Monday, November 15, 2010

Po Mo in da Movies - Danialle Dube

Blazing Saddles

Blazing Saddles is a postmodern movie in the sense that it is a remake of all western genre movies including the typical stereotypes of the time. A corrupt politician, Hedley Lamarr, is trying to make a town's land worthless so that he can buy it cheap in order to have the train pass. When the townsfolk demand a new sheriff from the Governor, Hedley gets him to send them the first black sheriff. Hedley hopes that the new sheriff will offend the townsfolk so much that they will leave on their own, abondoning the property. The new sheriff, Bart, befriends the town drunk, Jim aka the Waco Kid, and makes him his deputy. Together, work to save to town from Hedley and to gain acceptance from the townspeople.

When the gang hired to scare the town sends in their biggest bad guy, Mondo, Jim warns Bart that shooting him will only make him mad. This leads Bart to find an alternative way of besting him. Bart goes to the saloon dressed as a delivery man and gives Mondo a "candygram" and walks away with his fingers in his ears and the Looney Tunes melody playing. When Mondo opens the box, it explodes in his face. When Jim congratualtes Bart later, he says the hard part was inventing the candygram and that he probably would not get any credit for it.

Another example of postmodernism in Blazing Saddles is when Sheriff Bart askes the townfolk for 24 hours to come up with an idea to save their town. When they refuse, he says they would do it for Randolph Scott. At the mention of Scott's name, the people become overly reverant and agree to give Bart 24 hours. In Hollywood westerns, Randolph Scott was typecast as the heroic Sheriff in 60 films and always managed to save the town in the end.

Finally, in making fun of all the convoluted plans in typical westerns that are able to trick the bad guys, Sheriff Bart, the railroad workers and the townsfolk recreate a model of the town to trap to gang. We can easily see that this is a fake town, but the mauraders are taken in by it. The Waco Kid is then able to steady his hand to shoot the dynamite from a long distance and save the hero's plan at the last second.

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