Hindsight

25 of the funniest film (sometimes TV) moments

#12

Actually, I keep cheating with this list, changing the title, using Television clips instead of 'pure'movie moments, but hey...I am still figuring out this blog-thing.  Today, I thought of a scene, from Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974).  It is the toll booth scene.  But, how can one possibly stick to one Mel Brooks' scene?  Well, for some silly reason I made this current blog theme about moments, and so gosh darn it, I am trying to honor that.  

First, we must have a brief foray into Brooks, and where he fits in humor studies. Well, for one thing, his humor cannot be separated from his identity as a Jewish man in America. He once proclaimed that he is "spec­tacularly Jewish," and added that many comedi­ans are Jewish because "when the tall, blond Teutons have been nipping at your heels for thousands of years, you find it enervating to keep wailing. So you make jokes. If your enemy is laughing, how can he bludgeon you to death?" Brooks view of being an anguished outsider underpins all of his films. Not just a 'fish out of water' but one who isn't allowed to join the club, even a club of losers. Brooks instinctively uses comedy to offer relief, from the injustices of prejudice, the inability to be included. Just like being black in America, those on the edge always know more about what makes the powerful tick, then the powerful know about themselves. Blazing Saddles is basically a deconstruction of a genre-the Western. The western genre, for the most part, promoted white euro supremacy and male authority as noble and good. Brooks' Blazing Saddles attacks, through humor, the whole charade. Brooks takes this outsider status and pokes holes into entire social cultural system. He deconstructs the 'normal' so, we can more clearly see the absurdity behind the intolerance.

Okay, don't say anything, but I just couldn't stick to one scene....

Dang...should have just shown the whole movie.  :)