What does Obama have to do with "Blazing Saddles", the classic 1974 film by Mel Brooks, you might ask? Read on and you'll find out.
I'm watching Blazing Saddles right now on AMC. I actually thought about writing this diary yesterday, so the fact that this movie showed up as I was flipping channels has to be a sign of, well, something. Anyway, when I was a kid, this movie helped shape my understanding of racism and race relations in America. I'm serious!
Are there fart jokes? Sure. But the fart jokes made the movie interesting for me and my friends when we were about eight years old. It kept us watching.
Was the n-word uttered? Absolutely, along with slurs that addressed just about every ethnic group, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation possible. But these slurs were part of a story that had a much larger message, one with which I believe all of us on dkos (and hopefully beyond) agree.
Still interested? Join me after the jump.
This movie taught me and millions of kids of my generation about who are the good guys and who are the bad guys when it comes to race in America.
A quick synopsis of the plot follows: It's the old West, circa 1880. A black railroad worker (Bart, played by Cleavon Little) is arrested and sentenced to hang on trumped up charges resulting from a racist supervisor's abuse. At the last moment he is saved by a crooked politician's desire to drive out the residents of the nearby town of Rock Ridge. To offend the (all white) townspeople, the politican (Hedley Lamarr, played by Harvey Korman) appoints Bart the new sheriff of Rock Ridge. Without going into too much detail (I can't do it justice), the racism of the white townspeople is overwhelming at first, but they are forced to work together not only with Bart but with his mostly black and Chinese (and Irish, as one joke you may remember mentions) railroad workers to overcome the evil Lamarr and his mob.
Race and racism are at the forefront of the plot as well as the jokes, and the lesson is clear. Racism is destructive, both to the minorities at whom its aimed and to the relatively speaking powerless average whites who perpetrate it. The racism of these average whites keeps them and the minority groups divided against each other, unable to defeat the real evil, namely the entrenched (also white) power of wealth that controls the highest levers of government power. Only by the average whites giving up their prejudices can they, along with minorities, truly challenge the power structure. This is a radically progressive message, and one that came through loud and clear to me as a kid (in between the aforementioned fart jokes).
The coolest white guy in the movie (Jim, aka, "The Waco Kid", played by Gene Wilder) was the opposite of racist in every way. The evil nature of the real villains, themselves cruelly racist, was on full display as well.
At eight years old, I absorbed these lessons, and they (along with an odd worship of Robert Guillaume's "Benson") made me determined to reject racism . My understanding of race in America and what to do about has grown (hopefully at least) since I was eight, but the basic, gut-level feeling I had at that age remains.
Thirty years later, I am inspired by Barack Obama's vision of America. Honest about our imperfections, clear-eyed about the real impact of prejudice and oppression, sensitive to racial resentments held by all Americans, but ultimately pressing us to do what the people of Rock Ridge did in Blazing Saddles, come together as one. Come together to make change and challenge entrenched power.
So, as I watch the good liberals triumph over the racist elites in Blazing Saddles one more time, I can only hope that we give Barack Obama the chance to help our country get where we need to be.
PS-Did I mention that the movie's last few minutes has the greatest pie fight in the history of Hollywood?
