Blazing Saddles

We went to see Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" this afternoon.  This 1974 movie was iconclastic, dealing with taboo subjects like racism, sexism, etc., with a peculiar brand of humor that allowed Brooks to get away with it because you knew the entire film was a parody.  Nominated for three Academy Awards, it won none.  Thirty years later, we struggle to remember how this film played at the time it came out.  It was offensive then and now.  The humor ranges from slapstick to just plain stupid, and is politically incorrect to the nth degree.  This kind of humor will get you fired in today's workplace, and "it was only a joke" is not a defense.  The movie's saving grace may be that the black sheriff prevailed in the end and the white townsfolk sadly bid him farewell.  He needed the assistance of a white, drunken, ex-gunslinger to prevail, but he also needed the assistance of the railroad construction gang where he worked at the film's beginning.  Maybe it says something about the movie that the scene I remembered best after all these years is the flatulence-around-the-campfire scene.  The scene was shorter than I remembered it. 
 
I think the kids of the 20-something generation have a better handle on race relations than your parents do now, certainly better than we did then.