Trigger Warning: Could a Classic Film Like Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles Be Possible in Today’s Toxic, Woke Culture?

“Comedy has to walk a thin line, take risks. It’s the lecherous little elf whispering in the king’s ear, telling the truth about human behaviour.” Mel Brooks

The Mel Brooks’ anti-racist, cult classic film Blazing Saddles turns fifty years old next year; “Kung Fu Fighting” was the number one song on the Billboard charts, Foxy Brown was a box-office hit, and The Six Million Dollar Man was the top-rated television show the year Blazing Saddles was released.

I was only nine years old when it first came out so, obviously, I didn’t see it until years later. As a nine-year-old, I was only concerned with trying to hold onto jumbo pencils, learning to write in cursive, and staying in the lines when I colored.

Blazing Saddles quickly became my favorite comedy. I’m glad it was released in 1974 because it could never be released in today’s toxic atmosphere. If Blazing Saddles was made today, it would go the route of Ghostbusters 2016, and we know how that turned out! Blazing Saddles has become the Huckleberry Finn of cinema.

A friend of mine, who has HBO Max, told me about the “trigger warning” HBO has placed at the start of the classic Western spoof Blazing Saddles. The “trigger warning” points out to viewers the film’s ‘racist language and attitudes’ throughout. I would’ve never believed in a thousand years that HBO would stoop this low.

HBO has fallen prey to the “woke mob.” They’ve tried to sanitize a “problematic” movie by giving it an ideologically palatable introduction. It tried this before with Gone with the Wind. The “explainer” this time is from the same professor who explained the racism in HBO’s reissue of Gone with the Wind, University of Chicago Cinema and Media Studies professor Jacqueline Stewart.

Professor Jacqueline Stewart doesn’t care that the movie is anti-racist in theme, her only concern is the use of the “n-word” and how many times it’s been used — 17 times. So what!