Blazing Saddles Showing Prompts Racism Charge
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has apologized to a black student who during a class last year was shown a clip of the movie “Blazing Saddles” that features racial epithets.
During a seminar for working professionals, an instructor showed a scene of the 1974 comedy in which blacks are shown working on a railroad, according to a complaint filed by the student. Whites call the workers racial epithets and an overseer orders them to sing like slaves.
The student complained and the school’s Office of Equity and Diversity, which investigates racial discrimination, got involved. That prompted an apology in March from the Department of Professional Development and Applied Studies, which offered the course.
The movie is a scathing satire of everyone and everything. This guys an idiot. He complain about “To Kill A Mockingbird”.
Posted by Steve on October 12, 2008 at 1644 hrs
Let’s talk to Hedley and see if we can’t have that uppity, uhhh, “student” hanged.
Posted by Mike Gallo on October 12, 2008 at 1646 hrs
Every time I see the MKE county Sheriff I think about the line “the Sheriff is near.”
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 12, 2008 at 1737 hrs
Not too sure how to feel on this one, since we do not know what the point of the clip was to help illustrate. Knowing the movie fairly well, and knowing that the seminar was on mental health assessment and diagnosis, it is hard to envision and direct relationship. Further, the fact that the department is not offering the workshop any longer, is seems that perhaps the instructor was out of bounds. Also, more than one student criticized/complained about the use of the clip, so it looks like it might be justified.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 12, 2008 at 1748 hrs
1) Blazing Saddles is a really funny movie and certainly any use of racism in the movie is satirical.
2) What was the point of using Blazing Saddles in a class, anyway?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 12, 2008 at 1845 hrs
We are just one step closer from having to scrub any and all historical documentaries (Which blazing saddles is NOT BTW) of any and all references of black people.
Lest they be considered racist.
Americans are turning into such a nation of Pansies.
Posted by Michael J. Cheaney on October 12, 2008 at 1929 hrs
Really? I thought that Blazing Saddles was an accurate portrayal of the Old West.
Huh. Live and learn.
Posted by Owen on October 12, 2008 at 1947 hrs
Really? I thought that Blazing Saddles was an accurate portrayal of the Old West.
Huh. Live and learn.
Actually Owen if you are either an MPS student/grad or going to UW-Madison it very well MIGHT be considered an actual portrayal.
Posted by Michael J. Cheaney on October 12, 2008 at 1959 hrs
I guess we should not mention that Richard Pryor was one of the chief writers for this movie. You know - Richard Pryor, the very BLACK comic… This student is a moron, and the department has nothing to apologize about.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 12, 2008 at 2101 hrs
I love Blazing Saddles, and I love a conversation with friends throwing quotes back and forth at each other. But it isn’t a film I reference with people I just met, and it wouldn’t top the list of movies I put in with people I just started hanging around with, especially just a clip that may leave out the context of the full movie.
For some things there is a time and a place. Also, the further we move away from the time period in which the movie is relevant, the more the humor of the movie may be lost on younger and younger people.
Not everything is censorship from the PC boogie-man, some of it is just common sense.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 12, 2008 at 2126 hrs
Welcome to the 21st century where book burnings are passe’ but DVD burnings will be all the rage.
Steve, amazing but we are in total agreement and your example was perfect.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 12, 2008 at 2140 hrs
Notice how fast U.W. capitulated to this kid. The kid can be blamed for being over sensetive but the U.W. should be blamed for being stupid andnot knowing the facts.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 13, 2008 at 0057 hrs
What in the Wide, Wide, World of Sports is going on? If I were UW, I would tell the complainant, “Sorry about the up yours, sir.” Maybe we should get the church members to sing an apology to this guy.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 13, 2008 at 1132 hrs
Well this isn’t the most pressing topic but because I caught this movie on TV recently I just had this discussion with someone.
As a child of the 70s, of course I loved Blazing Saddles. It was funny on lots of levels but the use of the “n-word” wasn’t at all the shock that it would be today. The only humor coming from it was the “the sheriff is near” misunderstanding and, in Brooks fashion, the non-sequitur use of the word in more polite settings or from people who you wouldn’t expect to blurt it out. But the word itself was no more improper than anything else at the time…. and not that Blazing Saddles is a historical biopic, but the term or its equivalent would not have been too out-of-place on the American frontier, either.
Anyway. I have seen the movie many times over the years, several times on network or cable TV. It always used to drive me crazy when the censors would cut some of the funny parts. For example, in the 80s and 90s, if you saw Blazing Saddles on TV, the farting scene by the campfire would have the farting noises replaced with…. horses whinnying. Lots of horses whinnying. Kind of kills the scene, but I suppose farting was pretty offensive then. Or when Sheriff Bart asks the drunken Waco Kid what he likes to do, the reply “drink….. screw” was replaced with “drink. … saloon.” Okay, our younger viewers probably needed that edit, but still. I hated seeing it on regular TV.
So THIS year I caught Blazing Saddles again on cable, and I was delighted to see that all these edits had been reversed and the censored material was now restored. It’s now okay to hear men farting or to hear Gene Wilder say “screw.” I think they even let Slim Pickens use the term “shitload of dimes.” (This was a cable channel, and I think it was later at night.) But you know what WASN’T okay for the audience to be confronted with? Any terms that might offend some particular group or individual. All uses of “the n-word” had been deleted or altered. But that’s not all – even towards the end when Dom DeLuise is directing the dance troupe in the indoor set, any lines like “Watch me, faggots!” had been altered to remove any potentially derogatory terms.
So, in short, it’s now okay to have vulgar or perhaps age-inappropriate language in this film, but nothing that any particular group may find offensive. How the times have changed.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 13, 2008 at 1147 hrs
Sorry - I should have quoted Gene as saying “play chess…. screw,” not “drink.” That’s why it’s funny when Sheriff Bart says “Let’s play chess.” Duh.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 13, 2008 at 1150 hrs
God Bless Hedley Lamar
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