ipl-logo

Blazing Saddless: A Satirical Analysis

1959 Words8 Pages

The 1970s exemplified many changes in American society that for many citizens was unlike what they had seen before, and for Black Americans this was especially true along with the many contradictions that came with it. Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles (1974) and Jack Hill’s Foxy Brown (1974) subverts the character archetypes of African Americans and apply the broader experiences of Black Americans in the 1970s, through their protagonists Sheriff Bart (Blazing Saddles) and Foxy Brown (Foxy Brown). Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles (1974) is a satirical, western, comedy that tells the story of Bart (Cleavon Little) a railroad worker, who is appointed by Gov. William J. Le Petomane (Mel Brooks) to become the sheriff of Rock Ridge. The town is about to be destroyed to make way for a new railroad, a …show more content…

Their bosses then see what has happened, collect the trolly, and leave Bart and the other railroad worker in the quicksand. Although, unlike the uncle tom archetype Bart retaliates by hitting one of the men in the head with a shovel for not saving him from the quicksand. Second is the coon who is an “unreliable, crazy, lazy, subhuman creature good for nothing more than eating watermelons, stealing chickens, shooting crap, or butchering the English Language” (Hardiman, 13). They are often portrayed as one-dimensional or an object used for entertainment purposes to amuse white audiences. Little’s portrait of Sheriff Bart also overthrows this negative archetype of Black characters in film. For instance, in one of the first scenes of Blazing Saddles, the characters are working on the railroad. The white worker insists that the black workers, led by Bart sing a song. Bart and the other workers look upon each other and cleverly sing a harmonious tune that the white workers are shocked to hear. The white workers interrupt by stating they want to hear “Swing Lo Sweet Chariot,” an old slave spiritual, while Bart and the other black

Show More
Related

  • Brent Staples Stereotypes

    427 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Brent Staples “Black Men and Public Space” and “From Parallel Time”, Staples describes the encounters and stereotyping he went through in his life. In each essay he references several events in which complete strangers judged him because of the color of his skin. Although both essays discus how he was discriminated against and stereotyped Staples actions change drastically from one essay to the next. In the first essay by Brent Staples, “Black Men and Public Space” Staples has very passive actions when he encounters strangers on the street.

    Read More

  • Coming Of Age In Mississippi By Anne Moody

    1111 Words  | 5 Pages

    Anne Moody’s autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi takes place during the early days of the Civil Rights Movement. During this period of time African Americans did not have much say in society. Most African Americans acted as if they were deaf and blind puppets that had no reaction to anything that the White man said or did due to fear. Anne Moody, takes the reader through her personal journey, enduring extreme poverty growing up to joining the Civil Rights Movement where she found “something outside [herself] that gave [her] meaning to life”  (Moody 286).

    Read More

  • Horace Miner: Satire In Describing American Culture

    279 Words  | 2 Pages

    I think that Horace Miner was attempting to be satirical in describing American culture in order for other anthropologist to look at their own culture more subjectively. He calls the tribe Nacirema, or American spelled backwards and calls everyday objects by there more literal names, like charm box (medicine cabinet) and mouth-rite ritual (brushing your teeth). Miner makes us think that this is a Native American tribe to play off our thoughts and stereotypes that we may have. He wants us to think this is a tribe of backwards people when in fact he is describing Americans. For example, he talks about the chest built into the wall of the shrine that holds magical potions that no one believes they could live without and people seek out the

    Read More

  • Bamboozled Film Analysis

    1101 Words  | 5 Pages

    Although race relations in the United States between whites and African Americans have significantly improved since the abolishment of Jim Crow laws, director Spike Lee’s socially conscious satire, Bamboozled shows that discrimination has only evolved. Released in 2000, the film sought to edify the African American population about the racist and stereotypical treatments blacks endured during the Jim Crow era when they were used to entertain the white masses. Moreover, it also shows how that culture is still propagated today, with African American film makers just as guilty. From the time the first African set foot in the North American colony of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, race relations have always been whites’ superiority over blacks.

    Read More

  • Coming Of Age In Mississippi Critical Analysis

    725 Words  | 3 Pages

    Racism is a topic still at the forefront of most political discussions to this day. Even though large strides have been made towards ending the racial divide, there is still a large amount of stereotypical behavior that can be seen. In examining the book “Coming of Age in Mississippi,” Moody’s outlook on different races, and Southern beliefs, it becomes clear that racism played and still plays an incredibly negative role on the lives of not only African Americans but all of those who are subject to this prejudice. In the book “Coming of Age in Mississippi” by Anne Moody she illustrates with her writing and offers a very interesting look at the prejudices seen by African Americans in the Southern United States around the time of Jim Crow laws.

    Read More

  • Jim Nightshade Situational Irony Analysis

    118 Words  | 1 Pages

    The second most used type of irony used to relate to Jim Nightshade is situational irony. This type of irony is seen when it says “The boys stood alone among the encampments.” (Bradbury71), “so vanished the real army of people.” (71), and “warm food in bright rooms.” (71).

    Read More

  • Satire In Pleasantville

    568 Words  | 3 Pages

    . To what degree does the movie shed light on common or universal social and human problems? Pleasantville is a social satire written and directed by Gary Ross in 1998. It is about two teenagers, Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) and David (Toby Maguire), who are magically transported from the 1990s into a black-and-white 1950s sitcoms set in a perfect world called Pleasantville. The world where everything is simple and in order, but when David and Jennifer enter the realms now as Bud and Mary Sue and they do not conform to the idyllic vision of suburbia changes begin to occur.

    Read More

  • Satire In Napoleon Dynamite

    391 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the history, different medias-(Movies, tv shows, novels, songs) tackle the topic of teenage society.  Jerad Hess, the director of the film Napoleon Dynamite, used many satirical device such as Exaggeration, Parody, irony, to interpret the life of a teenager in Idaho . The representation of teenage society in Napoleon Dynamite express the ups and downs of teenage life and mock/ exaggerate the life of teenegers and other contemperoty problems and situations. The director's main objective is to exaggerate  and to reveal the covel changes of  the country through a point of view of a teenager and the impact of those changes in their life. The immigration of Latin Americans to America and from urban areas to more rural areas are portrayed through the character Pedro and his interactions with protagonist-Napoleon Dynamite and  other characters.

    Read More

  • Humor In Mel Brooks 'Blazing Saddles'

    766 Words  | 4 Pages

    Blazing Saddles, a film recognized as a classic by many movie lovers, brings many elements of humor to the big screen. The Mel Brooks film has many elements of incongruity humor, and it closely relates to Kant and Kierkegaard’s philosophies on humor. Blazing Saddles is a western comedy based in the late 1800s. It tells the story of a black man that becomes the sheriff, and ultimately the hero of a small town called Rock Ridge. Initially the town has a racial problem with the new sheriff, but they begin to accept him after he saves the town from being destroyed.

    Read More

  • The Notorious Jumping Frog

    875 Words  | 4 Pages

    In “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, the dialect establishes the tone between the narrator and Wheeler by having Wheeler tell a series of stories about a betting man named Smiley. The narrator makes a point to emphasize that Wheeler is a just average person and that he has little interest in interviewing him about a likely mad up story about a man named Smiley. This results in the tone of the story being nonchalant. For example, “…it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would got to work and bore me to death with some exasperating reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me. I that was the design, it succeeded.”

    Read More

  • A Raisin In The Sun Movie Essay

    469 Words  | 2 Pages

    Outstanding Movie Portrayal of A Raisin in the Sun Extra scenes in a film or story can make all the difference when it comes to being captured by a narrator’s work, and in the film A Raisin in the Sun based off of the play written by Lorraine Hansberry, the portrayal of true emotion and symbolism were captured almost ideally when it came to added scenes outside of the Younger’s apartment, with the exception of a few altered events, like Mama’s retirement. Foremost, Mama’s retirement in the first scene of the film provides not only a new symbolic perspective, but it may also seem to take away from Hansberry’s initial intentions.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Satire In The Devil And Tom Walker

    978 Words  | 4 Pages

    Satire is used by many famous writers to create humor and to criticize people’s unwise, and senseless actions. As George Orwell once said, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." (Orwell, 1945). People will always be greedy and think they are smarter than others but this is untrue. The one who thinks he is smarter or better than the other will always end up losing in life.

    Read More

  • Essay On Racial Stereotypes In Film

    1188 Words  | 5 Pages

    One of the most important events was the Civil Rights Movement which responded to a racial discrimination towards African-Americans during the 1950s (Berry, 2009). The growing power of the movement had much influences on American society, including on Hollywood and film industry. It caused a number of the large film productions began to involve more black casts and also shifted the representations and views of African-Americans in films (Siham, 2010). Things slowly changed thanks to actor Sidney Poitier’s arrival on several Hollywood scenes, and his name quickly became synonymous during the 1960s (L. Johnson, 2017). Poitier pushed Hollywood’s boundaries of racial integration in film even further (Siham, 2010).

    Read More

  • Audiovisual Humor And Ironic Analysis

    552 Words  | 3 Pages

    Both parts of this clip would best be classified as using audiovisual humor as it uses a combination of visual and aural features. In the first part of the clip [proposal], there is an incongruous mismatch and irony that is concurrent, as we can see Joel with chocolates and flowers calling out to his girlfriend, but we also hear and later see that she is sleeping with someone else. The humor in both parts of the clip is self-contained, as you do not need to have knowledge of the other parts of the movie narrative to understand that he was going to propose, that his girlfriend is cheating on him, and that is he wandering the streets and at a bar because of this. The “you can say it again”/”tell me about it” joke is also self-contained as they do not require prior knowledge to understand. This joke is also

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Being Earnest Satire Analysis

    1876 Words  | 8 Pages

    While many have been familiar with the title of the play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, one should also pay attention to its subtitle, ‘trivial comedy for serious people’. The play is a satire that ridicules the upper class to point out its fault (Kreuz and Roberts 100).The aim is to ridicule the ‘serious people’, members of the upper class in Victorian society. The characters were too attentive to social propriety and etiquette, which were as trivial as the comedy suggests in the eyes of Wilde. As they were too stubborn to alter the behaviour, the propriety and etiquette became superficial and meaningless. Their idleness and hypocrisy are other points at which Wilde recurrently mock in the play.

    Read More

More about Blazing Saddless: A Satirical Analysis

Open Document