I just watched *Blazing Saddles * (Comedy genius!)on TCM, and they bleeped out the N word. I found that rather sad. But I kinda understood it. Not sure about how I felt in the end.
So, can the N word be used in prose, song and film? (Not counting black rappers using it, that’s a special case, of course)
Is it Ok in Randy Newman’s “Rednecks”? Pretty strong satire, so I think yes.
(warning bad language not work safe)
Or Huckleberry Finn? Here, I say- of course. No doubt.
(I suppose this could be in Cafe Society but it’s not the discussion/debate as to the film, etc per se, but as to the use of the N word. If mods move it there, so be it)
When the characters in the movie say it, it’s not OK. Which is kind of the point. We know that the characters, or at least the society they live in, has a problem, because of the language they use.
When the actors on the set say it, as part of portraying those characters, that is OK, because the actors are not using the word, they are mentioning it.
I see nothing wrong with it in the context of Blazing Saddles or Huckleberry Finn. I also think one should say they bleeped nigger, because they did. They did not bleep “the N word”. One can state a fact without it being racist. Maybe not as polite to some people but that doesn’t necessarily make it wrong.
I also think one should say they bleeped “nigger,” because they did. (Or you could use italics in lieu of quotation marks.) I’m not nit-picking. There’s an important distinction there.
This is definitely a tangent but one thing ive noticed (and think is stupendously ridiculous) is the tendency for younger white girls who obviously were raised in better-than-average homes, speaking (and writing!) In the most crude form of ghetto talk imaginable on FB. Every other word is “nigger” or “nigga” and they see it as ok for them simply because they date black guys. Lol. But wow! To see these girls type in this form of English is just jarring.
When Dr. Laura got in trouble for excessive use of the word nigger on her radio show, would you say her use of the word was unacceptable? Say it once to make a point, fine, but to repeat the word over and over like she did, that’s crossing a line, I think.
There was a black standup comedian Patrice O’Neal, a very funny guy, who sadly has passed away. He had a joke that he ended with the punchline “nigger in a Buick” and he said when he saw it on TV they bleeped out the Buick but not the racial epithet and he was like what in the hell?
I recall being amazed a few years ago by this bit in Aziz Ansari’s Dangerously Delicious.
It is about his hatred of racism but fascination with racial slurs. He prefaced the bit by saying that the slurs are, by their nature, offensive so if you are offended “shut your fucking mouth.”
Talking about compound epithets he then used this term for native Americans, “prairie N-word.” He imagined someone calling a Native American that and when confronted by a nearby black dude telling him, “I said ‘prairie’ this doesn’t concern you. Step off.”
It is a ridiculous, almost surreal idea that, to be able to tell the joke Ansari had to have the protagonist use a phrase designed to prevent offence yet maintain that it too caused offence rather than use the actual offensive word. He added to my bewilderment by several times using the phrase “ching chong bing bong” having explained that it is an offensive term for Asians, not to be used in their presence.
I’m not sure how I feel about the censorship in Blazing Saddles. I found it funny when I first saw the movie, and still do I guess. But I’m a white Canadian guy who never really grew up around the word, and honestly, apart from some songs my kids used to play, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced it out in the wild.
Mark Twain on the other hand is culturally significant and needs to be left the hell alone.
Blazing Saddles is very funny movie, but I don’t think it loses much by bleeping out “nigger.” Although Canada, if you recall, decided that Dire Straights “Money for Nothing” could no longer be played on the radio without bleeping or removing the word “faggot.” This was through a self- governing body called the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. After a lot of people wrote them to explain the context of the slur the decision was eventually reversed. But most stations still choose to edit it out.
I think censoring the N word out of Blazing Saddles is a mistake. It’s an example of taking the current understanding of racial inequity and power of words to oppress and retroactively applying that understanding to a generations-past work of comedic art. Leave it be. And let it stand as a testament to the less-enlightened times of that era.
It was perfectly appropriate how the word was used in the movie.
It was also appropriate that the word doesn’t meet TCMs standards and practices and got bleeped. They play to a wider audience then might appreciate that kind of edgy humor.
At one time I called that the “N-word copyright.” Or maybe it’s really a trademark.
I thought it had a sort of cleverness to it. Historically black culture is always being appropriated. But you put that word in it then white people can’t really go around singing it, right?
Well, companies are careful when using their trademark name so you get corporate talk like “I only use N-word sanitary napkins.” But the music industry went hog wild with it and use it 10 times in every song by some artist. And who is buying this music? It’s people who buy music. Everyone. Mostly young everyones when it comes to that music. The double standard can no longer apply. Anyone under 30 has free license to use that word. You can’t expect them not to be singing along to all their favorite songs.
I consider myself from a generation that hates it, but here we are.
Great question! It never came up. Of course Alice’s Restaurant only ever gets played a handful of times a year and I believe they act mainly on complaints from the public.
I think that a lot of it is that at the time the term was in more common use, and that using it comedically was something more subtle than a lot of people realized. At the time it was more satire than anything else.
But today, it’s just latter-day pearl clutching that would prevent the word from actually being used- simple revulsion at the word, without really being aware of the satire. It’s possible I suppose, that the changes in race relations over the past 45 years have rendered the original humor somewhat irrelevant, and that bleeping the word doesn’t really detract from it or the movie as a whole.