Two events merged this week.
The last-chance (though not seriously employed) folly of shooting down the Democratic nomination of Barack Obama, and the death of actor, Harvey Korman (1927-2008).
Harvey Korman, among his numerous amusements, portrayed the Hedley Lamarr character in Blazing Saddles (1974, Mel Brooks).
The last-chance (though not seriously employed) folly of shooting down the Democratic nomination of Barack Obama, and the death of actor, Harvey Korman (1927-2008).
Harvey Korman, among his numerous amusements, portrayed the Hedley Lamarr character in Blazing Saddles (1974, Mel Brooks).
Brooks and Lamarr mocked bigotry, hatred and ignorance so mercilessly that 30-plus years later one almost feels sorry for the bastards manipulating and manifesting these imbecilites today—diseased pursuits of the American mind that have played a great role in American history and that soon will dismay loudly John McCain and his ilk as this truism of American bigotry is discovered to have been uttered by anybody at anytime in anyway associated with Barack Obama’s campaign.
Nothing makes a non-bigot laugh so much as watching Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn, Mel Brooks, and company ridicule bigotry into nothingness in Blazing Saddles.
One scene in Saddles (and you can pick among many) is set among the villains, including Korman’s Hedley Lamarr, scheming to drive out the residents of the town of Rock Ridge.
As the villains brainstorm specific methods of shock and awe to scare the residents out of their homes so that the villains can build a railroad through the town and profit to their huge financial advantage, one not-so-bright villain, Taggart, stumbles upon an apparent solution.
Taggart: I got it.
Nothing makes a non-bigot laugh so much as watching Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn, Mel Brooks, and company ridicule bigotry into nothingness in Blazing Saddles.
One scene in Saddles (and you can pick among many) is set among the villains, including Korman’s Hedley Lamarr, scheming to drive out the residents of the town of Rock Ridge.
As the villains brainstorm specific methods of shock and awe to scare the residents out of their homes so that the villains can build a railroad through the town and profit to their huge financial advantage, one not-so-bright villain, Taggart, stumbles upon an apparent solution.
Taggart: I got it.
Hedley Lamarr: What?
Taggart: Let's kill every first born male child in Rock Ridge.
Hedley Lamarr: Nah, too Jewish.
The villains decide upon murder, rape, and pillage as the non-controversial solution.
Pure comedic, political, and cinematic brilliance.
So, hearing of Korman’s death, one hopes for a voice from Obama that holds up bigotry, hatred, and ignorance with the same grace and clarity as Brooks and Korman, and that bunch, displaying the disease with such good humor and illuminatingly cool ridicule that McCain and his forces of stupidity will be left by the wayside of segregation, anti-miscegenation laws, misogyny, racism, and anti-Semitism—old hatreds and idiocies good for a great political laugh today, if only a presidential candidate can perform as a Mel Brooks or a Harvey Korman.
Pure comedic, political, and cinematic brilliance.
So, hearing of Korman’s death, one hopes for a voice from Obama that holds up bigotry, hatred, and ignorance with the same grace and clarity as Brooks and Korman, and that bunch, displaying the disease with such good humor and illuminatingly cool ridicule that McCain and his forces of stupidity will be left by the wayside of segregation, anti-miscegenation laws, misogyny, racism, and anti-Semitism—old hatreds and idiocies good for a great political laugh today, if only a presidential candidate can perform as a Mel Brooks or a Harvey Korman.
No comments:
Post a Comment