In this desperate moment of political despair and national crisis, what restored my faith in the future of America?
Fart jokes.
Well, not just fart jokes. Also racial, sexual and religious jokes. Not to mention the 15 schnitzengruben. (That’s my limit.) You see, I just saw “Blazing Saddles” at my local theater.
In honor of the passing of comedy great Gene Wilder, AMC theaters brought two of his best films back to the big screen: “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” and “Blazing Saddles.” So over Labor Day weekend, my wife and I jumped in the car and drove to Alexandria, Va., to watch one of the most politically incorrect — and gut-bustingly funny — movies ever made.
To be honest, we did so with some trepidation. We love the film, can quote most of it from memory, but wondered: Could it be true that our enthusiasm for a 40-year-old comedy could survive the scrutiny of a big-screen showing? (Answer: “It’s twue! It’s TWUE!”)
We also wondered what it would be like in America 2016 to attend a showing of a film making fun of nearly every racial and sexual stereotype. Particularly in Alexandria, a liberal enclave. Would the theater be empty on a Saturday night? Would there be protesters? Would a #BlackLives Matter activist stand up when Gabby Johnson shouted “The sheriff is a ni—” and denounce the film as a white-privilege act of cultural oppression?
I’m delighted to report we were spared any such gibberish (“authentic frontier” or otherwise). The theater was packed. And for any social justice warriors keeping score at home, the crowd was ethnic- and gender-diverse, too.
The fact that I have to mention this irrelevant fact is one of the reasons my wife and I wanted to go in the first place. In the modern era of microaggressions and safe spaces, simply showing up for “Blazing Saddles” felt like an act of social protest. When Mel Brooks says “Blazing Saddles” couldn’t be made today, he’s absolutely right. The multiplex screens might be filled with sexually-explicit gross-out comedies and gruesome, graphic slasher pics — but nobody’s going to make a movie today with white actors dropping the “N” bomb, or making jokes about people “jumping around like a bunch of Kansas City …” well, you know the line.
Lena Dunham and the faculty of the University of Missouri may call this progress, but not the multicultural crowd that joyously greeted every punchline with peals of laughter. We loved it, not because it was made to be anti-P.C. (a concept unknown in 1974), but because it was utterly unconcerned with correctness. It was just funny. Period.
Afterwards, watching the crowd file out, still laughing and smiling, I felt something I haven’t felt in too long: Hope.
Hope that my fellow Americans have not, in fact, lost their collective sense of humor. Hope that as angry as we might be over government and politics, we’re still a nation where regardless of race, creed or color, we can still laugh together when Cleavon Little asks, “Where the white women at?!”
TV pundits and the professionally-offended class can protect their phony-baloney jobs by harrumphing over every stupid statement and tasteless tweet from politicians and celebrities (“Hey — I didn’t get a ‘harrumph’ out of that guy!”) but that’s not America. We’re not a nation of thin-skinned whiners waiting to be offended, or timorous citizens terrorized by jokes — even offensive ones.
No, that theater was a far more accurate microcosm of America today: People who just want to live their lives, get along and have a good time. We’re not bothered by racial or religious differences. We live with them — and make fun of them — all the time, and with genuine good humor.
This isn’t about partisan politics. I seriously doubt Donald Trump will win Northern Virginia in November. And who cares anyway? In the past we had partisan divides without the insufferable judgmentalism we suffer through today. You were a Republican, your neighbor was a Democrat and … so what? We still lived and laughed together.
And for 90 minutes at a local movie house, it happened again. Brooks says “Blazing Saddles” is the funniest movie ever made. Maybe, maybe not (I’m an “Animal House” man myself). But at least it did remind me that the American spirit isn’t kaput.
Michael Graham is the Washington Examiner’s multimedia director. Follow him on Twitter at @iammgraham
