Mel Brooks: "Stupid Political Correctness" Has Killed Comedy

As many of you have pointed out, Blazing Saddles could not be made today.

Brooks agrees.

Asked if any of his films could get made today, Brooks replied, "No, no. I mean maybe Young Frankenstein and maybe a few but never Blazing Saddles because we have become stupidly politically correct, which is the death of comedy." He continued, "It's okay not to hurt feelings of various tribes and groups; however, it’s not good for comedy.

"Comedy has to walk a thin line, take risks. Comedy is the lecherous little elf whispering into the king's ear, always telling the truth, always telling the truth about human behavior.”

BTW, Brooks' humor was rarely "racist" or antisemitic itself. But he often featured characters making racist statements. These characters' beliefs were pretty much refuted by the movie itself; for example, the black sheriff in Blazing Saddles was much smarter and craftier than the "morons" who called him racial slurs.

But Social Justice Warriors ignore nuances like that -- is it even right to call that a "nuance"? it's the obvious main point of the movie -- and take the ineffably stupid position that any word or statement they don't like, even if the context of it is intended to undermine or refute that statement, is forbidden.

One recent example of this was the Social Justice Warrior outrage over the movie Passengers. Which I did end up watching -- it was okay. Not very good. Nice looking sets of a spaceship and some good scenes, but overall, slow in the beginning, and then rushed at the end.

The plot was this: Chris Pratt is in cryosleep on a colonly ship to another world. The trip is 120 years long -- the ship only (only!) travels at half the speed of light. But his cryopod malfunctions and he's woken up after only 30 years -- with 90 years to spend on a ship in which literally not another human being is awake.

Including the crew, which... well, this isn't very realistic, but the crew is all in cryosleep too, with the computer running everything for the whole journey, which makes you wonder: Why even bother sending along a crew? You'd think if you sent them along, you'd at least wake up a few of them every six months or so to make sure the ship hasn't been hit by a meteor and undergoing a catastrophic cascade failure. (Which is exactly what's happened.)

Anyway, after a year of being totally alone, and facing the prospect of living out the rest of his life alone, and after having (Spoiler alert) attempted suicide before chickening out last minute, he makes the selfish -- but desperate -- decision to wake up a fellow passenger, and the lie to her, telling her that her cryopod also suffered a random mechanical failure.

The Social Justice Warriors attacked the film for Pratt's selfish decision to trap a woman in his same predicament, just because he wanted companionship (including romantic/sexual companionship - he'd spent a lot of days watching her various video interviews, falling in love with her).

But here's the thing: The film knows that was a horrible, selfish decision. Chris Prat's character knows it was a horrible, selfish decision, and says so, and lives with the guilt of it every day.

The main dramatic conflict in the movie is all about his horrible, selfish decision, and what the hell this woman is going to do when she finds out he actually condemned her to live and die alone on a ship just because he was lonely.

The movie offers the same critique as the Social Justice Warriors -- this desperate man did a terrible and selfish thing to a woman to alleviate his own suffering.

Yet the Social Justice Warriors acted as if portraying bad decisions, and the consequences of those decisions (both to the woman he woke up, and himself) is the same as endorsing those decisions.

You can't really read that in the film. Yet they did anyway.

The did the same thing to the movie Knocked Up, criticizing the male character's immaturity and failure to "man up" and help the woman he impregnated -- ignoring the fact that the film itself has a critical stance toward's Seth Rogen's character, and the whole dramatic thrust of the film is about him giving up his selfish, manchild ways to become a real man, capable of supporting a wife (emotionally mostly -- she makes more money than him, but he at least now has an income) and raising a child.

Oh, and of course Ms. Magazine whined that Wonder Woman wasn't fat with a "real body." Despite the fact that Gal Gadot's body obviously is "real," and despite the fact that the character, according to the movie, trained to be a warrior -- you know, an athlete of death -- "ten times" harder than any other Amazon since age 8.

So.... yeah. I'm not seeing the likelihood of such a person carrying around an extra 80 or 100 pounds.

And:

When it was announced that Gadot would play Wonder Woman, audiences went wild body shaming her for not having large enough breasts....

Especially with the body positivity movement gaining steam, the film could have spotlighted female warriors with fat, thick and short body types. While people have said that warriors can’t be fat, some of our best paid male athletes are, particularly linebackers on the football field, and no one doubts their physical strength.

So it's "body shaming" to say she doesn't have enough fat mass in her breasts, but it's Social Justice Warrior dogma that she should have more fat mass in her belly and thighs.

Very nuanced take. (BTW, her breasts were fine.)

So yes, the Social Justice Warriors would freak out about a Blazing Saddles where characters use racial jibes and play stupid about the film's overall message. They stupidly outrage about things daily because it give them power -- and an income. Most of them are paid by media companies or political agitation groups to freak out whenever possible.

They get attention and money to play stupider than they really are -- and they're already plenty stupid for real.

posted by Ace at 04:56 PM

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