Elliot, and Lee Evans so believable. He’s the center of this comic vortex, and his everyday quality is what we identify with moreso than the deranged stalker boys played by Dillon, Elliot, and Evans. Dillon especially gets away with some very anti PC statements regarding the mentally handicapped, that probably no other character in the film could get away with.
Cameron Diaz as well brings such a clean-scrubbed girl next door vibe to her portrayal of the sometimes foul-mouthed Mary that we completely accept her as the ideal of a modern woman, or at least one who would unleash such devotion among so many different men. Diaz actually won the New York Film Critics Award for Best Actress in 1998 for this film, which I don’t entirely understand. It’s not that she isn’t good in the role, because she is, but the film itself is so lightweight and so gleefully vulgar at times that I’d never believe such an august group of critics would find anything about the movie to honor.
And finally, how in the world can I resist any film that ends with a credits scene cast sing-a-long to “Build Me Up Buttercup”?
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