Mel Brooks has repeatedly said that the reason he mocks Hitler so much is because he thinks Hitler hated being mocked, and he hopes Hitler is in hell somewhere hearing people laugh at him and at his ideas.
It's a common theme with authoritarians and their followers. The authoritarians hate being mocked, and their followers hate the mockery of their leaders.
During WW2 the british edited footage of the german army marching and made them dance to the "lambeth walk", a jazz song the nazis deemed "degenarate". The archives say that when Goebbels watched the video, he went out of the room swearing at the video. Hitler might have reacted the same way
Our high school had to take out all references to race when putting on a production of Hairspray. It was so ridiculous because no one understood that the whole point of the musical was to say racism is bad, not good. It just became a show about someone wanting to dance.
Could be worse. Could be trying to take the race outta Ragtime. No, my school didn’t do that, but I was worried. They DID cut all but one of the instances of white people saying the n word, but I mean... fair enough. The guy who absolutely needed to for the plot had his name kept off the program because he was so uncomfortable with it.
I hate it when anyone or anything does this. It removes the whole point of whatever is being made safer for general audiences(in your case, parents) Like, in 10 years people will probably make Joker but kid friendly. What a god damn fiasco that will be, like these things always are. I am sorry for you though.
Thank you for remembering to mention the Jewish tradition of folklore and humor at the expense of oppressive, anti-Semitic regimes. It's something that gets glossed over a lot when talking about the nature of Mel Brooks' comedy, and it's a genre and history that makes the comedy/weapon connection much clearer than most modern satire.
It's pretty interesting just how common anti-semitism has been throughout history and how the jewish people/culture has managed to survive through all that. And also just how unknown it all is.
@@VarvasNukka it's a tribute to a largely impoverished and oppressed people. It's just jaw droppingly lame to have so much world history unknown today and that has a lot to do with anti-semitism in western culture.
People comparing their own crap offensive jokes to Mel Brooks is a bit like when pseudo-scientists compare themselves to Galileo. Galileo wasn't great BECAUSE his views were rejected... he was great because his views were correct. And Mel Brooks isn't great BECAUSE his comedy was offensive... he is great because he's really fucking funny!
Compare Brooks offensive, to, say, the 'Censored Eleven' Loony Toons. These movies are funny as hell. Those offensive Loony Toons, while they may have a few amusing moments in the gags, are literally nothing you can;t find recycled from/into other, less offensive episodes, and most of the individual shorts don't even have those lackluster moments to shine.
Gonna drop a comment on a video that's 4 years old because this is one the best damn things I've ever seen. Thanks for knocking this perfectly directly out of the park
I honestly don't know what I'm more impressed with, the depth of this analysis or the fact that you somehow managed to make a Phantom of the Opera reference.
I am consistently thrilled by how you've transcended the standard UA-cam reviewer and are contributing to expanding people's understanding of film as a business and an art form... Thank you for making me think about fun stuff.
I just love me to learn some new stuff. I specially like what I've learned about editing from foldable human and film language by Lindsay. It made me rethink completely how I saw movies, understand them better, appreceatte them better. specially the work behind them, some movies are just so incredible.
I completely agree. UA-cam is filled with "movie-reviewers" and that is fine but most don't really do any analysis of the media. You really do deserve more subs.
Lindsay content got waaaaay better when she left channel awesome/tgwtg. And props to her on not hiding her political views. Nowadays paying dancers to hold anti semitic banners and then hiding behind "edgy shock value humor" as if its an aegis earns you rep on youtube, meanwhile pointing out that is wrong might earn you a bunch of teens being whiny and a ton of downvotes.
I still enjoy Channel Awesome but I enjoy it differently than I enjoy Lindsay's videos. One is pure entertainment and one is entertaining education. I think RedLetterMedia does a good job of being in the middle.
There's an old legend about Mel Brooks' time in the war. During the Battle of the Bulge, the Nazis would blare music by well-known German composers across the front lines. So one time, Brooks commandeered a PA system and started blaring music by famous Jewish composers back at them.
I remember reading that he broadcast Al Jolson back to them. Jolson of course, was a Jewish singer and civil rights advocate. I wonder if anyone’s ever asked him about that?
@@AtheistDD : It would be in the favor a Jewish people if the nazis had played it because it would be an awkward moment only for the nazis. But then maybe not, because one has to be self aware to feel awkward about such a thing. We're talking about a group of people (racists) who have let their unfounded fear turn to hatred, causing them to be so delusional they actually accepted a leader who was closer in race to those they persecuted, than those they believed to be superior. Hans Frank, hitlers personal lawyer stated hitlers grandfather likely was a Jewish man. But regardless of whether or not this is true, hitler so obviously wasn't the blue eyed and blonde embodiment of the so-called _"master race"_ by any stretch of the imagination. This clearly show just how intrinsically delusional the mind of a racist is. And that's even before you consider what white supremacists in the U.S. did when the then conservative-democrat party voted *for* civil rights. They all got so upset by this that within a few years the republican party was turned onto the conservative party. Despite the fact that the then left-wing-republican party had voted even *more in favor* of civil rights than had the then right-wing-democrats. That's why Lincoln was a republican. They were the left-wing before the delusional racists were all ignorantly fawning over them after 1964's civil rights amendment was enacted. This also further proves that these days the republican party is intrinsically racist. But the fact the parties switched sides so easily also proves beyond all reasonable doubt that both parties are two sides of the same coin of oppression, and that most politicians could care less about the issues as long as they're getting the votes that keep them in power and thereby rich.
If this is true, I know this is probably not how it went down, but I love the idea that popped into my head of klezmer suddenly being blasted across a WWII battlefield.
I'm not gonna lie: I clicked on this thinking it said Mel Gibson and thought "this is gonna be scary." But as soon as I realized it was Mel Brooks I went, "Okay, now I'm confused. Better listen."
Many excellent points. My favorite part is when Lindsey shows how neo-nazis love the movies/media/songs intended to demonstrate how bad that life is/was, but none of them are singing "Springtime for Hitler".
Mighty Fiction, you've spent a lot of time playing Devil's Advocate and trying (and failing) to create equivalnecy between Nazis and those who oppose them. What's up with that?
@@The_Mighty_Fiction I believe the hilarious thing is that they won't adapt it, they will be openly ridiculized for that if they do, so they won't, adopt it will give them no power. Is part for their ideology to reject that kind of representation after all. Your question is close to "can a vegan be a vegan if they eat meat regularly? "
Another film/album that I can think of that condemns fascism, but became an anthem for fascists was Pink Floyd's The Wall (specifically In the Flesh part two and the overall imagery of the world of the wall). It also doesn't help that they hired actual neo-nazis as extras. Edit: proceed to my next comment. Sorry for generalizing.
“Satire needs to be making a statement about the thing it’s satirizing, or else it’s bad satire.” This pretty much describes a certain critic who will not be named from a certain channel which will not be named.
Speaking of a critic who won’t be named, That Describes perfectly a certain review of the film adaptation of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, a satire with nothing to say.
"You can't make __________ movies anymore." is a REALLY effective abbreviation of "I don't go too far out of my way to find interesting entertainment." Also watching Gene Wilder crack up Cleavon Little is truly timeless.
Can you please let me know some good newer movies of this type besides Jojo Rabbit. I already saw that one and I wanna see others I may have missed. Thanks
@@gruntildavonbigglesworth734 American Psycho is a satire on 80's culture and masculinity and I would add Get out to that list as well since its a satire on modern racism
@@athenajaxon2397 Todd Phillips? Oh the guy that got accused of perpetuating white supremacy and toxic masculine culture that the media went after hard saying his movie would inspire violence on women and minorities? Gee I have no idea why he would resent that. th
@@athenajaxon2397Yea I know American Psycho but thats 20 years ago. I meant newer movies. It seems the past few years movies just seem really tame but I'm glad jojo rabbit got made. We need more like it thats for sure
Mori no Majou I wasn’t meaning it in a way of “being offended is weakness”, I meant that by not being offended by it, I’m robbing the insult of its harmful intent - deconstructing the word itself by focusing less on why it was hurtful and instead showing a callous disregard to the hate thrown at me. I don’t expect everyone to share that outlook, but don’t mistake my inoffense for carelessness
It's interesting that you brought up satire being taken literally, and even positively, by the people being satirized. I remember when the Colbert Report was still on, a lot of my conservative friends and family used to take things that his character said that were meant to be jokes and hold them up as a "Damn right, listen to this!" sort of object. And I see it all the time today especially-- satirical depictions of Trump, for instance, that are obviously meant to poke fun at his bombastic narcissism are often shared by his more ardent supporters because a lot of the things that get satirized about him are the reasons a lot of them voted for him. While most of us are disgusted by his behavior, many in his base *love* it, so the satire is either lost on them or deliberately tossed out the window. They don't see the exaggeration as a joke, they see it as a glorification.
Samuel Zuccati subjective morality 🤷♀️. People just have to learn perspective - both the fact that theirs is only one in an ocean of perspectives, and that there’s no total, absolute moral perspective so we should just help each other instead of hurting others based on what they think is good.
Nicholas Brown it’s actually a sorta flawed point tho cuz “help everyone no matter your morals” is a moral in of itself that I’m saying all people should follow - which means I’m forcing my authoritarian perspective on others, no matter the benevolence of the idea. I need to get my head out of the anarchist philosopher books lol
I know this is late and I'm not sure if others have already said. Tomorrow Belongs to Me was a hit with Neo Nazi groups until they found out the song was written by two Jewish men.
I once met a Canadian girl on the internet. Blonde haired and blue eyed. That didn't really stick out to me until I found out her boyfriend was a neo-nazi. Being black, I stepped away from that situation. However, I noticed that listed under his favorite movies on Facebook was American History X. A movie that I liked and understood the point of even seeing it as a pre-teen. I found the whole situation pretty funny. I had never heard of the name for the satire paradox but it's sure been lingering in my mind since that day.
I didn't quite get until I saw this movie -- the draw for the neo nazis was the camaraderie between them. I can understand the danger that people will focus on this, and downplay the fact that the main characters' family is being torn apart.
I suspect many people who have a tendency to actually think about stuff probably know of the satire paradox even if they don't know the term. I discovered it first hand in high school where with some projects and presentations I attempted to satire some things I rather disliked, such as shallowness, greed, apathy towards people. And I learned just how hard satire can be. You are walking a fine line of just openly stating "this is a bad thing" and having your audience put up their guards, or being too subtle and having people embrace what you made to _support_ the things you thought you were mocking. Or you might be rather clumsy and wind up insulting the wrong targets. Satire is an art form, because it's far more difficult to pull off effectively than I think most people realize. Also, if you're too insulated from those who support what you're trying to "de-power" you can easily underestimate their ability to twist things around and live in denial. And the worst of it now is that there is a whole section of the media industry that works to support the neo-nazi narrative, or at least those which refuse to challenge it.
I cannot stress how much I want to thank you for pointing out how difficult making good satire is. I've seen too many idiots try to excuse some insensitive joke or statement they make by saying it's satire. Satire is one of my favorite genres in any form of art because it actually pushes people to think in a way that a lecture may not. To treat it like it's a easy as saying shit that offends people under a thin coat of "irony" or that it's an easy cover up to hide how shitty you are is an insult to satire.
@Dream Delirium It was a self deprecating joke meant only to amuse myself since my mother has central heterochromia. It was me literally saying "I can only trust my mommy in this world".
My parents also let us watch Mel Brooks movies at a young age. They explained to us what satire is, what racism and antisemitism is, what the Nazis did and about our history of slavery, and what the different words mean, before and after watching. I firmly believe that exposing kids to reality in a safe and controlled environment is far more beneficial than hiding it and letting them find it on their own.
Great satire, at its core, can work as both ridiculing it, and also be sincere to it. It could be a love letter to a genre or style, and be a comedy lampooning on its established form.
At the end of the day, it's two things: making a mockery of devils & laughing at things that socially aren't funny. That's kinda' the essence behind all satire. As a satirist, it's also always important to punch up. If you punch down, you suddenly become a bully.
This specific video has become one of the things my autism has locked on to, and hard. I estimate I have watched it 40-50 times; it is informative, and amusing. I find it comforting.
@@chrisdray5325 Yup. I tend to lock onto a game, song, movie, video, etc, and just obsess on it for a month or more. Meow Mix jingle is a big one, for me.
I don't know how this necessarily gives him more authority to mock nazi's than anyone else though. By what is such authority granted? Experience? Proximity? Divine Right? By my measure nazis are so universally reviled it's perpetual open season on them anyway. Anyone can mock and deride or ridicule fascists... some just do it more poorly than others. Furthermore, making light of such ugly issues as racism or slavery or fascism and genocide does tend to desensitize some people to the seriousness of such matters. Just look at how easy it has become to point at someone you don't like and call them "racist!" or "fascist!" or "sexist!" or a nazi to shut them up and put them down. We dehumanize nazis and it makes it easier for some people to use them to dehumanize others. I realize that some people need humor to "get over" the ugliness of these things, but sometimes I truly believe that some people need to be *shown* the real horror and ugliness of what the nazis did so they can tell the difference between that and somebody that just kinda irritates them a lot. Even to call those punk ass bitches in that gathering of wanna-be white supremacists "nazis" is insulting to every man woman and child who was killed by one.
It doesn't mean he's above criticism, it just lends credence to the argument that his intention is not to glorify or normalize antisemitism, racism, or in this case nazism. How people interpret his satire is, of course, beyond his control.
My city actually has a lot of Neo Nazis, so it does scare me how much the word is thrown around. We have people just a few minutes away from my neighborhood who congregated for a huge gathering on 4/20 to celebrate Hitler's birthday, right across from an elementary school. A lot of the people having that term thrown at them are usually ignorant racists but not necessarily Nazis.
Could a film like blazing saddles be done today? Yes if done correctly. Blazing saddles works as a satire because Bart is the hero, he's the one on top, and the townsfolk and the villains are shown to be the buffoons, the idiots. The result of this is we are shown, through comedy, just how silly and ridiculous racism is, which is how satire works.
Mike White But people will just complain that it's "PC Hollywood Agenda". I mean, people like they suck but that's what happens when a movie involving minorities comes out.
+Tate Hildyard Then would you kindly explain the crickets that heralded the coming of Django Unchained? A movie in which white slave holders are played as cruelly and sadistically racist often to the point of being disturbing and unfunny for a comedy, the hero and the damsel are black and the side kick is german. See? Nobody cares! People can tell when a movie or "comedy" is arbitrarily glorifying a certain demographic by dumping on certain people in particular. That's what the "PC Hollywood Agenda" has been doing even with works that aren't comedies. Heck, even Ghostbusters *might* have worked as a comedy if it had gone with a battle of the sexes theme for its comedy instead of just being generally shite. But even then it would have had no business being a Ghostbusters movie. And the "PC Hollywood Agenda" doesn't account for all the times people piss themselves over supposed "whitewashing". Django is remarkably similar to Blazing Saddles and The Producers in many ways, except Django actually depicts the actual horrors of slavery and racism instead of just making light of the "bad guys". That's an even nastier representation of white racists when you portray them as they actually were instead of just turning them into cartoons, but that didn't stop plenty of lily white asses from finding that movie fun, dramatic, and hilarious (including mine).
@Mike White I agree, actually a lot of the stuff mentioned about Blazing Saddles in the comments reminds me of Avatar: The Last Airbender's handling of the blind character Toph. There's many blind-related jokes and they're all -funny-, but they're always at the expense of other sighted characters, hahaha.
Very interesting point about not depicting the lynching of a black man. Robert Heinlein positsin his novel "Stranger in a Strange Land" that all humor is ultimately derived from suffering--that laughter is our defense against the vicissitudes of Life. Why would a white man make a joke including the depiction of a black man being lynched? Against what is he defending himself? Seen through this light, it is a defense against the dismantling of his privilege. He is laughing at someone with less power. This is a line that ought not to be crossed because it is cruel, because it takes no courage to laugh at those with less power. Perhaps this is why Brooks had such a problem with "Life is Beautiful." For a Gentile to find humor in the concentration camps is cruel, for the laughter is then at the expense of the powerless. It takes no bravery to laugh at such people. Turned around, for a Jew to find humor in the Holocaust or the National Socialists is an example of real coping (in the sense of grappling with something). It is a way for the powerless to come to terms with their suffering at the hands of the Status Quo. And as any psychoanalyst will tell you, grappling with such demons takes a great deal of resolve and emotional courage. That is why Edgelords are so repugnant. They dress their demeaning cackles up as brave satire or real emotional wrestling, when in reality it is nothing of the sort.
As much as I accept the criticism of Life is Beautiful as being highly tone deaf, I never regarded it as a comedy to begin with, so the idea that I was supposed to be laughing at holocaust victims was lost on me. It was always a drama to me where the main character just happened to be a comedian of sorts (or, rather, just a goofy person). Honestly, it's a movie that I like while still understanding where the issues people have about it come in. But I never saw it as me finding humor in a concentration camp. The tragedy of it was more on my mind.
note4note Regarding the Monty Python scene I think it is a quality exception to the rule. It's a situation that shows how important tone and framing can be when making a joke about something demonstrably wrong. The men reasoning why they should burn the witch are shown to be utter buffoons, and the accused witch herself reacts with something more akin to annoyance than mortal terror. And then she weighs as much as a duck, demonstrating that the universe in the movie itself backs up this absurdist logic,to the point where she calls it a fair cop, the scene plays out to the audience as the farce it's meant to be. Making a joke about touchy subject matter is going to vary wildly by many variables and ultimately come down to the skill of the comedian and their rapport with the audience. As interesting and thought provoking as it is to analyze and dissect these ideas as Lindsay expertly does, it will come down to us laughing or not laughing at certain things and reconciling what that means about us.
There is another factor, is how touchy a subject is or time: look how mel brook dosent mind showing people being torture by the inqusition but is too much for black people...why? because of time.
As a Jewish guy who looks to understand all the "why's and why not's" of certain things, I highly agree with your statement, however, I would like to further highlight one thing, and make it very clear: context is EXTREMELY important when making certain offensive jokes. I know many people today, Jewish or not, who STILL LOVE TO LAUGH at these old Mel Brooks movies, (myself included), because at the end of the day, if you're so impacted by the effect "Insert evil person name here" had on society and the world, that you become paralyzed by any mention of it, then they've essentially still won. I'm not saying ignore what happened. in fact, it's a strange phenomenon I am starting to study. I have no clue what it is called, but essentially, you HAVE TO KNOW, and show that you know and fully understand why something is wrong, IN ORDER TO LAUGH AT IT. I have plenty of black friends who love laughing at Blazing Saddles, specifically the scene of the old lady who says "Up yours N*****!" because they understand why the word is wrong, but they have moved past it. and they made sure I am comfortable enough to laugh at the scene too, while also making sure I never say that word, even when they aren't around. I live as the kind of person that can acknowledge the bad things, move forward, while still making sure the bad things don't happen again. because being that kind of person dumbfound's people who don't work on themselves to move past certain issues. in life, some people really do take things too seriously, to the point of misunderstanding why we move forward. and some people don't take things seriously enough, to the point of ignoring the past. both are extremely terrible things because they ignore a core aspect of being human, which is to constantly be moving forward. so, don't be afraid to laugh at the offensive stuff. but do take a moment to understand why it's bad and it should be prevented from happening again by idiots who don't properly understand that (Neo-Nazi's, KKK, etc). it's important to live in the moment, but not at the expense of our own self-observation.
Thats very good point. as an European I think the disconnect between European and American mentality about the nazis is quite interesting one. Like in the American culture it seems more light when any country which had any connection to the nazis here carries immense shame about it
Wow, my friend. That was an awesome analysis. I agree wholeheartedly. This goes beyond satiryzing offensive stuff. Spoof films in general tend to suffer from this. What made Mel Brooks and the ZAZ's movies great, and what the Selzers' awful, is that deep understanding of the spoofed element. You know how Young Frankensteing is funny, because it is a bunch of absurd things that might have happened in the original film. Whereas garbage like Meet the Spartans is just the writers saying "hey, these things are popular and we know they exist". That last line of yours is the reason why I believe we not only are allowed to laugh at these great evils; we *should* laugh at them. Comedy can serve as a gateway to learn about those horrors that happened. In the end, laughter is a defense mechanism, and if we mock them, we can also mock the morons who might want to follow in their footsteps. That room, at 33:49 , I know I'm not wrong if I say it's full of imbeciles, from the doofus on the podium down.
It's always stunned me that conservatives though Stephen Colbert was a conservative. I have a coworker that told me he thought that back in the day with the Colbert Report. I thought it was so painfully obvious satire AGAINST conservatives.
Yup, same. The first time I ever saw Colbert doing his thing I was still very much in my conservative ways at the time and even my dumb, brain-washed ass knew he was being satirical. I was completely caught off guard when people in the conservative circles I used to run in would venerate the man and I finally started to realize why conservatives were such easy and plentiful joke fodder for non-conservative comics.
During the Word segments, Stephens actual thoughts were displayed. Still too subtle for conservatives. I keep seeing online the conservatives want their own SNL.
"There's no glory in conquest when you know what those soldiers are going to discover on the other side of those woods." I don't know why but that hit me really hard. Thank you, Lindsay.
Love Taika Waititi, but I really don't know how to feel about that one. Haven't seen it yet, so that's an important caveat, but still it doesn't feel quite right.
Alejandro K it was done very tastefully. Taiki as hitler isn’t on the screen as much as the trailers suggests. The most memorable & moving scenes that cause smiles, warm fuzzies, & laughs are matched with well-timed-contrasting events to remind the viewer the horrific reality of nazi Germany. The way the movie is delivered from the perspective of a easily-influence & venerable child, while assuming the audience has a basic knowledge of the European events surrounding the Ninth Reich’s rise to power. This technique creates empathy for with the characters as individual humans, but also critical thinking about ideology, nationalism, & the immature evil actions that result from narcissism rising to power
@@crazycrackinchick Thanks for sharing your take on it! I'm sure I'll check it out at some point. And again, I am a bit conflicted but I do trust Taika in this instance. I was just reiterating the idea that it's worth taking time to critique how Nazi imagery is used for humor.
Alejandro K I hope you enjoy the film as a cinematic dark comedy! One part that made me less uncomfortable with the sensitive topic (I am Jewish, lol) is that the jokes were not jokes made by and for nazis, but rather jokes made to absolutely mock the nazis and the propaganda they created. Many can still be offended with reason, as the nazis being suggested as idiots can be offensive for the amount of power they held. I think taiki took a tasteful approach by keeping to the nazis that were not on the battlefield, but the childish, unexpierenced and ignorant people products of propaganda in Germany. The satire used to mock the ignorance and unempathetic of the most “patriotic” Germans helps to show the dangers and absurdism of nationalism without the danger of creating more fascism. Mocking Hitler works best when done properly because power does not respond to mockery well -suggesting people who are part of the uprising of current nationalism are idiots. But the satire needs to be obvious, otherwise people may thing it’s promoting hitler. It is impossible to get that from jojo rabbit. It highlights the dangers of nationalism by bullying the nationalists
Hey Lindsay, as a Jewish viewer I wanted to stop by and thank you for your well thought-out and knowledgable video. I'm going to see about showing it to my mom and rabbi, as I think they would find it to be of interest. I think it takes a lot of courage to make videos like this especially in our world's current state of affairs and how technology has increased out ability to communicate whether it be for better or worse. So thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week
God, Lindsay you are seriously something else.I enjoyed your N Chick days, and your evolution into more thoughtful criticism, but you are now really something amazing. The sheer substance of your critique is simply unparalleled, and with each one of these videos I truly feel like I've learned so much. You, Madam, are definitely the most thoughtful reviewer I've seen on this platform
Aiki Kana me This is the first video of Lindsay's I've seen, it's currently 2:30am and there was no way I was falling asleep until I'd seen this entire video. Truly a superb example of genuine critique and in-depth discussion. I subscribed less than half way through because I knew I'd want to see more from her!
Yeah, but Albert Camus' Absurdism and Mel Brooks' comedy are kinda entirely different sorts of things, just be careful not to take her too seriously she's kinda lazy with her labels but I'm making it a late night and binging out on her stuff too >8)
If you like this, I’d definitely recommend Movies with Mikey. She gets a few of her ideas from him, and you can see his videos start to look similar to hers. He’s very thoughtful and very funny about film!
The way I see it, Ellis is a film critic more than a philosopher, so I just took it for granted that when she uses the term "absurdism," it refers to the type of comedy, not the term from existentialist philosophy. Kinda like when physicists use terms like "force" or "momentum" we understand it to mean something specific to their field, rather than a more vernacular use of the words. (As an aside, what we refer to "momentum" in regular conversation is usually closer to "inertia" than actual "momentum" in physics)
This looked interesting, and I clicked on it without looking to see how long a video it is. ..."That's way too long. I'm tired. I want to go to bed early. I can't watch this whole thing." ...Now, 40 minutes and 45 seconds later - very well done. I couldn't turn it off.
Did you ever hear of "Er ist wieder da"? It's a 2015 movie (based on a 2012 book) about Hitler waking up in modern-day Berlin, having been mysteriously transported through time from the moment of his death. It's a fish-out-of-water comedy, starring Hitler as the sympathetic protagonist who has to come to terms with how the world changed in his absence. So Hitler ends up building a TV career as a Hitler-impersonator, building on the legacy of decades of Hitler parodies, using comedy as a shield to speak truth to power. It's not a great movie by any means, but I bring it up because the ending touches on the danger of trivializing Hitler. Ultimately, after being coded as a bumbling protagonist for most of the movie, he is confronted by the second protagonist (the film maker who 'discovered' him) who has finally figured out that this 'impersonator' is the real deal. Hitler wins effortlessly, and the denouement suddenly takes an extremely sinister tone. Hitler decides to try his hand at politics once more. In his inner monologue he explains that while the world has changed, the nature of humanity really hasn't, and he still "can work with that" It's kind of a "have your cake and eat it" kinda deal, a film that criticizes the use of Hitler as a comedic character when comedic Hitler is really all the movie got going for it.
The movie was a mockumentary, I think the real content of the movie and what makes the ending so impactful is in the real portions of the actor tickling the real Germans just a little and them agreeing to and saying racist and fascist things very quickly. It's less focused than Sasha Baron Cohen's work of that type, but it still ends up just as effectively making you go "holy shit, these people are real and they vote"
I have seen this in Netflix, originaly I thought: "Man this is kinda interesting but there is no way people would simply ignore history like this and still make the same mistakes" Nowadays I only think: "Holy shit, that "movie" was spot on, people are this stupid"
@@reversalmushroom Brazil just elected a dictator. Maybe it's not a "Western" country, but it's still an important player on the global scene. Putin is a dictator and I would consider Russia a "Western" country, at least partially. There's also been a rise in nationalism in Europe and the rest of the world. This may not lead to any dictators, but it's still worrying.
I'm Jewish so I've never had the issue with misinterpreting Brooks' comedy but I remember one of the reasons Dave Chapelle cited for quitting his show was that he didn't like the way white people were laughing at it. That they didn't get the satire and seemed to just be laughing at the expense of black people. And I thought of this Key and Peele sketch I watched. It was making fun of the names of black college basketball/football players. It was hilarious. But as a white person (or non-black person if you don't count Jews as white) I felt a bit uncomfortable while I laughed. Because I heard tons of unfunny jokes about "black names", even from my own family members. And I wondered if there were people laughing for the "wrong reasons", like Chapelle talked about.
I guess "trying waaaay too desperately hard to sound black and just making shit up for your name with bizarre misspellings just makes you come off sounding a bit dumb." but whatever I don't care what people call themselves. There's just no way in hell I'm going to look someone in the eye and call them "Dweezil Moon Unit" unless my intent is to ridicule them. But if Chapelle doesn't think his humor is coming across correctly, that's on him.
Whenever I watch football with my parents, I like to wait for the announcers to say "black" names and say "I'm gonna name my son that." cause I know the thought of that makes them uncomfortable.
Lots of groups have ridiculous names. It's just that there's a history of racist jokes about "black names". Although I really don't think I'm going to get through to someone who unironically uses "retarded" to describe things as stupid, so I'm probably wasting my time.
POV of an italian jew about La Vita è Bella: I saw it in the theatres when I was 10 yrs old. It absolutely enchanted me, and the italian audiences. Benigni's storytellyng is a constant dream state, or a fable built to make life and its horros tolerable. There is no comedic intent in the jokes about the bunks, or the watered down imagery of the sufferings of the camp. The intent is to filter the reality, for the sake of his child who has to actually survive camp. so he need to believe he can get through it. The comedy is there to make light of the present, not make fun of the past LOOOOVE your videos btw!
Yeah, I was also ten when I saw it and I cried throughout the whole thing. It scarred me for life bc even at 10 I saw the sadness and horror of the story of a goofy father trying to keep at least some semblance of innocence in his child's life through unimaginable suffering. It's the reason I have a gut feeling of horror and disgust at the idea of concentration camps and had instilled in me a hatred of the nazi regime and fascism. So I don't think anybody who sees Life Is Beautiful as anything other than a very serious tragic story understands how powerful and poignant it's storytelling is.
@@mnaftw wow, same. I also was a child when I saw it and its imagery lives with me still, about 20 years later. And it absolutely is one of the reasons I always knew that Nazis were unthinkably horrible. Maybe this movie just needs this child-like perception to be understood.
I saw it for the first time a couple years ago when I was in my freshman year of high school. I was 14-15, and I was incredibly moved. It’s such a beautiful movie no matter what age you see it at. It’s great. It’s beautiful.
“If you are going to make a joke at the expense of a historically shat upon group that is not your own, you need to accept that there might be consequences and that some people might not think you’re funny.” Send that to Dave Chapelle lol
This was one of the weaker comments in her entire presentation unless directed at every day people trying to be funny. Professional comics are all too aware of the consequences of people not thinking they're funny. Every joke gets hashed out in front of people regularly and to often crushing results. Chapelle got a little isolated in his success. It's why we need more clubs and small places for artists to work things out. There are always the leading examples of Mae West and Lenny Bruce. Both West and Bruce were jailed for their humor on stage because they offended people. They are heroes because their humor was freeing from those offended people and the offended people were not the underdogs.
Excellent analysis overall, but something that surprised me: both your and Brooks's conclusion that Life Is Beautiful was intended as comedy. I saw it as a semitragic drama, of a man who ATTEMPTED to make everything comedy, only to fall into a situation where that was only possible by concealing 99% of what was happening from his son. I can't ever apply the label "comedy," even "failed comedy," to a film where the main character stands in horror before a mountain of corpses. HE knows it's not funny.
In the clip she showed, it seemed to be dubbed? Maybe the dubbed version came off differently? I saw it in italian and it is not a comedy. It's a very sad movie, but I love it.
@@AhavaMath I recently sawed dubbed. That.. That is a poor dub. That and like they don't understand his acting at all, which.. Make sense. Last time I saw him, he was on national TV speaking of the divine comedy
@@zombiedogbutt81 Thankfully the United States Federal Government has 3 co-equal branches. It makes it kind of hard to be a dictator when you are only one third of the federal government.
I'm looking back on this about a year after the whole situation with Chapelle and trans groups. Ellis was SO ahead of the curve. "If you are going to make a joke at the expense of a historically shat upon group that is not your own, you need to accept also that there might be consequences, and people might not think you're funny." "There is no such thing as equal opportunity offensive, because not all groups exist on equal footing. Maybe one day. Probably never. But right now, we are nowhere near that."
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If you're the sort of person to unironically say that they couldn't make Blazing Saddles today, you're the sort of person that Blazing Saddles was making fun of.
You could argue that something like the recent Dear White People is today's Blazing Saddles. Ergo, yes, it could be made today, and surprise, racists are being offended by it.
Alon: See Lindsey's quote, "There's no such thing as equal-opportunity offensive, because we're not all on equal footing." If you are upset at the show Dear White People without seeing it because it sounds 'racist,' you likely would have been the target of Blazing Saddles if you were alive in 1974.
Alex, do you have a citation for the writer being a white guy? I haven't actually watched the show, but I see that Justin Simien, the original writer/director of the film directed and wrote several of the episodes of the Netflix show. Which writer/show runner are you referring to? Also what is the relevance of the creator's hipsterdom or twigginess to the authenticity of a show about race? I struggle to see the point.
hahahhaha man the comment sections below "dear white people" trailer is hillarious. ALL of them missing the point so badly. The more hate it gets the more sense it makes.
Airplane aged... differently. An increasing number of jokes or their context would be over the heads of most Millenials, let alone Gen Z people. For example, the take that at the guy who played the taxi driver with the role he played, Kramer punching his way through the airport (which were full of such guys at the time), the Saturday night fever joke increasingly does so, too, since more and more people don't know what they are parodying, Jim and his coffee being a jab at a coffee ad (with the same actors no less!), the casting gag of putting actors like Leslie Nielsen and Lloyd Bridges into a comedy (they were playing much more hardass characters until that point and were casted extremely against type), the jive lady, the list goes on. That doesn't make it any bad, just that modern audience probably can't appreciate it the same way as cinema audiences at the time did as they lack context.
Really the problem to do with satire boils down to a lack of widespread eduction in regards to media literacy. The media we consume influences and frames the way we think and interact with one another more than nearly any other facet of public life and yet the only people who are properly equipped to understand how to gauge this influence and think critically about it are those who intentionally seek out their own education in regards to it. This leaves the majority of people unknowingly being steered around by ideas put forth which they lack the proper framework to grapple with or unaware what is even happening to them.
As a black man and film scholar, I'd argue that Brooks had to use the N-word as much as he did in Blazing Saddles. The word holds such a unique place among the words that are often referred to by a single letter (in fact, I am always intrigued by the reactions when it is used in a room full of white people, whose reactions are often more interesting than any black people in the room). But, like Brooks noting he couldn't rob Hitler of his power unless he was ridiculed on screen, the N-word cannot be robbed of its power when used in a racist context unless it is said out loud in an absurd and well-satirized way like it is in Blazing Saddles (black people using the word among ourselves is a whole different discussion). Brooks not using the word himself comes across to me as a tacit acknowledgment that he knew he was dancing close to a line. Much as the type of humor often employed to skewer Hiter should be the purview of the groups killed in the Holocaust, some humor about the black experience in America should not be done by other unless they are carefully applied, something Brooks dis with Blazing Saddles. Despite the awful treatment of homosexuality in his works, a sad relic of the era Brooks grew up and worked in, Blazing Saddled is still my favorite skewering of racism. As a side note, the 2016 documentary The Last Laugh, offers some interesting insight from Jewish performers and Holocaust Survivors about humor dealing with the Holocaust.
Alexander Mothersill You have to be joking... Milo Yiannopoulos, Ben Shapiro, Trump... There are many more higher profile and lower profile conservatives who are slurred with Nazi unjustly. Very nearly, all people called Nazis in the past 16 months or so don't believe in that type of ideology at all. It's extremely disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
*Paul T Sjordal Remember when you could be conservative without being called a Nazi... This garbage cuts both ways, Paul.* Saying that it goes both ways doesn't make it so. No one forced millions of conservatives to make "both sides are just as bad" arguments in order to make Nazis seem less bad. No one forces millions of conservatives to get defensive whenever someone criticizes modern neo-Nazis. We're not the ones comparing you to Nazis. You are.
Marianne is Here Trump... the man who ver batum described self proclaimed neo-nazis, who directly killed a women during their protest, as " very fine people." Do you really not see the link there?
The problem has mostly come from the fact that it has become increasingly common to depict your opposition as Nazis or shut down their arguments by saying those are Nazi arguments. Thus a phrase that might otherwise be considered neutral like "Punch a Nazi" (well, except for the whole... running around attacking citizen aspect, but lets pretend this was 100% non-controversial) becomes a lot more dangerous when the very same people espousing that rhetoric are also the people who get to decide who is and isn't a Nazi, often based on arbitrary means. This isn't even getting the people who make arguments being the ones who can decide whether the opposition to their POV are secretly Nazi Dog Whistling.
you know, whenever I hear people complaining about life is beautiful I can't shake the feeling I watched a completely different movie than anyone else... there is no humor or slapstick in the camps. there is only a very desperate father trying to keep his son from noticing the horrors around them. it is very much established that the main character uses his sort of humor to deal with the racism and poverty in his life, the entire first part of the movie is showing him fighting to stay happy and positive but still being very much affected by his surroundings. he's not a cartoon character. his feelings get hurt and he has fits of desperation. when the movie arrives in the camps and he tries to keep his son oblivious, he is very much on the brink of breaking down. Every bit of 'comedy' is for the sake of his son and it is utterly heartbreaking. People die, suffer, loose all hope and the movie doesn't shy away from showing it. While the first half of the movie is definitly part comedy, the second is just brutal and doesn't even attempt to make the audience laugh. I mean, I get when people are uncomfortable watching it. It is supposed to be. And seeing that Mel Brooks didn't like it and reading interviews makes me think that there might be more to it. Roberto Benigni's father was in a camp and survived, but he isn't jewish, so there's that. And apparently many thought that the 'comedy' in the camp was making light of the situation. I thought that it made it even more horrifying, but I respect and understand that opinion.
Same as you there, the "comedy" in the movie never seemed like actual comedy to me and I never felt like I was supposed to laugh at it... It's actually somewhat pathetic at times when the main character tries desperately to hide the truth from his son and we see that he desn't quite buy it. Anyway, I never considered it a comedy before seeing this video to be honest. The director also never makes fun of the people in the camp cinematically speaking, only the words of the character might do that but he's speaking to his son, not to the audience. Plus the guy who "makes fun of the situation" literally dies in the end... The scene where he "translates" from german is actually very tense imo since you know he is doing something he could literally die for.
I was searching for your comment because seeing my favourite comedian getting ueghed at for making a movie that I'm actually scared to watch because I know that I'd feel worse than with Schindler's list,since to no one's surprise he's also pretty good at being serious, was upsetting to say the least. I also heard some people describe it as comedy but no one who has seen it thinks it is.
I saw it years ago and didn't really care for it. For me the issue wasn't necessarily that it was trying to make the Holocaust 'funny', but more that it glosses over the horrors of the Holocaust to such a ridiculous degree that the whole thing becomes emotionally manipulative and insulting.
I had a mental breakdown after that movie, it was THAT sad and i'm not a person who cries on movies, it happens rarely. Seriously any "comedy" there wasn't funny but painful, pitiful attempts to make better something that cannot be helped in any way.
That is exactly how I saw it too...right down to the part where the main character is being marched (at gunpoint) to what he knows is certain death, he puts on a silly face when he knows his son is watching. The whole premise of the movie was that he was trying to preserve at least some shred of his child's innocence during one of the ugliest moments in modern history. It's heartbreaking because we, the viewers, are adults and can see what is really going on the entire time...so we spend the entire movie waiting for this innocent child to get caught, or witness a murder because we're certain that it's inevitable. So when the boy gets to ride in a tank at the end, we get to breathe a tiny sigh of relief that his father's efforts weren't in vain.
It's not though. She didn't come up with it either. I'm sure she'd be the first to tell you that. Its fairly insightful but it's certainly not genius. That's just hyperbole.
I remember in HighSchool, a girl who was Very conservative, but Loved Steven Colbert. I never understood that until this. She literally didn’t understand that he was meant to mock what she believed
That's part of the Colbert's joke. It's a prank on how dumb a lot of conservative thinking is. It's SO guileless and self-absorbed that it can't see outside its own world beliefs and consider that someone else, something else exists. At some point, I hope she grew out of that and maybe learned a lesson in her young gullible self and expanded her belief system.
My one complaint about this video is that when the white supremacist footage starts rolling and it’s so much louder than the rest of the video that I can only imagine my neighbors hearing “HAIL TRUMP” blaring from my television. 🤦🏻♀️
I know this is old, but the scene where he is addressing the camera is during a speech in the film and is considered one of the best speeches committed to film
This brings up that famous rule-of-thumb about appropriate targets of comedy (especially black comedy), "punch up, not down". Or, as Gary Trudeau put it, "comfort the afflicted by afflicting the comfortable". However, one problem I've noticed - which I wish had been addressed in this otherwise great video - is the defences many edgelords give to justify humour which most liberals and leftists would say are punching down, bullying, or being offensive for sheer shock-value. That, is, from their perspective, they are, in fact, punching UP. Not at the apparent target (e.g. Jewish people, women, LGBT+ people), but at the overriding "culture of political correctness" which declares jokes like that taboo. When they make a Holocaust joke, they claim they aren't really making fun of Holocaust victims, but of the culture which makes jokes like that into no-go areas. They see it as a level of "meta" which only seems like bullying but is actually rebellious from their perspective. 95%, I see that as a bullshit argument even when used sincerely (and it mostly isn't). But I've often had trouble with coming up with clear and precise responses for why, other than "those taboos exist for a good reason". Because, like it or not, taboo-breaking will always be seen as rebellious, and it's easy to spin the bad kind of rebellion as the good kind, because everyone loves the idea of a rebel.
Another problem is that a lot of dark humor is used to cope with the problems they're facing, but these people using it have never been in a situation even close to what they're making fun of. How can you cope with something that hasn't actually affected you on a personal level, like it's fucking bullshit that these dumb motherfuckers claim that it's a way of coping when none of their asses aint been near any situations like that. I do hope these people learn from their wrongs soon before they start getting checked when they bring it to the wrong person.
I understand the point of the argument you presented. It is a valid argument which are the hardest to counter, but let me give two counters I thought up myself. 1. There's a critical difference 'mocking and berating' someone and 'dehumanizing' people, specifically specific people. When shows parody Hitler they're still treating Hitler as a person. A silly, stupid person unworthy of respect, but still a person. When people edgy jokes they often do it by treating people as less than human unworthy of any kind dignity be shown to them. Regardless of what they believe this(because they're just being ironic) they express this point view which then gets compounded by both sincere and ironic users of these jokes. 2. Making "edgy jokes" as the expense of "PC culture" aren't actually 'punch up' at some super conglomerate trying to control thought but rather punching at the morals and standards of the general population, who are the true source of "Political Correctness", without actually challenging in any capacity. Or in other words "They're just being mean." Or in more other words "These taboos exist for a good reason." I hope these help in some way.
*Wouldn't that mean that women aren't allowed to make jokes about mens issues as they do not affect women.* I don't really see women making fun of valid issues that men struggle with. I see them making fun of the childish and insecure ways men behave, and poke at the fragile ego of misogynists. Feminism is about tackling the patriarchy, which is the root cause of many of men's issues as well.
People keep saying that you can't make a Mel Brooks movie today because of all the "the SWJ's" but honestly thin that you could very well make a Brooks style movie today. Sure you'd have to tweek the comedy a bit but when it all comes down to it, it wouldn't be by a lot. Brooks's main bread and butter was raunchy and fun and well thought out slap-stick, and making fun of awful and monstrous people.
The people who say you cant make Mel brooks-esque comedy today think their comedy piece on the secret evils on jewish people or the trans community all fit that mold, and since they're white and male, it'd be 'punching up'
I’d actually be quite thrilled to see a Brooks-style comedy patching some of Brooks’ famous blind spots. Something like the military in the don’t ask, don’t tell era, making absolute fools of the politicians pushing it while celebrating the soldiers that suffered under it. I think it’d be very interesting.
It's like how the Beastie Boys meant their song "(You Gotta)Fight for Your Right(To Party)!" to be ironic parody of party songs but people thought they meant it. Mike D: "The only thing that upsets me is that we might have reinforced certain values of some people in our audience when our own values were actually totally different. There were tons of guys singing along to "Fight for Your Right" who were oblivious to the fact it was a total goof on them."
Phantom Attack Helicopter Its not really a false equivalencey. Just because the subject matter is different, doesnt mean the exact same thing happened. If its not overtly obvipus that you're parodying or satarizing something, it will get lost in translation somehow.
I think it's a huge mistake to characterize Life is Beautiful as a satire or even a comedy after the first half. Rather it uses humor to heighten a sense of tragedy. It shows how human beings make ourselves laugh to keep from constantly weeping. That is the message of the film.
I feel very insulted that all of those things (except South Park which I find sometimes hit-or-miss but generally "good") are being mentioned in the same paragraph as Blazing Saddles.
Borat is probably the closest a modern film has come to dealing with racism in a way that's both clever and offensive. There are so many that try to be offensive, but they're only doing it to be offensive, I can't think of another one that actually does it well.
well... you know what? South Park wouldn't come out today without the type of backlash that exist today. if in the early 2000s it was mostly conservatives or soccer moms who did the backlash, concerning this new "devilish" entertainment as a poison to old values. now it would be younger people, voices of people who are genuinely offended (or people who pretend to or chose to be offended for others) who would assume this offensive content to come in the way of progress. it holds hold up today because of the maintained fanbase it managed to cultivate, but the head start for that type of politically incorrect and charged satire could have only arrive in the late 90s early 00s. South Park is as much a product of a different time as Mel Brooks The Producers, we tend to forget just how much 9/11 changed EVERYTHING.
Jokes are usually the funniest when they're written by a person of the group being ridiculed (the lived experience means it's funnier because there are lots of observational things you can use), and when they're punching up rather than kicking minorities who have already been kicked several times. I can make self deprecating jokes that tend to be funnier than jokes others might make about me, because I can use very specific things about myself and joke about them. There's a level of insight that an outsider wouldn't have. There's also something to be said for comedy that doesn't seek to offend, such as the comedy of Eddie Izzard.
This reminds me of how the Harris campaign has started calling the MAGAs weird has made them get really upset because they want fear and anger. They can't find out how to respond to being mocked
Life is beautiful is high on a short list of movies that just absolutely emotionally destroyed me when I first saw them. Right up there with Pay it Forward. That said, I'd definitely be interested in seeing Lindsay do a video essy on it.
It also makes for a very interesting companion piece to the analysis of profanity in Shakespeare and evolution of language video Kyle Kallgren just put out! May be a complete coincidence, or it could be that a bunch of somewhat like-minded critics/writers who are all friends may have been considering similar topics at the same time.
I disagree with Brookes' take on Life is Beautiful. Maybe it is partially because I am a Jew from a younger generation. I don't think that is a film that could have been made 20 years earlier, or, sadly, 20 years later. But in that time when everyone agreed about the scope of the horrors of Naziism, a few years after Schindler's List and Seinfeld's jokes about how inappropriate it would be to make out during Schindler's List, I think it worked. It did not make jokes about concentration camps. It was not even a true comedy, but a dramedy and it was not really about the horrors of the holocaust, but about the tremendous sacrifice a father will make for his family. The film does not shy away from the horror, but still allows the father to build a fantasy for his child even at the expense of making his own hardships even worse. Further, it was based on the stories Begnini heard from his own father, who survived the concentration camps. He told the stories in a way that brought out the humanity of the human spirit and hid the true horrors. So while the movie shows the horrors, it also shows the human spirit. The father could not avoid the suffering there and was beaten down by the brutality and ultimately murdered. But he was able to sacrifice everything to protect his son. Now of course the reality for most of the survivors was far worse and that was shown too. Nobody else had that experience in the film and their desperation was evident on camera. But that only furthers the heroism of the father in spite of all odds. He could not survive or make things right, that is too much to hope for in such a situation, but he could make things a little less horrible for his son and that little victory was his heroism. Now is my take colored by the fact that I saw it on my first date with my wife? Maybe, but I stand by it and so does she (I just asked).
@@TheBayzent As a Jew from a younger generation, ditto. As a younger jew whose father died tragically young, and who always did his best for me, I find the movie too painful to watch these days, but I don't in any way find it mocking or dismissive of the suffering of my forebears. Two of my great grandparents were survivors of the camps, though neither lived to see Life is Beautiful, but all four of my grandparents did and all four were deeply moved by it. I have not polled my extensive family, but as far as I am aware, none of my family, all of whom are jewish, found the movie anything less than deeply moving.
@@christianealshut1123 I agree 100%, many directors at this time were too busy sniffing speilbergs behind, as opposed to trying to storytell on a low budget. Benini went for the moon on this one.
An excellent video, Lindsay! I took a History of Comedy class in college and it was really insightful on a lot of the topics touched on here. My teacher really emphasized the point that comedy is best used as a tool to "punch upwards" and not "punch downwards". You can use comedy to subvert the powers that be, the organizations and leaders that do or try to have power, and societal norms and expectations. Where comedy fails however is when you "punch down" to targets that are less fortunate, have little or no power in their situations, or are oppressed by those with power. Hence why taking shots at Nazis is acceptable, but trying to find humor in the situation of a concentration camp would cross the line. I always try to remember that in my work.
+blkgardner that's a good point. in an age where "victimhood" has become a precious social commodity, up is down and down is up. Bullies are capitalizing on this commodity to stir the pot, intentionally trying to offend somebody so everybody gets riled up.
The Westboro Baptist church is a rather cliche target, and part of political satire is speaking the truth to power, in contradistinction to mocking easy targets. Pointing out that the guy who is believed to be a jerk by 99.99% of the population is in fact a jerk is not subversive.
German viewer here - brilliant job tackling a complicated subject in a way that is relevant not just from an American standpoint. As is so often the case, the topic comes down to the fact that it doesn't just matter what is said, but also how and why something is said or depicted in a certain manner, which makes the subject matter extremely tough to cover properly without ending up in the realm of conjecture. Between Downfall and He's Back - which is maybe the best German equivalent to the Chaplin and Brooks takes on the subject - it would seem that the German and US discourse on the matter seem to be pretty similar, with the same caveats. This is a development of the past 20 years though - throughout most of the 20th century, the discourse here was decidedly... more ignorant (i.e. defined by a desire to just not be reminded of the Nazi reign).
My favorite bit: "...'Tomorrow belongs to me,' a chilling moment that has recently been adopted by some white nationalists.... But you know what hasn't? *Springtime for Hitler and Germany*...."
“All comedy must have limits and intent” I wish all the idiots on Twitter claiming comedy is dead because of “woke culture” would get this little tidbit. They think offensive jokes for the sake of offending ANYONE for no reason is somehow the holy grail of comedy.
Mel Brooks is my comedic idol. Also this: Lisa: Dad, there are many prominent Jewish entertainers, including Lauren Bacall, Dinah Shore, William Shatner, and Mel Brooks. Homer: Mel Brooks is Jewish!?!
One reason that Blazing Saddles transcends its raw race approach is because Richard Pryor co-wrote it, and it contains a ton of his sense regarding race relations.
Absolutely. And Richard Pryor was originally supposed to star but that fell through. It's better with Cleavon Little in the role because he had such a innocuous face. So when something unpredictable happens, it's that much more funny. With Pryor's face, you know that it's all about unpredictability all the time and just hang on to your hat and enjoy the ride. Cleavon Little had the Nice Guy Everyman Jimmy Stewart thing about him with more than a touch of whimsy and slyness to make sure everyone knew he was nobody's fool and was in on the joke. That's what makes it so astonishingly funny when he gets accosted by the bigoted old lady on the street that he's being gentlmanly toward. It's the truth of constant bs at every moment that is racism for Black men and women.
Personally, I liked Life is Beautiful. The problem I see here is that it's being interpreted as a comedy when it is in fact a tragedy. It doesn't make light of concentration camps or implies that it's an easy thing to get over. The movie itself is about a father who does all in his power to shield his child from the harsh realities around him, coming at the ultimate price in the end. The child after the movie is going to deal with many issues in life as a result of this, but will eventually be able to look back and see just how much his father worked to save his very life. The story isn't happy or lighthearted, it's depressing. But even with its depressing story, it gives hope for that boy's freedom. Don't look at it as a comedy or even a black comedy, because at the end of the day, it didn't get a happy ending, it got a tragic one. We don't see him react to the news of his father's death; we don't see his mother's reaction to her husband's death; we are simply left to wonder how the events will affect them in the future. I understand that the film has lighthearted moments, but never once does it belittle the severity of the events taking place. The sacrifice that the father makes to keep his son from having to experience these things first hand is heartbreaking. This is why I must respectfully disagree with your, and apparently Mr. Brooks's take on the movie's message. This is a classic case of a movie getting miscategorized or misinterpreted by its audience. Same thing happened with the show MASH when the network insisted on adding a laugh track, despite the show being a drama rather than a comedy. Something has definitely been lost in translation for movies such as Life is Beautiful.
I too am I year late, but you put it perfectly. Though I can't stand the film, that's more to do with my own preferences, not with thinking it was a comedy. From the moment the mother surrenders herself in order to be taken to a concentration camp, to try to be closer to her family, it's hard to see it as a comedy. The father knows perfectly where he is, he just doesn't want his son to know it, too. He does the impossible to hide his son's presence and, when knowing he's to be killed, he still keeps his character on. I find RB a bit too histrionic for my taste, but the film was never a comedy.
Many of the critics claimed it was 'in bad taste'. Add to this it's subtitled and that's enough for many people to avoid the film, yet still voice an opinion. I prefer it to Schidlers List personally
I'm still amazed that so many people keep insisting that a joke at the expense of a minority or opressed group is just a way to ridicule it (particularly if you're not a part of that minority), when, all you're doing is actually reinforcing the opression you're pretending to make fun of. At a much smaller scale, my male friends still, to this day, don't get why I get pissed at the "woman, go back to the kitchen" type of jokes... So, this is a very necesesary discussion to be having now. Thank you Lindsay! Absolutelly brilliant and relevant essay
People, including myself, make 'Get back to the kitchen woman' jokes because it satires an old belief. I dont genuinly believe that women should always cook for the man, i say it sarcasticly to target the view on womens roles that were formaly common and are still in use today, ita just a bit rarer. The point is that we make sexist jokes to joke about sexists. I do joke about other woman tropes because its funny.
The important first step is always to know what the joke actually is, then you need to know the situation they are in. Comedy is always the first step to an actual discussion and gender roles tend to be spoke about in an all too serious tone without any room to really discuss it. Men have the entire weight of "Not being sexist" put upon them, as well as a constant white noise of distrust, so it can be hard for women to understand why men might actually want to work through those issues and likewise hard for men to know why women react to it so badly. Yet those "sexist" jokes need to happen because society isn't going to change for them.
Yeah... While I always say "Know what the joke is", sometimes a mean spirited joke really is a mean spirited joke. It is just better not to jump to conclusions and let the person speak for themselves rather then thought crime them... But yeah I am kind of... disturbed by the sheer amount of people who said they got what they deserved. Odd how bloodlust can become acceptable as long as your target somehow deserves it through association.
Rebecca Woolf That means he’s fully jewish, not half. If your mother is jewish according to rabbinic judaism you are jewish. There is no such thing as being Half jewish, the idea of Mischlings comes from the Nazi Regime.
@@eliyahushvartz2167 I agree with you but I think that person was unaware of Jewish law and because when somebody has two parents of different heritages they are described as being "half" that heritage. It's more widely known that Taika is Maori coming from his dad but they were just pointing out that his mom is Jewish too and they unaware that you don't describe people as half Jewish. While it is definitely true for Jews, imo it makes sense for everyone because in my experiences people being talked about as being half anything can make them feel invalidated about their heritage and identity as a whole.
@@eliyahushvartz2167 So...his grandfather is Jewish. So that's wrong. It's a matrilineal heritage. Also, that's just orthodox gatekeeping nonsense. If he wants to identify as Jewish, he's welcome. Otherwise, he shouldn't be eating pork, shellfish, or turning on the lights on Saturdays either by that same ridiculous notion.
TropicalPriest telling a tribal people they are gatekeeping their own traditions is ridiculous. I would agree personally that if you have a jewish father or patrilineal lineage you would be jewish too. But it seems you didn’t feel like asking me what I thought or didn’t think. If he is jewish he should keep jewish law, whether he is rabbinic or karaite or even samaritan. We are a people, not just a religion, we have traditions as a people. If you don’t like that then it shouldn’t be any of your business in the first place. Are you jewish? If so are you reform? Why do you feel the way you do about jewish tradition (our tradition, if you are jewish). Rabbinic law is not nonsense. Torah law is not nonsense. If you want to throw away your heritage and assimilate go ahead and do it, but when the Amalekites knock at your door you will be the same as all the rest of us.
@@eliyahushvartz2167 seeing the hard-line conservative stance of most modern orthodoxy is my motivation for mentioning that. Interesting you should mention tradition, since I thought the final theme in Fiddler on the Roof is that it's not particularly helpful. I'd suggest reviewing history and the Spanish Inquisition a bit as far as your idea of pogroms. Assimilation is all that worked as a shield. I'd finish by saying picking and choosing your religious convictions is fine, good even. But, it gives someone like Ben Shapiro ammunition, so he can pigeonhole you as a fake Jew. It's astonishing how few religious people realize it's still just divide and conquer among the denominations as a political game. You seem to be aware of that. So I'm a little perplexed as to why you don't understand my implication about stringent adherence to arbitrary biblical/talmudic rules. To answer your question, I'm a non-practicing Jew, who, when I was religious, attended the several "main" denominations services at different times, domestically and in Israel. While it was a satiating experience as a community, it was not religiously.
It reminds me of when i watched fight club and talked about it to a friend who was a guy. What I saw reminded me of a horror film, my friend merely saw it as an action movie he admired.
Definitely- I watched Fight Club and saw a world of turmoil and destructive behavior broken down, but it def paints it with a glossy coat of sexy rebellion paint too. Check out Folding Ideas's video on how Fight Club is both embracing and breaking down/criticism of Toxic Masculinity. It's a thoughtful video essay you might like
Master Markus what was scary to me was how it snowballed there but I realize I definitely embellished my reaction by calling it horror. It may also have had less to do with what the movie itself but noticing the small bits and pieces that guys would pick up as the movies message was flying over their heads (which happens with a lot of movies).
I love to discuss this movie with my husband, because he's never been the kind of guy to get into fights or prove how tough he is all the time. So, for him it's a lot easier to see what else is going on underneath the tough guy action movie exterior.
Some wholesome tidbits : Mel Brooks and the actress Anne Bancroft were married for over 40 years until her death in 2005. They had a son in 1972 called Max. That son had dyslexia, and he grew up at a time where it was regarded as just laziness. So Anne put her career on the shelf, even though she still was a highly succesful actress, with an academy awards and several nominations under her belt, to learn about dyslexia and help her son get through his education. He mentionned her having his school books be recorded on cassettes every year so that he could study properly. Max then went on to become an author and publish a book called "World War Z". So not only is Mel is a swell dude, he also had an incredible wife. Let's be happy for him.
It reminds me of a line from the cold war song Russia Russia. "Have some Wheaties, don't be meanies" Although I always thought that it went have some weenies.
Truly excellent discussion here Lindsay, and even more pertinent in the present political climate. Your work and analysis have only become better and better over the years.
I am so glad to learn that Mel Brooks called out Life Is Beautiful. I hated that movie, and I thought it was obvious what was wrong with it. Its message is that this kid was able to not know he was in a concentration camp while in a concentration camp, and that saved him from some suffering, despite his dad being killed. First that's insanely impossible. No one could have hid a child in a concentration camp. It's Holocaust denial to an absurd degree. Second, the message is bad. No, the kid would not have been protected by that. So glad Brooks called that out. As a Jew and much older than I, I'm sure he knew a lot of people who survived concentration camps. I have met a few. That tattoo represented so much suffering that they often couldn't express or didn't want to. I can't even put the depth of the empathy they evoked into words except to say watch an actual Holocaust documentary. I saw the movie on video, and when I expressed how I felt about it, I was repeatedly told that I was being closed minded and wasn't understanding the message. I insisted that I did understand the message, and I thought the message was extremely harmful. This video is the first time I found out that it has been called out publicly. I remember it won a lot of awards, and I just felt so alienated from the world that could glorify a message that was harmful in so many ways. Its level of Holocaust denial isn't even the only harm. Its message about recovery from abuse and torture is equally as harmful to survivors trying to heal. The movie seems to think it's offering something beautiful about the human spirit, but it's really doing the opposite. It says "shut up" and "don't exist" to those suffering and pretends that an impossible imaginary denial-based triumph constitutes the beauty of life for us to hold on to. It's just wrong-headed and harmful.
Exactly. And Brooks does the opposite of that. When he used the n word or referred to the n word multiple times in Blazing Saddles it wasn't to exploit its use a la Tarantino, it was to put it out there the way racists use it and to show it as harmful and also ridiculous. I was a little kid when I saw Blazing Saddles in the theater and got the joke that the n word was wayyyyyy worse than the f word and there were mean people using it. This was extremely important in 1974.
What I don't understand are people that don't realize that all jokes are risks (all art is risk, that's why it's an art) and get hurt by people disliking the joke. No joke is funny to everyone, and the people who don't find it funny are going to try to shut you up. People who try to deflect blame for their hate speech onto other people? Them I understand.
Timothy Ross kind of like when my sister's ex and his friend made jokes about women, the standard sexism lite shit and he got offended that me and my husband didn't laugh and claiming we didn't laugh because we were offended snowflakes...
Exactly. Some people figure something must be wrong with everyone who doesn't share their views. Being offended because you think someone else is offended is at least ironic.
If you are going to say something you know is controversial, you need to expect backlash. It doesn't mean you can't say it, but you need to know there may be consequences or backlash. That's the gist of comedy and speech in general.
SPR made trendy the self-reflective wwii movie, the one that focuses on the horrors of war rather than glorifying victory. since veitnam was a very unpopular war (especially among artists and film makers) most films about veitnam used the horrors of war motif to criticize it, but it wasn't until SPR that WWII movies went from "Ra! Ra! Victory!!" to "look at what that war cost us."
6:58, oh my god, I recognized those illustrations from a book I used to read as a kid. I forgot what it was called, but I used to read it regularly because it featured my Jewish heritage front and center as the Jewish man tricks the goblin with the Hanukkah traditions, or something like that. Thumbs up for sparking my nostalgia.
Mel Brooks has repeatedly said that the reason he mocks Hitler so much is because he thinks Hitler hated being mocked, and he hopes Hitler is in hell somewhere hearing people laugh at him and at his ideas.
It's a common theme with authoritarians and their followers. The authoritarians hate being mocked, and their followers hate the mockery of their leaders.
I stand by him on that one.
Honestly, fair. There’s nothing better you can do to cut down dictators than take away their influence and fear factor over people. Mockery works.
😅😂w
During WW2 the british edited footage of the german army marching and made them dance to the "lambeth walk", a jazz song the nazis deemed "degenarate". The archives say that when Goebbels watched the video, he went out of the room swearing at the video. Hitler might have reacted the same way
Our high school had to take out all references to race when putting on a production of Hairspray. It was so ridiculous because no one understood that the whole point of the musical was to say racism is bad, not good. It just became a show about someone wanting to dance.
Then what was the point of doing the play in the first place?
Why would they do that makes 0 since.
Could be worse. Could be trying to take the race outta Ragtime.
No, my school didn’t do that, but I was worried. They DID cut all but one of the instances of white people saying the n word, but I mean... fair enough. The guy who absolutely needed to for the plot had his name kept off the program because he was so uncomfortable with it.
I hate it when anyone or anything does this. It removes the whole point of whatever is being made safer for general audiences(in your case, parents) Like, in 10 years people will probably make Joker but kid friendly. What a god damn fiasco that will be, like these things always are. I am sorry for you though.
Artdefines I did some like that as a kid
I love "you know, Morons" line just because you can tell the laugh following it was entirely genuine and unexpected.
Wilder ablibbed the line
@@drewidlifestyle7883 I think it's the best line in the film. ^^
luketfer Cleavon Little has such a wonderful smile. People give all the credit to Gene, but they played off of each other beautifully.
Totally agree, Dodogama. I will never hunt you again.
luketfer wasn't it "mormons"?
"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."
- Tom Lehrer
Always love to see a Tom Lehrer quote.
the simpsons do a good parody of him.
Nobel prizes mean something.
But the peace prize is a joke.
@@fantastmic of Lehrer or of Kissinger?
edit: or of the Nobel Peace Prize committee?
It's crazy how relevant his songs still are.
Thank you for remembering to mention the Jewish tradition of folklore and humor at the expense of oppressive, anti-Semitic regimes. It's something that gets glossed over a lot when talking about the nature of Mel Brooks' comedy, and it's a genre and history that makes the comedy/weapon connection much clearer than most modern satire.
@@viciousattackvideo Did you just miss the point of this entire video
@@sambradley9091 I think it is you who missed the reason of that comment
It's pretty interesting just how common anti-semitism has been throughout history and how the jewish people/culture has managed to survive through all that. And also just how unknown it all is.
@@VarvasNukka it's a tribute to a largely impoverished and oppressed people. It's just jaw droppingly lame to have so much world history unknown today and that has a lot to do with anti-semitism in western culture.
People comparing their own crap offensive jokes to Mel Brooks is a bit like when pseudo-scientists compare themselves to Galileo.
Galileo wasn't great BECAUSE his views were rejected... he was great because his views were correct.
And Mel Brooks isn't great BECAUSE his comedy was offensive... he is great because he's really fucking funny!
What's the Carl Sagan line? "Yes, they laughed at Galileo, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
TheOmegajuice Great point
Very VERY well put. Definitely borrowing this line.
Wasn't that a car scene in History of the World pt I?
Compare Brooks offensive, to, say, the 'Censored Eleven' Loony Toons. These movies are funny as hell. Those offensive Loony Toons, while they may have a few amusing moments in the gags, are literally nothing you can;t find recycled from/into other, less offensive episodes, and most of the individual shorts don't even have those lackluster moments to shine.
Gonna drop a comment on a video that's 4 years old because this is one the best damn things I've ever seen. Thanks for knocking this perfectly directly out of the park
Your content is amazing btw
20 years from now, the common refrain will be "Everything is too PC, you couldn't make a movie like Jojo Rabbit today!"
Jojo Rabbit was a really good movie.
You couldn’t make Sorry To Bother You today.
@@reikun86 It was, it was also the subject of a lot of criticism that it went too far, before the consensus of how good it was gave it a pass.
to be fair you couldn't make jojo rabbit today, someone would look at the script and be like "hey this is jojo rabbit, this is already a movie."
I honestly don't know what I'm more impressed with, the depth of this analysis or the fact that you somehow managed to make a Phantom of the Opera reference.
This is totally unrelated, but I misread "Phantom of the Opera" as "Phantom of the Oprah."
Even I'm impressed, and I once mentioned Doctor Who in an essay on Shakespeare, and it wasn't either of the obvious references
Lindsay will always find a way to reference Phantom of the Opera.
36:36 the reference was, if anyone wanted to know,
@@lasvina3610 I actually laughed out loud at the reference. Thanks for putting the time so I could see the joke again! Haha
"Stormtroopers? Those aren't Stormtroo - oh, right." - My Inner Monologue
@Sam Roscoe Pretty sure the Sturmabteilung of the SA wore brown uniforms.
@@Reggie1408 I think Lindsay also mentions Stormtroopers when there are black-shirted people on screen, so she's wrong at least once.
Also important to note that the Empire was intentionally designed to be very much like the Nazis.
You a funny lad mate, you are indeed a funny lad
They look like SS not Stormtroopers
I am consistently thrilled by how you've transcended the standard UA-cam reviewer and are contributing to expanding people's understanding of film as a business and an art form... Thank you for making me think about fun stuff.
Gus Topher i honestley came here ro say the same thing. she does great work.
I just love me to learn some new stuff. I specially like what I've learned about editing from foldable human and film language by Lindsay. It made me rethink completely how I saw movies, understand them better, appreceatte them better. specially the work behind them, some movies are just so incredible.
I completely agree. UA-cam is filled with "movie-reviewers" and that is fine but most don't really do any analysis of the media. You really do deserve more subs.
Lindsay content got waaaaay better when she left channel awesome/tgwtg.
And props to her on not hiding her political views. Nowadays paying dancers to hold anti semitic banners and then hiding behind "edgy shock value humor" as if its an aegis earns you rep on youtube, meanwhile pointing out that is wrong might earn you a bunch of teens being whiny and a ton of downvotes.
I still enjoy Channel Awesome but I enjoy it differently than I enjoy Lindsay's videos. One is pure entertainment and one is entertaining education.
I think RedLetterMedia does a good job of being in the middle.
There's an old legend about Mel Brooks' time in the war. During the Battle of the Bulge, the Nazis would blare music by well-known German composers across the front lines. So one time, Brooks commandeered a PA system and started blaring music by famous Jewish composers back at them.
I have not heard that in decades, and I always wanted to believe it was true.
I remember reading that he broadcast Al Jolson back to them. Jolson of course, was a Jewish singer and civil rights advocate. I wonder if anyone’s ever asked him about that?
the awkward moment when both sides played mendelson...
@@AtheistDD : It would be in the favor a Jewish people if the nazis had played it because it would be an awkward moment only for the nazis. But then maybe not, because one has to be self aware to feel awkward about such a thing. We're talking about a group of people (racists) who have let their unfounded fear turn to hatred, causing them to be so delusional they actually accepted a leader who was closer in race to those they persecuted, than those they believed to be superior. Hans Frank, hitlers personal lawyer stated hitlers grandfather likely was a Jewish man.
But regardless of whether or not this is true, hitler so obviously wasn't the blue eyed and blonde embodiment of the so-called _"master race"_ by any stretch of the imagination. This clearly show just how intrinsically delusional the mind of a racist is.
And that's even before you consider what white supremacists in the U.S. did when the then conservative-democrat party voted *for* civil rights. They all got so upset by this that within a few years the republican party was turned onto the conservative party. Despite the fact that the then left-wing-republican party had voted even *more in favor* of civil rights than had the then right-wing-democrats.
That's why Lincoln was a republican. They were the left-wing before the delusional racists were all ignorantly fawning over them after 1964's civil rights amendment was enacted. This also further proves that these days the republican party is intrinsically racist.
But the fact the parties switched sides so easily also proves beyond all reasonable doubt that both parties are two sides of the same coin of oppression, and that most politicians could care less about the issues as long as they're getting the votes that keep them in power and thereby rich.
If this is true, I know this is probably not how it went down, but I love the idea that popped into my head of klezmer suddenly being blasted across a WWII battlefield.
I'm not gonna lie: I clicked on this thinking it said Mel Gibson and thought "this is gonna be scary." But as soon as I realized it was Mel Brooks I went, "Okay, now I'm confused. Better listen."
Ya one of those people is jewish and the other is.... well.... not a fan......(see: "The Passion")
One of those Mels is not like the other. One of those Mels is a hateful, anti-Semitic prick
@@dipdop9734 That's not very nice to mel brooks
@@aeriswf Not who I meant, and you know it
@@dipdop9734 Sarcasm, buddy.
Many excellent points. My favorite part is when Lindsey shows how neo-nazis love the movies/media/songs intended to demonstrate how bad that life is/was, but none of them are singing "Springtime for Hitler".
Mighty Fiction, you've spent a lot of time playing Devil's Advocate and trying (and failing) to create equivalnecy between Nazis and those who oppose them.
What's up with that?
Thank you for that, Fiction.
I'm sure we'd both rather you not waste valuable time by playing Devil's Advocate for Nazis.
@@The_Mighty_Fiction I believe the hilarious thing is that they won't adapt it, they will be openly ridiculized for that if they do, so they won't, adopt it will give them no power.
Is part for their ideology to reject that kind of representation after all.
Your question is close to "can a vegan be a vegan if they eat meat regularly? "
Another film/album that I can think of that condemns fascism, but became an anthem for fascists was Pink Floyd's The Wall (specifically In the Flesh part two and the overall imagery of the world of the wall). It also doesn't help that they hired actual neo-nazis as extras.
Edit: proceed to my next comment. Sorry for generalizing.
@@BostonMBrand Yankee Doodle lol
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!"
“Satire needs to be making a statement about the thing it’s satirizing, or else it’s bad satire.”
This pretty much describes a certain critic who will not be named from a certain channel which will not be named.
@@ryangreen6255 Honest Trailers is good tho
@@ryangreen6255 I was specifically thinking of one of them, as in the one Lindsay used to work with, or for.
@@ryangreen6255 Yes.
Speaking of a critic who won’t be named, That
Describes perfectly a certain review of the film adaptation of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, a satire with nothing to say.
Why can’t we name this person?
"You can't make __________ movies anymore." is a REALLY effective abbreviation of "I don't go too far out of my way to find interesting entertainment."
Also watching Gene Wilder crack up Cleavon Little is truly timeless.
Can you please let me know some good newer movies of this type besides Jojo Rabbit. I already saw that one and I wanna see others I may have missed. Thanks
Todd Philips to a tee
@@gruntildavonbigglesworth734 American Psycho is a satire on 80's culture and masculinity and I would add Get out to that list as well since its a satire on modern racism
@@athenajaxon2397 Todd Phillips? Oh the guy that got accused of perpetuating white supremacy and toxic masculine culture that the media went after hard saying his movie would inspire violence on women and minorities? Gee I have no idea why he would resent that. th
@@athenajaxon2397Yea I know American Psycho but thats 20 years ago. I meant newer movies. It seems the past few years movies just seem really tame but I'm glad jojo rabbit got made. We need more like it thats for sure
I come from a family that read Blazing Saddles completely literally, their favourite parts were the racism. They missed the irony utterly.
Holy shit
Who else is completely shocked at the “let’s get r*tarded” version of the black eyed peas song? I had no clue that was the original version??
I was genuinely speechless. It's hilarious how this was not only considered okay, but their original vision for the song.
As an autist who heard that insult all his life, I have never had a problem with it
Lol where y'all been???
Tim Roe i was a kid when this song came out haha so I’m actually glad I hadn’t heard the original
Mori no Majou I wasn’t meaning it in a way of “being offended is weakness”, I meant that by not being offended by it, I’m robbing the insult of its harmful intent - deconstructing the word itself by focusing less on why it was hurtful and instead showing a callous disregard to the hate thrown at me. I don’t expect everyone to share that outlook, but don’t mistake my inoffense for carelessness
It's interesting that you brought up satire being taken literally, and even positively, by the people being satirized. I remember when the Colbert Report was still on, a lot of my conservative friends and family used to take things that his character said that were meant to be jokes and hold them up as a "Damn right, listen to this!" sort of object.
And I see it all the time today especially-- satirical depictions of Trump, for instance, that are obviously meant to poke fun at his bombastic narcissism are often shared by his more ardent supporters because a lot of the things that get satirized about him are the reasons a lot of them voted for him. While most of us are disgusted by his behavior, many in his base *love* it, so the satire is either lost on them or deliberately tossed out the window. They don't see the exaggeration as a joke, they see it as a glorification.
How are you gonna convince someone that something's bad when they think what's bad is good?
Samuel Zuccati subjective morality 🤷♀️. People just have to learn perspective - both the fact that theirs is only one in an ocean of perspectives, and that there’s no total, absolute moral perspective so we should just help each other instead of hurting others based on what they think is good.
"They don't see the exaggeration as a joke, they see it as a glorification." Well said.
Jake 3752 there you go making a good point on the Internet.
Nicholas Brown it’s actually a sorta flawed point tho cuz “help everyone no matter your morals” is a moral in of itself that I’m saying all people should follow - which means I’m forcing my authoritarian perspective on others, no matter the benevolence of the idea.
I need to get my head out of the anarchist philosopher books lol
I know this is late and I'm not sure if others have already said. Tomorrow Belongs to Me was a hit with Neo Nazi groups until they found out the song was written by two Jewish men.
that’s awful, but also incredibly funny
Just like the Andrews Sisters recording of Bei Mer Bist Du schane was loved by Germans until they found out the song was Yiddish af.
In that same vein I can't wait for the Proud Boys to find out that the song they were named after was written by a gay man.
@@castlegarden2999 the proud boys know about that i think, they named themself that to make fun of the song
Many still like the song. Go look it up on youtube. They think it's how they really project themselves. Yuck.
I once met a Canadian girl on the internet. Blonde haired and blue eyed. That didn't really stick out to me until I found out her boyfriend was a neo-nazi. Being black, I stepped away from that situation.
However, I noticed that listed under his favorite movies on Facebook was American History X. A movie that I liked and understood the point of even seeing it as a pre-teen. I found the whole situation pretty funny.
I had never heard of the name for the satire paradox but it's sure been lingering in my mind since that day.
I didn't quite get until I saw this movie -- the draw for the neo nazis was the camaraderie between them.
I can understand the danger that people will focus on this, and downplay the fact that the main characters' family is being torn apart.
I suspect many people who have a tendency to actually think about stuff probably know of the satire paradox even if they don't know the term.
I discovered it first hand in high school where with some projects and presentations I attempted to satire some things I rather disliked, such as shallowness, greed, apathy towards people. And I learned just how hard satire can be. You are walking a fine line of just openly stating "this is a bad thing" and having your audience put up their guards, or being too subtle and having people embrace what you made to _support_ the things you thought you were mocking. Or you might be rather clumsy and wind up insulting the wrong targets.
Satire is an art form, because it's far more difficult to pull off effectively than I think most people realize. Also, if you're too insulated from those who support what you're trying to "de-power" you can easily underestimate their ability to twist things around and live in denial.
And the worst of it now is that there is a whole section of the media industry that works to support the neo-nazi narrative, or at least those which refuse to challenge it.
I cannot stress how much I want to thank you for pointing out how difficult making good satire is. I've seen too many idiots try to excuse some insensitive joke or statement they make by saying it's satire. Satire is one of my favorite genres in any form of art because it actually pushes people to think in a way that a lecture may not. To treat it like it's a easy as saying shit that offends people under a thin coat of "irony" or that it's an easy cover up to hide how shitty you are is an insult to satire.
Blue eyed? Well never trust people without central heterochromia, they are all scum without exception. Most people with heterochromia are too though.
@Dream Delirium
It was a self deprecating joke meant only to amuse myself since my mother has central heterochromia. It was me literally saying "I can only trust my mommy in this world".
When i honestly reflect, seeing Blazing Saddles at 6-7 years old is what taught me that racism was just wrong
My parents also let us watch Mel Brooks movies at a young age. They explained to us what satire is, what racism and antisemitism is, what the Nazis did and about our history of slavery, and what the different words mean, before and after watching. I firmly believe that exposing kids to reality in a safe and controlled environment is far more beneficial than hiding it and letting them find it on their own.
absolutely. same here. it really opened me up to the racism in westerns that were so prevalent at the time too.
I'd been struggling to articulate why Mel Brooks's comedy works overall and you've analyzed it so perfectly here. Another excellent video essay.
Great satire, at its core, can work as both ridiculing it, and also be sincere to it. It could be a love letter to a genre or style, and be a comedy lampooning on its established form.
Well, I wouldn't call Spaceballs a successful parody.
At the end of the day, it's two things: making a mockery of devils & laughing at things that socially aren't funny. That's kinda' the essence behind all satire. As a satirist, it's also always important to punch up. If you punch down, you suddenly become a bully.
to " analyse " comedy is impossible. Whats funny to you is offensive to others.
This specific video has become one of the things my autism has locked on to, and hard. I estimate I have watched it 40-50 times; it is informative, and amusing. I find it comforting.
Babbleplay same lmao
I'm so happy for you, that's an incredible experience to have for a good video
Good for you
i like the implication that there's a spectrum targeting reticle, because there totally is
@@chrisdray5325 Yup. I tend to lock onto a game, song, movie, video, etc, and just obsess on it for a month or more. Meow Mix jingle is a big one, for me.
Mel Brooks mocked Hitler and the Nazis directly to their faces in Europe during WWII. That alone gives him a free pass for life.
He mocked Hitler himself, to his face? Seriously? God damn.
Sounds more like he mocked Hitler while dealing directly with Nazis, which is plenty.
I don't know how this necessarily gives him more authority to mock nazi's than anyone else though. By what is such authority granted? Experience? Proximity? Divine Right?
By my measure nazis are so universally reviled it's perpetual open season on them anyway. Anyone can mock and deride or ridicule fascists... some just do it more poorly than others.
Furthermore, making light of such ugly issues as racism or slavery or fascism and genocide does tend to desensitize some people to the seriousness of such matters. Just look at how easy it has become to point at someone you don't like and call them "racist!" or "fascist!" or "sexist!" or a nazi to shut them up and put them down. We dehumanize nazis and it makes it easier for some people to use them to dehumanize others.
I realize that some people need humor to "get over" the ugliness of these things, but sometimes I truly believe that some people need to be *shown* the real horror and ugliness of what the nazis did so they can tell the difference between that and somebody that just kinda irritates them a lot.
Even to call those punk ass bitches in that gathering of wanna-be white supremacists "nazis" is insulting to every man woman and child who was killed by one.
It doesn't mean he's above criticism, it just lends credence to the argument that his intention is not to glorify or normalize antisemitism, racism, or in this case nazism. How people interpret his satire is, of course, beyond his control.
My city actually has a lot of Neo Nazis, so it does scare me how much the word is thrown around. We have people just a few minutes away from my neighborhood who congregated for a huge gathering on 4/20 to celebrate Hitler's birthday, right across from an elementary school. A lot of the people having that term thrown at them are usually ignorant racists but not necessarily Nazis.
Could a film like blazing saddles be done today? Yes if done correctly. Blazing saddles works as a satire because Bart is the hero, he's the one on top, and the townsfolk and the villains are shown to be the buffoons, the idiots. The result of this is we are shown, through comedy, just how silly and ridiculous racism is, which is how satire works.
Mike White But people will just complain that it's "PC Hollywood Agenda". I mean, people like they suck but that's what happens when a movie involving minorities comes out.
+Tate Hildyard Then would you kindly explain the crickets that heralded the coming of Django Unchained? A movie in which white slave holders are played as cruelly and sadistically racist often to the point of being disturbing and unfunny for a comedy, the hero and the damsel are black and the side kick is german.
See? Nobody cares! People can tell when a movie or "comedy" is arbitrarily glorifying a certain demographic by dumping on certain people in particular. That's what the "PC Hollywood Agenda" has been doing even with works that aren't comedies. Heck, even Ghostbusters *might* have worked as a comedy if it had gone with a battle of the sexes theme for its comedy instead of just being generally shite. But even then it would have had no business being a Ghostbusters movie.
And the "PC Hollywood Agenda" doesn't account for all the times people piss themselves over supposed "whitewashing".
Django is remarkably similar to Blazing Saddles and The Producers in many ways, except Django actually depicts the actual horrors of slavery and racism instead of just making light of the "bad guys". That's an even nastier representation of white racists when you portray them as they actually were instead of just turning them into cartoons, but that didn't stop plenty of lily white asses from finding that movie fun, dramatic, and hilarious (including mine).
Tate Hildyard true, but people will complain about anything, honestly. Christ, I got called racist for using the phrase " first world problems"
@Mike White
I agree, actually a lot of the stuff mentioned about Blazing Saddles in the comments reminds me of Avatar: The Last Airbender's handling of the blind character Toph. There's many blind-related jokes and they're all -funny-, but they're always at the expense of other sighted characters, hahaha.
WireMosasaur exacta
Very interesting point about not depicting the lynching of a black man.
Robert Heinlein positsin his novel "Stranger in a Strange Land" that all humor is ultimately derived from suffering--that laughter is our defense against the vicissitudes of Life. Why would a white man make a joke including the depiction of a black man being lynched? Against what is he defending himself? Seen through this light, it is a defense against the dismantling of his privilege. He is laughing at someone with less power. This is a line that ought not to be crossed because it is cruel, because it takes no courage to laugh at those with less power.
Perhaps this is why Brooks had such a problem with "Life is Beautiful." For a Gentile to find humor in the concentration camps is cruel, for the laughter is then at the expense of the powerless. It takes no bravery to laugh at such people. Turned around, for a Jew to find humor in the Holocaust or the National Socialists is an example of real coping (in the sense of grappling with something). It is a way for the powerless to come to terms with their suffering at the hands of the Status Quo. And as any psychoanalyst will tell you, grappling with such demons takes a great deal of resolve and emotional courage. That is why Edgelords are so repugnant. They dress their demeaning cackles up as brave satire or real emotional wrestling, when in reality it is nothing of the sort.
I don't think anything in Life is Beautiful was a joke at the expense of the victims of concentration camps.
I don't think that's what Roberto Benigni was meaning to do either, but I can see why some people, including Mel, might be upset about that film.
As much as I accept the criticism of Life is Beautiful as being highly tone deaf, I never regarded it as a comedy to begin with, so the idea that I was supposed to be laughing at holocaust victims was lost on me.
It was always a drama to me where the main character just happened to be a comedian of sorts (or, rather, just a goofy person). Honestly, it's a movie that I like while still understanding where the issues people have about it come in. But I never saw it as me finding humor in a concentration camp. The tragedy of it was more on my mind.
note4note Regarding the Monty Python scene I think it is a quality exception to the rule. It's a situation that shows how important tone and framing can be when making a joke about something demonstrably wrong.
The men reasoning why they should burn the witch are shown to be utter buffoons, and the accused witch herself reacts with something more akin to annoyance than mortal terror. And then she weighs as much as a duck, demonstrating that the universe in the movie itself backs up this absurdist logic,to the point where she calls it a fair cop, the scene plays out to the audience as the farce it's meant to be.
Making a joke about touchy subject matter is going to vary wildly by many variables and ultimately come down to the skill of the comedian and their rapport with the audience. As interesting and thought provoking as it is to analyze and dissect these ideas as Lindsay expertly does, it will come down to us laughing or not laughing at certain things and reconciling what that means about us.
There is another factor, is how touchy a subject is or time: look how mel brook dosent mind showing people being torture by the inqusition but is too much for black people...why? because of time.
As a Jewish guy who looks to understand all the "why's and why not's" of certain things, I highly agree with your statement, however, I would like to further highlight one thing, and make it very clear:
context is EXTREMELY important when making certain offensive jokes. I know many people today, Jewish or not, who STILL LOVE TO LAUGH at these old Mel Brooks movies, (myself included), because at the end of the day, if you're so impacted by the effect "Insert evil person name here" had on society and the world, that you become paralyzed by any mention of it, then they've essentially still won.
I'm not saying ignore what happened. in fact, it's a strange phenomenon I am starting to study. I have no clue what it is called, but essentially,
you HAVE TO KNOW, and show that you know and fully understand why something is wrong, IN ORDER TO LAUGH AT IT. I have plenty of black friends who love laughing at Blazing Saddles, specifically the scene of the old lady who says "Up yours N*****!" because they understand why the word is wrong, but they have moved past it. and they made sure I am comfortable enough to laugh at the scene too, while also making sure I never say that word, even when they aren't around. I live as the kind of person that can acknowledge the bad things, move forward, while still making sure the bad things don't happen again. because being that kind of person dumbfound's people who don't work on themselves to move past certain issues. in life, some people really do take things too seriously, to the point of misunderstanding why we move forward. and some people don't take things seriously enough, to the point of ignoring the past. both are extremely terrible things because they ignore a core aspect of being human, which is to constantly be moving forward.
so, don't be afraid to laugh at the offensive stuff. but do take a moment to understand why it's bad and it should be prevented from happening again by idiots who don't properly understand that (Neo-Nazi's, KKK, etc). it's important to live in the moment, but not at the expense of our own self-observation.
You, sir, put that perfectly. There is definitely a happy medium between taking these subjects too seriously and not seriously enough.
Too much of one thing is unhealthy. well said.
Thats very good point. as an European I think the disconnect between European and American mentality about the nazis is quite interesting one. Like in the American culture it seems more light when any country which had any connection to the nazis here carries immense shame about it
Well-said!
Wow, my friend. That was an awesome analysis. I agree wholeheartedly.
This goes beyond satiryzing offensive stuff. Spoof films in general tend to suffer from this. What made Mel Brooks and the ZAZ's movies great, and what the Selzers' awful, is that deep understanding of the spoofed element. You know how Young Frankensteing is funny, because it is a bunch of absurd things that might have happened in the original film. Whereas garbage like Meet the Spartans is just the writers saying "hey, these things are popular and we know they exist".
That last line of yours is the reason why I believe we not only are allowed to laugh at these great evils; we *should* laugh at them. Comedy can serve as a gateway to learn about those horrors that happened. In the end, laughter is a defense mechanism, and if we mock them, we can also mock the morons who might want to follow in their footsteps. That room, at 33:49 , I know I'm not wrong if I say it's full of imbeciles, from the doofus on the podium down.
Vaush referenced this video in his piece on the ‘MAGA are Weird’ attack ad; good reminder to revisit one of Ms. Ellis’s best essays!
It's always stunned me that conservatives though Stephen Colbert was a conservative. I have a coworker that told me he thought that back in the day with the Colbert Report. I thought it was so painfully obvious satire AGAINST conservatives.
Yup, same. The first time I ever saw Colbert doing his thing I was still very much in my conservative ways at the time and even my dumb, brain-washed ass knew he was being satirical. I was completely caught off guard when people in the conservative circles I used to run in would venerate the man and I finally started to realize why conservatives were such easy and plentiful joke fodder for non-conservative comics.
During the Word segments, Stephens actual thoughts were displayed. Still too subtle for conservatives. I keep seeing online the conservatives want their own SNL.
Well, you have to consider how tiny the average conservative fellow's brain is
Okay, does anyone know where to watch the Colbert report?
@@tamarbeker1701 Your best option is a time machine, but the comedy central website still has a lot of the segments up.
"There's no glory in conquest when you know what those soldiers are going to discover on the other side of those woods." I don't know why but that hit me really hard. Thank you, Lindsay.
This needs to be revisited. JoJo Rabbit is coming out soon.
Love Taika Waititi, but I really don't know how to feel about that one. Haven't seen it yet, so that's an important caveat, but still it doesn't feel quite right.
Alejandro K it was done very tastefully. Taiki as hitler isn’t on the screen as much as the trailers suggests. The most memorable & moving scenes that cause smiles, warm fuzzies, & laughs are matched with well-timed-contrasting events to remind the viewer the horrific reality of nazi Germany. The way the movie is delivered from the perspective of a easily-influence & venerable child, while assuming the audience has a basic knowledge of the European events surrounding the Ninth Reich’s rise to power. This technique creates empathy for with the characters as individual humans, but also critical thinking about ideology, nationalism, & the immature evil actions that result from narcissism rising to power
@@crazycrackinchick Thanks for sharing your take on it! I'm sure I'll check it out at some point. And again, I am a bit conflicted but I do trust Taika in this instance. I was just reiterating the idea that it's worth taking time to critique how Nazi imagery is used for humor.
Alejandro K I hope you enjoy the film as a cinematic dark comedy! One part that made me less uncomfortable with the sensitive topic (I am Jewish, lol) is that the jokes were not jokes made by and for nazis, but rather jokes made to absolutely mock the nazis and the propaganda they created. Many can still be offended with reason, as the nazis being suggested as idiots can be offensive for the amount of power they held. I think taiki took a tasteful approach by keeping to the nazis that were not on the battlefield, but the childish, unexpierenced and ignorant people products of propaganda in Germany. The satire used to mock the ignorance and unempathetic of the most “patriotic” Germans helps to show the dangers and absurdism of nationalism without the danger of creating more fascism. Mocking Hitler works best when done properly because power does not respond to mockery well -suggesting people who are part of the uprising of current nationalism are idiots. But the satire needs to be obvious, otherwise people may thing it’s promoting hitler.
It is impossible to get that from jojo rabbit. It highlights the dangers of nationalism by bullying the nationalists
Waititi's grandfather was Jewish, if that matters
Hey Lindsay, as a Jewish viewer I wanted to stop by and thank you for your well thought-out and knowledgable video. I'm going to see about showing it to my mom and rabbi, as I think they would find it to be of interest. I think it takes a lot of courage to make videos like this especially in our world's current state of affairs and how technology has increased out ability to communicate whether it be for better or worse. So thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week
God, Lindsay you are seriously something else.I enjoyed your N Chick days, and your evolution into more thoughtful criticism, but you are now really something amazing. The sheer substance of your critique is simply unparalleled, and with each one of these videos I truly feel like I've learned so much. You, Madam, are definitely the most thoughtful reviewer I've seen on this platform
Aiki Kana me This is the first video of Lindsay's I've seen, it's currently 2:30am and there was no way I was falling asleep until I'd seen this entire video. Truly a superb example of genuine critique and in-depth discussion. I subscribed less than half way through because I knew I'd want to see more from her!
Yeah, but Albert Camus' Absurdism and Mel Brooks' comedy are kinda entirely different sorts of things, just be careful not to take her too seriously she's kinda lazy with her labels but I'm making it a late night and binging out on her stuff too >8)
If you like this, I’d definitely recommend Movies with Mikey. She gets a few of her ideas from him, and you can see his videos start to look similar to hers. He’s very thoughtful and very funny about film!
The way I see it, Ellis is a film critic more than a philosopher, so I just took it for granted that when she uses the term "absurdism," it refers to the type of comedy, not the term from existentialist philosophy. Kinda like when physicists use terms like "force" or "momentum" we understand it to mean something specific to their field, rather than a more vernacular use of the words. (As an aside, what we refer to "momentum" in regular conversation is usually closer to "inertia" than actual "momentum" in physics)
Thomas Cahyuti That was beautiful! This is the kind of comment that makes me want to be a better commenter
This looked interesting, and I clicked on it without looking to see how long a video it is. ..."That's way too long. I'm tired. I want to go to bed early. I can't watch this whole thing." ...Now, 40 minutes and 45 seconds later - very well done. I couldn't turn it off.
3:11 am. I need to get off the UA-cam train.
I argue Jojo Rabbit is that Mel Brooks-ish satire people have been whinging about.
Yeah and I'm guessing those same types of people don't like it because it's 'woke' or something. Which kind of reveals them for what they really are.
@@MeatCatCheesyBlaster dingdingdingding
@@MeatCatCheesyBlaster I don't even know how you can say it's 'woke' as much as that word has any meaning anymore
another question Do fish🐟 have blood? if you r not sure don't say yes🐱
Don't forget Spies Are Forever. Well, the Nazi subplot at least.
"Bad art is a distraction. Great art changes people."
Lindsey, thank you for picking apart bad art and for highlighting what makes great art great!
I'm genuinely impressed with this comment section.
I hate black people.
@@mattsmith457 Now that's more like the UA-cam comments section I know, though its not quite subtle enough to be generally indistinguishable.
Brendan how about this, "we need to discuss the validity of IQ and race culture" is that better? Seems a bit more subtly racist.
Lindsay has a pretty healthy comments section
@@prismuse7154 *fOuNd ThE cEnTrIsT* Because us blacks can never be centrists nor was targetted by the alt right (sarcasm)
Did you ever hear of "Er ist wieder da"? It's a 2015 movie (based on a 2012 book) about Hitler waking up in modern-day Berlin, having been mysteriously transported through time from the moment of his death. It's a fish-out-of-water comedy, starring Hitler as the sympathetic protagonist who has to come to terms with how the world changed in his absence. So Hitler ends up building a TV career as a Hitler-impersonator, building on the legacy of decades of Hitler parodies, using comedy as a shield to speak truth to power.
It's not a great movie by any means, but I bring it up because the ending touches on the danger of trivializing Hitler. Ultimately, after being coded as a bumbling protagonist for most of the movie, he is confronted by the second protagonist (the film maker who 'discovered' him) who has finally figured out that this 'impersonator' is the real deal. Hitler wins effortlessly, and the denouement suddenly takes an extremely sinister tone. Hitler decides to try his hand at politics once more. In his inner monologue he explains that while the world has changed, the nature of humanity really hasn't, and he still "can work with that"
It's kind of a "have your cake and eat it" kinda deal, a film that criticizes the use of Hitler as a comedic character when comedic Hitler is really all the movie got going for it.
Awesome
I really liked the book, but I thought the movie was not as great.
Still a pretty interesting story and it challanged my emotions a lot, surprisingly.
The movie was a mockumentary, I think the real content of the movie and what makes the ending so impactful is in the real portions of the actor tickling the real Germans just a little and them agreeing to and saying racist and fascist things very quickly.
It's less focused than Sasha Baron Cohen's work of that type, but it still ends up just as effectively making you go "holy shit, these people are real and they vote"
I have seen this in Netflix, originaly I thought:
"Man this is kinda interesting but there is no way people would simply ignore history like this and still make the same mistakes"
Nowadays I only think: "Holy shit, that "movie" was spot on, people are this stupid"
@@reversalmushroom Brazil just elected a dictator. Maybe it's not a "Western" country, but it's still an important player on the global scene. Putin is a dictator and I would consider Russia a "Western" country, at least partially. There's also been a rise in nationalism in Europe and the rest of the world. This may not lead to any dictators, but it's still worrying.
I'm Jewish so I've never had the issue with misinterpreting Brooks' comedy but I remember one of the reasons Dave Chapelle cited for quitting his show was that he didn't like the way white people were laughing at it. That they didn't get the satire and seemed to just be laughing at the expense of black people. And I thought of this Key and Peele sketch I watched. It was making fun of the names of black college basketball/football players. It was hilarious. But as a white person (or non-black person if you don't count Jews as white) I felt a bit uncomfortable while I laughed. Because I heard tons of unfunny jokes about "black names", even from my own family members. And I wondered if there were people laughing for the "wrong reasons", like Chapelle talked about.
What exactly makes a name 'retarded'? Sounding too black?
I guess "trying waaaay too desperately hard to sound black and just making shit up for your name with bizarre misspellings just makes you come off sounding a bit dumb." but whatever I don't care what people call themselves. There's just no way in hell I'm going to look someone in the eye and call them "Dweezil Moon Unit" unless my intent is to ridicule them.
But if Chapelle doesn't think his humor is coming across correctly, that's on him.
partylikeits1066 how does something sound black?
Whenever I watch football with my parents, I like to wait for the announcers to say "black" names and say "I'm gonna name my son that." cause I know the thought of that makes them uncomfortable.
Lots of groups have ridiculous names. It's just that there's a history of racist jokes about "black names". Although I really don't think I'm going to get through to someone who unironically uses "retarded" to describe things as stupid, so I'm probably wasting my time.
POV of an italian jew about La Vita è Bella: I saw it in the theatres when I was 10 yrs old. It absolutely enchanted me, and the italian audiences.
Benigni's storytellyng is a constant dream state, or a fable built to make life and its horros tolerable. There is no comedic intent in the jokes about the bunks, or the watered down imagery of the sufferings of the camp. The intent is to filter the reality, for the sake of his child who has to actually survive camp. so he need to believe he can get through it.
The comedy is there to make light of the present, not make fun of the past
LOOOOVE your videos btw!
Yeah, I was also ten when I saw it and I cried throughout the whole thing. It scarred me for life bc even at 10 I saw the sadness and horror of the story of a goofy father trying to keep at least some semblance of innocence in his child's life through unimaginable suffering. It's the reason I have a gut feeling of horror and disgust at the idea of concentration camps and had instilled in me a hatred of the nazi regime and fascism. So I don't think anybody who sees Life Is Beautiful as anything other than a very serious tragic story understands how powerful and poignant it's storytelling is.
@@mnaftw wow, same. I also was a child when I saw it and its imagery lives with me still, about 20 years later. And it absolutely is one of the reasons I always knew that Nazis were unthinkably horrible. Maybe this movie just needs this child-like perception to be understood.
I saw it for the first time a couple years ago when I was in my freshman year of high school. I was 14-15, and I was incredibly moved. It’s such a beautiful movie no matter what age you see it at. It’s great. It’s beautiful.
@@theniftycat I saw it as an adult and am tearing up now just from the memory - childhood not required to understand, only humanity.
:/
“If you are going to make a joke at the expense of a historically shat upon group that is not your own, you need to accept that there might be consequences and that some people might not think you’re funny.” Send that to Dave Chapelle lol
This was one of the weaker comments in her entire presentation unless directed at every day people trying to be funny. Professional comics are all too aware of the consequences of people not thinking they're funny. Every joke gets hashed out in front of people regularly and to often crushing results. Chapelle got a little isolated in his success. It's why we need more clubs and small places for artists to work things out. There are always the leading examples of Mae West and Lenny Bruce. Both West and Bruce were jailed for their humor on stage because they offended people. They are heroes because their humor was freeing from those offended people and the offended people were not the underdogs.
Excellent analysis overall, but something that surprised me: both your and Brooks's conclusion that Life Is Beautiful was intended as comedy. I saw it as a semitragic drama, of a man who ATTEMPTED to make everything comedy, only to fall into a situation where that was only possible by concealing 99% of what was happening from his son. I can't ever apply the label "comedy," even "failed comedy," to a film where the main character stands in horror before a mountain of corpses. HE knows it's not funny.
Completely agree!
Maybe is the translation? When I saw it the first time, in class with other no less, it was clear that That movie wasn't a comedy
Agree!
In the clip she showed, it seemed to be dubbed? Maybe the dubbed version came off differently? I saw it in italian and it is not a comedy. It's a very sad movie, but I love it.
@@AhavaMath I recently sawed dubbed. That.. That is a poor dub. That and like they don't understand his acting at all, which.. Make sense. Last time I saw him, he was on national TV speaking of the divine comedy
No Ads? What a fucking hero
I like that "Calling Out Fascists Online" is a part of this comment section.
10:37 "The Great Dictator dictates in gibberish"
Trump: Write that down, WRITE THAT DOWN
Are you calling a trump a dictator? If you are, you couldn't be any further from the truth.
@@zombiedogbutt81 He's obviously not a dictator. But he certainly dictates in gibberish.
@@zombiedogbutt81 Thankfully the United States Federal Government has 3 co-equal branches. It makes it kind of hard to be a dictator when you are only one third of the federal government.
@@MatthewJamesMullin True, you put it into smart people terms for me. XD
I laughed my ass off and I'm proud you two didn't start talking politically biased nonsense
I'm looking back on this about a year after the whole situation with Chapelle and trans groups. Ellis was SO ahead of the curve. "If you are going to make a joke at the expense of a historically shat upon group that is not your own, you need to accept also that there might be consequences, and people might not think you're funny." "There is no such thing as equal opportunity offensive, because not all groups exist on equal footing. Maybe one day. Probably never. But right now, we are nowhere near that."
Congrats on your engagement Lindsey!
woah (y)
Bwuh It's not him.
+Davethe3rd
Oh, so she managed to finally get Todd out of the shadows? I could buy that.
BritishCommentWriter Were you rejected by Lindsey or something? Rest assured he doesn't need your pity.
BritishCommentWriter Lol sure, I'm the troll here. Stop projecting.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If you're the sort of person to unironically say that they couldn't make Blazing Saddles today, you're the sort of person that Blazing Saddles was making fun of.
You could argue that something like the recent Dear White People is today's Blazing Saddles. Ergo, yes, it could be made today, and surprise, racists are being offended by it.
Alon:
See Lindsey's quote, "There's no such thing as equal-opportunity offensive, because we're not all on equal footing." If you are upset at the show Dear White People without seeing it because it sounds 'racist,' you likely would have been the target of Blazing Saddles if you were alive in 1974.
Alex, do you have a citation for the writer being a white guy? I haven't actually watched the show, but I see that Justin Simien, the original writer/director of the film directed and wrote several of the episodes of the Netflix show. Which writer/show runner are you referring to?
Also what is the relevance of the creator's hipsterdom or twigginess to the authenticity of a show about race? I struggle to see the point.
Alon it is a satirical movie yes, it confronts white racism, but also intra community minority identity. worth watching
hahahhaha man the comment sections below "dear white people" trailer is hillarious. ALL of them missing the point so badly. The more hate it gets the more sense it makes.
"Comedy is the quickest to age, the most likely to age poorly"
That's why Airplane is one of my favorite movies. Doesn't feel like it's aged a day.
The red zone is for loading and unloading only.
For whatever reason that bit is my favorite in that movie
As true as that statement is there are always exceptions. Hah! Airplane is so much damn fun.
the way you phrased this, it's as if you liked Airplane....bc it's not funny.
Airplane aged... differently. An increasing number of jokes or their context would be over the heads of most Millenials, let alone Gen Z people. For example, the take that at the guy who played the taxi driver with the role he played, Kramer punching his way through the airport (which were full of such guys at the time), the Saturday night fever joke increasingly does so, too, since more and more people don't know what they are parodying, Jim and his coffee being a jab at a coffee ad (with the same actors no less!), the casting gag of putting actors like Leslie Nielsen and Lloyd Bridges into a comedy (they were playing much more hardass characters until that point and were casted extremely against type), the jive lady, the list goes on.
That doesn't make it any bad, just that modern audience probably can't appreciate it the same way as cinema audiences at the time did as they lack context.
And with those shoes
The "Hail Trump" bit comes on SO LOUD. Be warned for public viewing!
33:00 mark for reference lol
Ya, I had headphones in and was still looking over my shoulder
Danatronics incorrect, it’s in english so it’s “hail”
I was panicked - scrambling to turn the volume down! I hope the neighbors didn't here that.
There is a special place in Hell for Trump
Really the problem to do with satire boils down to a lack of widespread eduction in regards to media literacy. The media we consume influences and frames the way we think and interact with one another more than nearly any other facet of public life and yet the only people who are properly equipped to understand how to gauge this influence and think critically about it are those who intentionally seek out their own education in regards to it. This leaves the majority of people unknowingly being steered around by ideas put forth which they lack the proper framework to grapple with or unaware what is even happening to them.
As a black man and film scholar, I'd argue that Brooks had to use the N-word as much as he did in Blazing Saddles. The word holds such a unique place among the words that are often referred to by a single letter (in fact, I am always intrigued by the reactions when it is used in a room full of white people, whose reactions are often more interesting than any black people in the room). But, like Brooks noting he couldn't rob Hitler of his power unless he was ridiculed on screen, the N-word cannot be robbed of its power when used in a racist context unless it is said out loud in an absurd and well-satirized way like it is in Blazing Saddles (black people using the word among ourselves is a whole different discussion). Brooks not using the word himself comes across to me as a tacit acknowledgment that he knew he was dancing close to a line. Much as the type of humor often employed to skewer Hiter should be the purview of the groups killed in the Holocaust, some humor about the black experience in America should not be done by other unless they are carefully applied, something Brooks dis with Blazing Saddles. Despite the awful treatment of homosexuality in his works, a sad relic of the era Brooks grew up and worked in, Blazing Saddled is still my favorite skewering of racism.
As a side note, the 2016 documentary The Last Laugh, offers some interesting insight from Jewish performers and Holocaust Survivors about humor dealing with the Holocaust.
This is so quaint. Remember when it was OK to criticize Nazis without conservatives accusing you of being "the real Nazis"?
Paul T Sjordal Remember when you could be conservative without being called a Nazi... This garbage cuts both ways, Paul.
Alexander Mothersill You have to be joking... Milo Yiannopoulos, Ben Shapiro, Trump... There are many more higher profile and lower profile conservatives who are slurred with Nazi unjustly. Very nearly, all people called Nazis in the past 16 months or so don't believe in that type of ideology at all. It's extremely disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
*Paul T Sjordal Remember when you could be conservative without being called a Nazi... This garbage cuts both ways, Paul.*
Saying that it goes both ways doesn't make it so.
No one forced millions of conservatives to make "both sides are just as bad" arguments in order to make Nazis seem less bad.
No one forces millions of conservatives to get defensive whenever someone criticizes modern neo-Nazis.
We're not the ones comparing you to Nazis. You are.
Marianne is Here Trump... the man who ver batum described self proclaimed neo-nazis, who directly killed a women during their protest, as " very fine people." Do you really not see the link there?
The problem has mostly come from the fact that it has become increasingly common to depict your opposition as Nazis or shut down their arguments by saying those are Nazi arguments. Thus a phrase that might otherwise be considered neutral like "Punch a Nazi" (well, except for the whole... running around attacking citizen aspect, but lets pretend this was 100% non-controversial) becomes a lot more dangerous when the very same people espousing that rhetoric are also the people who get to decide who is and isn't a Nazi, often based on arbitrary means. This isn't even getting the people who make arguments being the ones who can decide whether the opposition to their POV are secretly Nazi Dog Whistling.
you know, whenever I hear people complaining about life is beautiful I can't shake the feeling I watched a completely different movie than anyone else... there is no humor or slapstick in the camps. there is only a very desperate father trying to keep his son from noticing the horrors around them. it is very much established that the main character uses his sort of humor to deal with the racism and poverty in his life, the entire first part of the movie is showing him fighting to stay happy and positive but still being very much affected by his surroundings. he's not a cartoon character. his feelings get hurt and he has fits of desperation. when the movie arrives in the camps and he tries to keep his son oblivious, he is very much on the brink of breaking down. Every bit of 'comedy' is for the sake of his son and it is utterly heartbreaking. People die, suffer, loose all hope and the movie doesn't shy away from showing it. While the first half of the movie is definitly part comedy, the second is just brutal and doesn't even attempt to make the audience laugh. I mean, I get when people are uncomfortable watching it. It is supposed to be.
And seeing that Mel Brooks didn't like it and reading interviews makes me think that there might be more to it. Roberto Benigni's father was in a camp and survived, but he isn't jewish, so there's that. And apparently many thought that the 'comedy' in the camp was making light of the situation. I thought that it made it even more horrifying, but I respect and understand that opinion.
Same as you there, the "comedy" in the movie never seemed like actual comedy to me and I never felt like I was supposed to laugh at it... It's actually somewhat pathetic at times when the main character tries desperately to hide the truth from his son and we see that he desn't quite buy it. Anyway, I never considered it a comedy before seeing this video to be honest. The director also never makes fun of the people in the camp cinematically speaking, only the words of the character might do that but he's speaking to his son, not to the audience. Plus the guy who "makes fun of the situation" literally dies in the end...
The scene where he "translates" from german is actually very tense imo since you know he is doing something he could literally die for.
I was searching for your comment because seeing my favourite comedian getting ueghed at for making a movie that I'm actually scared to watch because I know that I'd feel worse than with Schindler's list,since to no one's surprise he's also pretty good at being serious, was upsetting to say the least. I also heard some people describe it as comedy but no one who has seen it thinks it is.
I saw it years ago and didn't really care for it. For me the issue wasn't necessarily that it was trying to make the Holocaust 'funny', but more that it glosses over the horrors of the Holocaust to such a ridiculous degree that the whole thing becomes emotionally manipulative and insulting.
I had a mental breakdown after that movie, it was THAT sad and i'm not a person who cries on movies, it happens rarely. Seriously any "comedy" there wasn't funny but painful, pitiful attempts to make better something that cannot be helped in any way.
That is exactly how I saw it too...right down to the part where the main character is being marched (at gunpoint) to what he knows is certain death, he puts on a silly face when he knows his son is watching. The whole premise of the movie was that he was trying to preserve at least some shred of his child's innocence during one of the ugliest moments in modern history. It's heartbreaking because we, the viewers, are adults and can see what is really going on the entire time...so we spend the entire movie waiting for this innocent child to get caught, or witness a murder because we're certain that it's inevitable. So when the boy gets to ride in a tank at the end, we get to breathe a tiny sigh of relief that his father's efforts weren't in vain.
"Comedy is the quickest to age and the most likely to age poorly." Genius.
It's not though. She didn't come up with it either. I'm sure she'd be the first to tell you that. Its fairly insightful but it's certainly not genius. That's just hyperbole.
It's true but nothing genius about it, it's a fairly common view
To me I believe that this can apply to memes.
I remember in HighSchool, a girl who was Very conservative, but Loved Steven Colbert. I never understood that until this. She literally didn’t understand that he was meant to mock what she believed
That's part of the Colbert's joke. It's a prank on how dumb a lot of conservative thinking is. It's SO guileless and self-absorbed that it can't see outside its own world beliefs and consider that someone else, something else exists. At some point, I hope she grew out of that and maybe learned a lesson in her young gullible self and expanded her belief system.
UA-cam tried SO HARD to hide this video from me
My one complaint about this video is that when the white supremacist footage starts rolling and it’s so much louder than the rest of the video that I can only imagine my neighbors hearing “HAIL TRUMP” blaring from my television. 🤦🏻♀️
I thought of that too. And, being a year later, I'd say it's an even bigger problem now…
Lol, I was going to make the same comment xD
As to the constant Hitler references lol 🤦♀️
@@WetDogSquad That guy knew what he was getting into lol, there was talk before that, he was probably going to the bathroom or something haha
10:07 that's... the first time I've ever heard Chaplin speak. Huh.
That's the first time most people heard Chaplin talk, as it was his first movie with spoken words.
I know this is old, but the scene where he is addressing the camera is during a speech in the film and is considered one of the best speeches committed to film
This brings up that famous rule-of-thumb about appropriate targets of comedy (especially black comedy), "punch up, not down".
Or, as Gary Trudeau put it, "comfort the afflicted by afflicting the comfortable".
However, one problem I've noticed - which I wish had been addressed in this otherwise great video - is the defences many edgelords give to justify humour which most liberals and leftists would say are punching down, bullying, or being offensive for sheer shock-value.
That, is, from their perspective, they are, in fact, punching UP. Not at the apparent target (e.g. Jewish people, women, LGBT+ people), but at the overriding "culture of political correctness" which declares jokes like that taboo. When they make a Holocaust joke, they claim they aren't really making fun of Holocaust victims, but of the culture which makes jokes like that into no-go areas.
They see it as a level of "meta" which only seems like bullying but is actually rebellious from their perspective.
95%, I see that as a bullshit argument even when used sincerely (and it mostly isn't). But I've often had trouble with coming up with clear and precise responses for why, other than "those taboos exist for a good reason".
Because, like it or not, taboo-breaking will always be seen as rebellious, and it's easy to spin the bad kind of rebellion as the good kind, because everyone loves the idea of a rebel.
Another problem is that a lot of dark humor is used to cope with the problems they're facing, but these people using it have never been in a situation even close to what they're making fun of. How can you cope with something that hasn't actually affected you on a personal level, like it's fucking bullshit that these dumb motherfuckers claim that it's a way of coping when none of their asses aint been near any situations like that. I do hope these people learn from their wrongs soon before they start getting checked when they bring it to the wrong person.
I understand the point of the argument you presented. It is a valid argument which are the hardest to counter, but let me give two counters I thought up myself.
1. There's a critical difference 'mocking and berating' someone and 'dehumanizing' people, specifically specific people. When shows parody Hitler they're still treating Hitler as a person. A silly, stupid person unworthy of respect, but still a person. When people edgy jokes they often do it by treating people as less than human unworthy of any kind dignity be shown to them. Regardless of what they believe this(because they're just being ironic) they express this point view which then gets compounded by both sincere and ironic users of these jokes.
2. Making "edgy jokes" as the expense of "PC culture" aren't actually 'punch up' at some super conglomerate trying to control thought but rather punching at the morals and standards of the general population, who are the true source of "Political Correctness", without actually challenging in any capacity. Or in other words "They're just being mean." Or in more other words "These taboos exist for a good reason."
I hope these help in some way.
*Wouldn't that mean that women aren't allowed to make jokes about mens issues as they do not affect women.*
I don't really see women making fun of valid issues that men struggle with. I see them making fun of the childish and insecure ways men behave, and poke at the fragile ego of misogynists.
Feminism is about tackling the patriarchy, which is the root cause of many of men's issues as well.
@@olstar18
I don't see the problem there.
@@olstar18
Not even close Bud.
People keep saying that you can't make a Mel Brooks movie today because of all the "the SWJ's" but honestly thin that you could very well make a Brooks style movie today. Sure you'd have to tweek the comedy a bit but when it all comes down to it, it wouldn't be by a lot. Brooks's main bread and butter was raunchy and fun and well thought out slap-stick, and making fun of awful and monstrous people.
The people who say you cant make Mel brooks-esque comedy today think their comedy piece on the secret evils on jewish people or the trans community all fit that mold, and since they're white and male, it'd be 'punching up'
I’d actually be quite thrilled to see a Brooks-style comedy patching some of Brooks’ famous blind spots. Something like the military in the don’t ask, don’t tell era, making absolute fools of the politicians pushing it while celebrating the soldiers that suffered under it. I think it’d be very interesting.
Jojo the Rabbit came out a bit back, proving yes, you can make a Mel Brooks style, or at least Mel Brooks adjacent comedy today
It's like how the Beastie Boys meant their song "(You Gotta)Fight for Your Right(To Party)!" to be ironic parody of party songs but people thought they meant it. Mike D:
"The only thing that upsets me is that we might have reinforced certain
values of some people in our audience when our own values were actually
totally different. There were tons of guys singing along to "Fight for
Your Right" who were oblivious to the fact it was a total goof on them."
See also: "Born in the USA" any time it's used at any remotely political or patriotic event.
Or "America, Fuck Yeah"
Phantom Attack Helicopter Its not really a false equivalencey. Just because the subject matter is different, doesnt mean the exact same thing happened. If its not overtly obvipus that you're parodying or satarizing something, it will get lost in translation somehow.
to quote an Australian philosopher.
"everyone's saying you can't make Blazing Saddles today. But like why would you want to?"
I think it's a huge mistake to characterize Life is Beautiful as a satire or even a comedy after the first half. Rather it uses humor to heighten a sense of tragedy. It shows how human beings make ourselves laugh to keep from constantly weeping. That is the message of the film.
Agreed
I never got "Blazing Saddles couldn't come out today!" talking point. Do they not know Family Guy, South Park. Tosh.0, and Adam Sandler exists?
brushfyr South Park does
And you forgot The Boondocks
I feel very insulted that all of those things (except South Park which I find sometimes hit-or-miss but generally "good") are being mentioned in the same paragraph as Blazing Saddles.
I seem to recall Blazing Saddles being comparatively progressive when you stack it up those drooling hacks.
Borat is probably the closest a modern film has come to dealing with racism in a way that's both clever and offensive. There are so many that try to be offensive, but they're only doing it to be offensive, I can't think of another one that actually does it well.
well... you know what? South Park wouldn't come out today without the type of backlash that exist today. if in the early 2000s it was mostly conservatives or soccer moms who did the backlash, concerning this new "devilish" entertainment as a poison to old values. now it would be younger people, voices of people who are genuinely offended (or people who pretend to or chose to be offended for others) who would assume this offensive content to come in the way of progress.
it holds hold up today because of the maintained fanbase it managed to cultivate, but the head start for that type of politically incorrect and charged satire could have only arrive in the late 90s early 00s.
South Park is as much a product of a different time as Mel Brooks The Producers, we tend to forget just how much 9/11 changed EVERYTHING.
Jokes are usually the funniest when they're written by a person of the group being ridiculed (the lived experience means it's funnier because there are lots of observational things you can use), and when they're punching up rather than kicking minorities who have already been kicked several times. I can make self deprecating jokes that tend to be funnier than jokes others might make about me, because I can use very specific things about myself and joke about them. There's a level of insight that an outsider wouldn't have.
There's also something to be said for comedy that doesn't seek to offend, such as the comedy of Eddie Izzard.
This reminds me of how the Harris campaign has started calling the MAGAs weird has made them get really upset because they want fear and anger. They can't find out how to respond to being mocked
I would love an essay from lindsay about life is beatiful
Same here (what a bold movie!)
second that! :-)
Life is beautiful is high on a short list of movies that just absolutely emotionally destroyed me when I first saw them. Right up there with Pay it Forward. That said, I'd definitely be interested in seeing Lindsay do a video essy on it.
this pairs well with Todd's newest video
I'd like to thank Todd for reminding me of that SR-71 song just as I was about to film segments for this.
I just saw his video too and recognized the clip.
Was wondering if there was a connection!
It also makes for a very interesting companion piece to the analysis of profanity in Shakespeare and evolution of language video Kyle Kallgren just put out! May be a complete coincidence, or it could be that a bunch of somewhat like-minded critics/writers who are all friends may have been considering similar topics at the same time.
yeah who dat
"Today we do not appreciate how close we were to nuclear war". Ah, 2017.
Ahh, 2019.
@@tracyh5751 Well, you know why I'm here.
This video is aging like fine wine.
I disagree with Brookes' take on Life is Beautiful. Maybe it is partially because I am a Jew from a younger generation. I don't think that is a film that could have been made 20 years earlier, or, sadly, 20 years later. But in that time when everyone agreed about the scope of the horrors of Naziism, a few years after Schindler's List and Seinfeld's jokes about how inappropriate it would be to make out during Schindler's List, I think it worked.
It did not make jokes about concentration camps. It was not even a true comedy, but a dramedy and it was not really about the horrors of the holocaust, but about the tremendous sacrifice a father will make for his family. The film does not shy away from the horror, but still allows the father to build a fantasy for his child even at the expense of making his own hardships even worse.
Further, it was based on the stories Begnini heard from his own father, who survived the concentration camps. He told the stories in a way that brought out the humanity of the human spirit and hid the true horrors. So while the movie shows the horrors, it also shows the human spirit. The father could not avoid the suffering there and was beaten down by the brutality and ultimately murdered. But he was able to sacrifice everything to protect his son. Now of course the reality for most of the survivors was far worse and that was shown too. Nobody else had that experience in the film and their desperation was evident on camera. But that only furthers the heroism of the father in spite of all odds. He could not survive or make things right, that is too much to hope for in such a situation, but he could make things a little less horrible for his son and that little victory was his heroism.
Now is my take colored by the fact that I saw it on my first date with my wife? Maybe, but I stand by it and so does she (I just asked).
Well I would chalk up his reaction to Life is Beautiful to professional envy and perceiving someone treading on his turf... ;-)
As a Jew from a younger generation, I agree with you. I cried with the film.
@@TheBayzent As a Jew from a younger generation, ditto. As a younger jew whose father died tragically young, and who always did his best for me, I find the movie too painful to watch these days, but I don't in any way find it mocking or dismissive of the suffering of my forebears. Two of my great grandparents were survivors of the camps, though neither lived to see Life is Beautiful, but all four of my grandparents did and all four were deeply moved by it. I have not polled my extensive family, but as far as I am aware, none of my family, all of whom are jewish, found the movie anything less than deeply moving.
@@christianealshut1123 I agree 100%, many directors at this time were too busy sniffing speilbergs behind, as opposed to trying to storytell on a low budget. Benini went for the moon on this one.
An excellent video, Lindsay!
I took a History of Comedy class in college and it was really insightful on a lot of the topics touched on here. My teacher really emphasized the point that comedy is best used as a tool to "punch upwards" and not "punch downwards". You can use comedy to subvert the powers that be, the organizations and leaders that do or try to have power, and societal norms and expectations. Where comedy fails however is when you "punch down" to targets that are less fortunate, have little or no power in their situations, or are oppressed by those with power. Hence why taking shots at Nazis is acceptable, but trying to find humor in the situation of a concentration camp would cross the line. I always try to remember that in my work.
In this age of special snowflakes and oppression points, all punches are level, there is no punching up or punching down.
+blkgardner that's a good point. in an age where "victimhood" has become a precious social commodity, up is down and down is up. Bullies are capitalizing on this commodity to stir the pot, intentionally trying to offend somebody so everybody gets riled up.
Land of Odd well taking shots down is bullying
+Howtostudies assuming you know which direction "down" is.
The Westboro Baptist church is a rather cliche target, and part of political satire is speaking the truth to power, in contradistinction to mocking easy targets. Pointing out that the guy who is believed to be a jerk by 99.99% of the population is in fact a jerk is not subversive.
German viewer here - brilliant job tackling a complicated subject in a way that is relevant not just from an American standpoint. As is so often the case, the topic comes down to the fact that it doesn't just matter what is said, but also how and why something is said or depicted in a certain manner, which makes the subject matter extremely tough to cover properly without ending up in the realm of conjecture.
Between Downfall and He's Back - which is maybe the best German equivalent to the Chaplin and Brooks takes on the subject - it would seem that the German and US discourse on the matter seem to be pretty similar, with the same caveats. This is a development of the past 20 years though - throughout most of the 20th century, the discourse here was decidedly... more ignorant (i.e. defined by a desire to just not be reminded of the Nazi reign).
My favorite bit: "...'Tomorrow belongs to me,' a chilling moment that has recently been adopted by some white nationalists.... But you know what hasn't? *Springtime for Hitler and Germany*...."
“All comedy must have limits and intent”
I wish all the idiots on Twitter claiming comedy is dead because of “woke culture” would get this little tidbit. They think offensive jokes for the sake of offending ANYONE for no reason is somehow the holy grail of comedy.
@Arinze Ihezue Pray tell, how so?
They also repeat the same joke over and over and over again, helicopter attack joke hahaha amiright boys?
Mel Brooks is my comedic idol. Also this:
Lisa: Dad, there are many prominent Jewish entertainers, including Lauren Bacall, Dinah Shore, William Shatner, and Mel Brooks.
Homer: Mel Brooks is Jewish!?!
a bit louder for the edgelords stuck in middle school
@@InternetMameluq They didn't literally mean children. They meant adults who refuse to educate themselves.
One reason that Blazing Saddles transcends its raw race approach is because Richard Pryor co-wrote it, and it contains a ton of his sense regarding race relations.
Absolutely. And Richard Pryor was originally supposed to star but that fell through. It's better with Cleavon Little in the role because he had such a innocuous face. So when something unpredictable happens, it's that much more funny. With Pryor's face, you know that it's all about unpredictability all the time and just hang on to your hat and enjoy the ride. Cleavon Little had the Nice Guy Everyman Jimmy Stewart thing about him with more than a touch of whimsy and slyness to make sure everyone knew he was nobody's fool and was in on the joke. That's what makes it so astonishingly funny when he gets accosted by the bigoted old lady on the street that he's being gentlmanly toward. It's the truth of constant bs at every moment that is racism for Black men and women.
@@dahliafully The studio was TERRIFIED of the idea of Pryor in the role, so Brooks capitulated.
@@BrBill The studio wouldn't insure Pryor because he was too erratic and therefore costly to production.
Yes, and it was Brooks who tried to say, "Richard, we can't use the n word." And it was Pryor who replied, "we have to tell it like it is."
You can’t make a Mel Brooks movie today because you’re not Mel Brooks.
And it's Mel Brooks who came up with casting Wanda Sykes as Harriet Tubman. A brilliant move that no one else was smart enough to put in the universe.
Personally, I liked Life is Beautiful. The problem I see here is that it's being interpreted as a comedy when it is in fact a tragedy. It doesn't make light of concentration camps or implies that it's an easy thing to get over. The movie itself is about a father who does all in his power to shield his child from the harsh realities around him, coming at the ultimate price in the end. The child after the movie is going to deal with many issues in life as a result of this, but will eventually be able to look back and see just how much his father worked to save his very life. The story isn't happy or lighthearted, it's depressing. But even with its depressing story, it gives hope for that boy's freedom. Don't look at it as a comedy or even a black comedy, because at the end of the day, it didn't get a happy ending, it got a tragic one. We don't see him react to the news of his father's death; we don't see his mother's reaction to her husband's death; we are simply left to wonder how the events will affect them in the future. I understand that the film has lighthearted moments, but never once does it belittle the severity of the events taking place. The sacrifice that the father makes to keep his son from having to experience these things first hand is heartbreaking. This is why I must respectfully disagree with your, and apparently Mr. Brooks's take on the movie's message. This is a classic case of a movie getting miscategorized or misinterpreted by its audience. Same thing happened with the show MASH when the network insisted on adding a laugh track, despite the show being a drama rather than a comedy. Something has definitely been lost in translation for movies such as Life is Beautiful.
A year late, but thank you. That's what I wanted to articulate when Life is Beautiful was referenced here.
I too am I year late, but you put it perfectly. Though I can't stand the film, that's more to do with my own preferences, not with thinking it was a comedy. From the moment the mother surrenders herself in order to be taken to a concentration camp, to try to be closer to her family, it's hard to see it as a comedy. The father knows perfectly where he is, he just doesn't want his son to know it, too. He does the impossible to hide his son's presence and, when knowing he's to be killed, he still keeps his character on. I find RB a bit too histrionic for my taste, but the film was never a comedy.
Do people really interpret it as a fucking comedy? I highly doubt people who do that are arguing honestly
Many of the critics claimed it was 'in bad taste'. Add to this it's subtitled and that's enough for many people to avoid the film, yet still voice an opinion.
I prefer it to Schidlers List personally
This, I remember my dad crying rivers with this movie.
He is not Jewish but it helped him empathize.
Thanks Lindsay for blasting the volume on that Neo Nazi rally for all my roomies to hear lmao
I'm still amazed that so many people keep insisting that a joke at the expense of a minority or opressed group is just a way to ridicule it (particularly if you're not a part of that minority), when, all you're doing is actually reinforcing the opression you're pretending to make fun of.
At a much smaller scale, my male friends still, to this day, don't get why I get pissed at the "woman, go back to the kitchen" type of jokes...
So, this is a very necesesary discussion to be having now. Thank you Lindsay! Absolutelly brilliant and relevant essay
People, including myself, make 'Get back to the kitchen woman' jokes because it satires an old belief. I dont genuinly believe that women should always cook for the man, i say it sarcasticly to target the view on womens roles that were formaly common and are still in use today, ita just a bit rarer. The point is that we make sexist jokes to joke about sexists.
I do joke about other woman tropes because its funny.
The important first step is always to know what the joke actually is, then you need to know the situation they are in. Comedy is always the first step to an actual discussion and gender roles tend to be spoke about in an all too serious tone without any room to really discuss it. Men have the entire weight of "Not being sexist" put upon them, as well as a constant white noise of distrust, so it can be hard for women to understand why men might actually want to work through those issues and likewise hard for men to know why women react to it so badly. Yet those "sexist" jokes need to happen because society isn't going to change for them.
I usually make the jokes in a sarcastic tone.
And if they know me they know that im joking.
ps-get back to the kitchen
93TotallyCrazy agreed, now let's get back to making jokes about white farmers in SA and telling people that it's deserved revenge for colonialisn
Yeah... While I always say "Know what the joke is", sometimes a mean spirited joke really is a mean spirited joke. It is just better not to jump to conclusions and let the person speak for themselves rather then thought crime them... But yeah I am kind of... disturbed by the sheer amount of people who said they got what they deserved. Odd how bloodlust can become acceptable as long as your target somehow deserves it through association.
Kind of drunk, but I'll say that Mel Brooks had better not die before I do. I find comfort knowing he's out there.
This calls to mind the always relevant "Ironic shitposting is still shitposting".
FaunOfTheDevil its somewhat similar, but most times if you're shitposting, it's ironic, amd if it's not, then it's just a bad post.
Thank you for reminding me how much I hate the black eyes peas.
This whole time I thought the line was _"Let's get this started in here."_
Huh.
they made a radio edit with 'let's get this started in here'
I like their song "where is the love" though because I'm a sap for meaningful songs
i really liked their old stuff
then they sold out and became really aged.
Look out, an offended liberal
I was honestly so confused because I was mixing up Mel Brooks and Mel Gibson lol. But now I understand
Same here!
Oops and Mel Gibson is an anti-Semite so that must've been confusing.
Now I wonder what your thoughts on Jojo Rabbit is, considering Taika Waititi is almost on a similar vein with Mel Brooks now that I think about it...
Rebecca Woolf That means he’s fully jewish, not half. If your mother is jewish according to rabbinic judaism you are jewish. There is no such thing as being Half jewish, the idea of Mischlings comes from the Nazi Regime.
@@eliyahushvartz2167 I agree with you but I think that person was unaware of Jewish law and because when somebody has two parents of different heritages they are described as being "half" that heritage. It's more widely known that Taika is Maori coming from his dad but they were just pointing out that his mom is Jewish too and they unaware that you don't describe people as half Jewish. While it is definitely true for Jews, imo it makes sense for everyone because in my experiences people being talked about as being half anything can make them feel invalidated about their heritage and identity as a whole.
@@eliyahushvartz2167 So...his grandfather is Jewish. So that's wrong. It's a matrilineal heritage. Also, that's just orthodox gatekeeping nonsense. If he wants to identify as Jewish, he's welcome. Otherwise, he shouldn't be eating pork, shellfish, or turning on the lights on Saturdays either by that same ridiculous notion.
TropicalPriest telling a tribal people they are gatekeeping their own traditions is ridiculous. I would agree personally that if you have a jewish father or patrilineal lineage you would be jewish too. But it seems you didn’t feel like asking me what I thought or didn’t think. If he is jewish he should keep jewish law, whether he is rabbinic or karaite or even samaritan. We are a people, not just a religion, we have traditions as a people. If you don’t like that then it shouldn’t be any of your business in the first place. Are you jewish? If so are you reform? Why do you feel the way you do about jewish tradition (our tradition, if you are jewish). Rabbinic law is not nonsense. Torah law is not nonsense. If you want to throw away your heritage and assimilate go ahead and do it, but when the Amalekites knock at your door you will be the same as all the rest of us.
@@eliyahushvartz2167 seeing the hard-line conservative stance of most modern orthodoxy is my motivation for mentioning that. Interesting you should mention tradition, since I thought the final theme in Fiddler on the Roof is that it's not particularly helpful. I'd suggest reviewing history and the Spanish Inquisition a bit as far as your idea of pogroms. Assimilation is all that worked as a shield. I'd finish by saying picking and choosing your religious convictions is fine, good even. But, it gives someone like Ben Shapiro ammunition, so he can pigeonhole you as a fake Jew. It's astonishing how few religious people realize it's still just divide and conquer among the denominations as a political game. You seem to be aware of that. So I'm a little perplexed as to why you don't understand my implication about stringent adherence to arbitrary biblical/talmudic rules. To answer your question, I'm a non-practicing Jew, who, when I was religious, attended the several "main" denominations services at different times, domestically and in Israel. While it was a satiating experience as a community, it was not religiously.
It reminds me of when i watched fight club and talked about it to a friend who was a guy. What I saw reminded me of a horror film, my friend merely saw it as an action movie he admired.
Definitely- I watched Fight Club and saw a world of turmoil and destructive behavior broken down, but it def paints it with a glossy coat of sexy rebellion paint too. Check out Folding Ideas's video on how Fight Club is both embracing and breaking down/criticism of Toxic Masculinity. It's a thoughtful video essay you might like
Why was it like a horror film to you? I thought it was definitely a psychological thriller, but "horror" doesn't suit.
Kate owl thank you! I will definitely check this out :D
Master Markus what was scary to me was how it snowballed there but I realize I definitely embellished my reaction by calling it horror. It may also have had less to do with what the movie itself but noticing the small bits and pieces that guys would pick up as the movies message was flying over their heads (which happens with a lot of movies).
I love to discuss this movie with my husband, because he's never been the kind of guy to get into fights or prove how tough he is all the time. So, for him it's a lot easier to see what else is going on underneath the tough guy action movie exterior.
Some wholesome tidbits : Mel Brooks and the actress Anne Bancroft were married for over 40 years until her death in 2005. They had a son in 1972 called Max. That son had dyslexia, and he grew up at a time where it was regarded as just laziness. So Anne put her career on the shelf, even though she still was a highly succesful actress, with an academy awards and several nominations under her belt, to learn about dyslexia and help her son get through his education. He mentionned her having his school books be recorded on cassettes every year so that he could study properly. Max then went on to become an author and publish a book called "World War Z".
So not only is Mel is a swell dude, he also had an incredible wife. Let's be happy for him.
MAX BROOKS IS MEL BROOKS' SON???
@@bridge2607 :)
That clip of the dude talking to the audience and getting the salutes back hit me in the stomach.
"Don't be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Nazi party!". XD It makes me laugh every time.
It reminds me of a line from the cold war song Russia Russia.
"Have some Wheaties, don't be meanies" Although I always thought that it went have some weenies.
Truly excellent discussion here Lindsay, and even more pertinent in the present political climate. Your work and analysis have only become better and better over the years.
I am so glad to learn that Mel Brooks called out Life Is Beautiful. I hated that movie, and I thought it was obvious what was wrong with it. Its message is that this kid was able to not know he was in a concentration camp while in a concentration camp, and that saved him from some suffering, despite his dad being killed. First that's insanely impossible. No one could have hid a child in a concentration camp. It's Holocaust denial to an absurd degree. Second, the message is bad. No, the kid would not have been protected by that. So glad Brooks called that out. As a Jew and much older than I, I'm sure he knew a lot of people who survived concentration camps. I have met a few. That tattoo represented so much suffering that they often couldn't express or didn't want to. I can't even put the depth of the empathy they evoked into words except to say watch an actual Holocaust documentary. I saw the movie on video, and when I expressed how I felt about it, I was repeatedly told that I was being closed minded and wasn't understanding the message. I insisted that I did understand the message, and I thought the message was extremely harmful. This video is the first time I found out that it has been called out publicly. I remember it won a lot of awards, and I just felt so alienated from the world that could glorify a message that was harmful in so many ways. Its level of Holocaust denial isn't even the only harm. Its message about recovery from abuse and torture is equally as harmful to survivors trying to heal. The movie seems to think it's offering something beautiful about the human spirit, but it's really doing the opposite. It says "shut up" and "don't exist" to those suffering and pretends that an impossible imaginary denial-based triumph constitutes the beauty of life for us to hold on to. It's just wrong-headed and harmful.
Exactly. And Brooks does the opposite of that.
When he used the n word or referred to the n word multiple times in Blazing Saddles it wasn't to exploit its use a la Tarantino, it was to put it out there the way racists use it and to show it as harmful and also ridiculous. I was a little kid when I saw Blazing Saddles in the theater and got the joke that the n word was wayyyyyy worse than the f word and there were mean people using it. This was extremely important in 1974.
It takes a special level of retardation to come away from Life is Beautiful thinking the main take away is denying the horrors of the Holocaust.
What I don't understand are people that don't realize that all jokes are risks (all art is risk, that's why it's an art) and get hurt by people disliking the joke. No joke is funny to everyone, and the people who don't find it funny are going to try to shut you up.
People who try to deflect blame for their hate speech onto other people? Them I understand.
Timothy Ross kind of like when my sister's ex and his friend made jokes about women, the standard sexism lite shit and he got offended that me and my husband didn't laugh and claiming we didn't laugh because we were offended snowflakes...
Exactly. Some people figure something must be wrong with everyone who doesn't share their views. Being offended because you think someone else is offended is at least ironic.
If you are going to say something you know is controversial, you need to expect backlash. It doesn't mean you can't say it, but you need to know there may be consequences or backlash. That's the gist of comedy and speech in general.
I'm bummed that you never got to how this has played out with the movie Starship Troopers.
There’s something so satisfying about hearing you construct arguments
Another really good example of the shift in the late '90s /early 0ts I would think is Band of Brothers.
AMGwtfBBQsauce I think Saving Private Ryan is also a part of that shift.
SPR made trendy the self-reflective wwii movie, the one that focuses on the horrors of war rather than glorifying victory. since veitnam was a very unpopular war (especially among artists and film makers) most films about veitnam used the horrors of war motif to criticize it, but it wasn't until SPR that WWII movies went from "Ra! Ra! Victory!!" to "look at what that war cost us."
6:58, oh my god, I recognized those illustrations from a book I used to read as a kid. I forgot what it was called, but I used to read it regularly because it featured my Jewish heritage front and center as the Jewish man tricks the goblin with the Hanukkah traditions, or something like that. Thumbs up for sparking my nostalgia.
You might be on to something! I bet Lindsay could do a whole series about nostalgic things!
harrietamidala1691 I also read that as a child it's called Hershel and the Hanukkah goblins
That's what the book is called! Thank you for reminding me.
harrietamidala1691 no problem
I'm not even Jewish but I remember reading that book as a kid and loved it