Movie Analysis: Blazing Saddles

Analysis

“What in the wide, wide world of sports is goin’ on here?”

The authentic country twang of Frankie Laine in the title sequence gives Blazing Saddles the appearance of a classic Western, but within the first few minutes, the satirical nature of the film makes itself abundantly clear. The opening scene of Blazing Saddles communicates the setting and the character archetypes, both as they appear on the surface and as they will manifest throughout the film. Though the film explores this dynamic in greater depth later on, this scene establishes that the crafty underdog protagonist around which Westerns revolve is not one of the white men, and does not receive universal love and appreciation. “‘Black’ Bart,” central character and eventual

first black sheriff of Rock Ridge, begins as a railroad worker whose lack of social mobility forces him into hard labor (Howard 16). The white men that the film does show thus far act as a foil to Bart, especially Lyle, one of the supervisors. Lyle asserts his perceived control over his surroundings through a barrage of expletive-filled jokes, racial slurs, and racially-charged demands targeted at the laborers. This flood of controversial language sets the tone for how most white characters view the minority characters, Bart in particular, within this West of legend. It prepares the viewer for the way in which this film chooses to handle sensitive topics, race-related or not: by exaggerating them to the point of idiocy. Where classic Westerns glorify the white man in charge, this scene serves to make them look idiotic.
Bart and his rather abnormal “work song” of choice begin a film-long motif of defusing tension with something random and often non-diegetic in origin. When prompted to sing, Bart whips out a barbershop quartet-style rendition of the song “I Get A Kick Out Of You” from the 1934 musical Anything Goes. This is a bizarre choice for many reasons. Its placement in the Wild West in the 1860’s is about as conspicuous of an anachronism as is possible. Anything Goes examines relationships between rich white folk on a ship, with this song in particular highlighting their laissez-faire attitudes. Stylistically, this song shares few to no similarities with actual work songs, being a jazzy cover of a Broadway musical. The original performance exudes the ennui that accompanies the wealthy, a sentiment entirely foreign to hard laborers on the prairie, and yet Bart shockingly and beautifully captures the spirit of the song. The use of a highly-regarded musical pushes forward the idea that Bart has a bit of an intellectual head start over the supervisors. Its unexpected appearance brings about a distraction from the mounting racial tension in the scene, “reflecting on the constructedness and the ridiculousness of it all” while still adding to the chaos (Potgieter 349).
As a foil to Bart’s song choice, in the same way that Lyle himself acts as a foil to Bart, Lyle decides that Bart has to sing “a song, a real song, something like ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’” (Brooks). “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” has a long history as an actual work song, part of an oral tradition of passing down stories from the era of slavery and imparting Christian values. Although this song was what Lyle had in mind when demanding that the laborers sing a work song, not one of the dozens of workers recognizes the song. Despite its historical significance to black laborers of the 1800s, these railroad workers on the prairie repeat the name back to him as though they had never heard it before. Lyle’s knowledge of this song, as well as the laborers’ unfamiliarity with it, highlights a stark contrast between expectation and reality with regard to race dynamics. This role reversal through song supports the crafty underdog Bart narrative by taking historical intelligence coding within music, often associating whiteness with knowledge and blackness with ignorance, and flipping it around.
The other foil song to “I Get A Kick Out Of You” takes a more physical approach toward expressing which group deserves the viewer’s attention and support. After the workers’ lack of reaction to “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” Lyle suggests “The Camptown Ladies,” here referring to a minstrel song, “Camptown Races.” Following a tradition called blackface minstrelsy, pieces such as “Camptown Races” were often written and performed in a pidgin-esque dialect of English. These songs would be slurred by white people dressed up in full blackface, performing as caricatures of slaves and freedmen. Though the song itself remains roughly as present in modern popular culture as Anything Goes, its history as a source of entertainment for slave owners at the expense of the slaves lends a gravity to its appearance in contrast to “I Get A Kick Out Of You.” Where in reality “Camptown Races” had demeaned the black population, here it reinforces their relative respectability. As the workers look on, still puzzled by the choice of music, a plethora of white men jump around as if they are drunk. Lyle’s authority evaporates as he and his compatriots dance and holler, so focused on their song that they neglect their job. Lyle and the other supervisors face the consequences for not continuing to work, rather than the railroad workers themselves, all of whom have merely stood and watched the circus in front of them.

“Don’t be surprised, you’re doing the French Mistake- Voilà!”
As an isolated scene, the “French Mistake” musical number acts as a microcosmic representation of the rest of Hollywood during the peak of the Western genre in the 1950s and 1960s, in the same way that the main film was a microcosmic representation of the Western genre.

This full reversal of setting widens the scope of Blazing Saddles’ commentary from critiquing just the Western genre to Hollywood as a whole, and from critiquing just racism to discrimination in a grander sense. The song to which about forty men in tuxedos and top hats stumble through their Fred Astaire-esque dance sequence comments on attitudes toward homosexuality how the Western part critiques racial differences. From the lyrics of the song to the personalities of the dancers, the song gives the impression of being “somehow foreign (‘French’) but also ... unnatural (a ‘mistake’)” (Potgieter 351). The naming of this number implies that in this diegetic world, something about this dance number erodes at the respectability of these men. Dom Deluise, as the director of this film within a film, refers to the dancers, all men, as “girls,” “ladies,” “Sissy Marys,” and occasionally homosexual slurs, not in a joking manner, but frequently enough that the detail fades to the background (Brooks). This overuse of sensitive terms harkens back to the opening scene of the film and myriad of racially-charged words that characters like Lyle threw out without a second

thought.
As the fourth wall quite literally comes down, all hell breaks loose, and stereotypes and inverted stereotypes run amok. Unlike the racial profile swap, the dancers act true to their own predisposed character traits as men coded as vaguely homosexual, but they act out the most exaggerated version of that stereotype possible. While some of the dancers from “The French Mistake” attempt to hold their own in a fight against the much larger and brawnier desperadoes, most either flee or take some strange and unexpected alternate course of action. Two of the dancers begin a synchronized swimming performance in a fountain to the side, while another cries together with one of the desperadoes from the main film. At this point in the film, no one present on-screen is safe from ridicule, whether it takes the form of a pie to the face or a punch aimed at the groin instead of the face upon request.

Conclusion
Blazing Saddles rips apart the overused and sometimes harmful tropes behind Western films, and it does so in such a way that tropes meant to be taken seriously seem ridiculous. Despite the fact that, or perhaps because every scene contains numerous gags and jokes of varying levels of insensitivity, the film maintains a state of “anarchy laced with a certain coherence and purpose” (Hug 63). The film rejects the concept that the white characters are a stronger social group, undermining the notion that racial hierarchy as depicted in cinema is a universal truth. The satiric and hyperbolic nature of the film fosters discussion about the evolution of genre-specific character archetypes while never compromising its lighthearted and cheeky tone. At its core, carnival “[marks] the suspension of all hierarchical rank and privileges, norms, and prohibitions,” leaving behind a spectacle wherein all parties in the film stand on an even playing field (Hug 65). While the concept of a carnival sounds counterproductive, the chaos that defines it is capable of producing the kind of absurdity and mockery that can ridicule tropes to the point where they fall out of favor and fade into the past.