Here’s Proof Mel Brooks Is Right: We’re Now ‘Stupidly Politically Correct’

Could the social justice warriors and free speech-hating campus protesters handle a classic comedy like “Blazing Saddles” if it were to come out today? Writer, director and actor Mel Brooks doesn’t think so.

“We have become stupidly politically correct, which is the death of comedy. It’s not good for comedy,” the 91-year-old told BBC 4 Radio’s “Today” program in a recent interview.

“Comedy has to walk a thin line, take risks,” Brooks said. “Comedy is the lecherous little elf whispering in the king’s ear, always telling the truth about human behavior.”

Brooks became a legend in Hollywood for such politically incorrect comedies as 1974’s “Blazing Saddles” and 1967’s “The Producers.”

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“Saddles,” starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, featured a black sheriff in a racist town. Did it push boundaries? Yes, it did. Brooks said the satire of racial prejudice was the key to its success — but studios likely wouldn’t dare take it on today for fear of blowback from the easily offended.

“Without that, the movie would not have had nearly the significance, the force, the dynamism and the stakes that were contained in it,” he said.

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Movies like “Saddles” may have dealt with sometimes uncomfortable material, but they brought people together (and still do) through laughs and universal truths that can sometimes only be told through satire.

Today’s divisive culture could use a few more people like Brooks, but comedians unfortunately are restrained by a small but vocal group that ignores context, lacks a sense of humor, and wants nobody to be offended.

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Here’s proof of why Brooks is sadly right about how the country has turned “stupidly politically correct.”

1.) Jerry Seinfeld. One of the most successful comedians of all time refuses to do shows on college campuses.

Comedians can actually make a good deal of money on college campuses, but Seinfeld is having none of it. The man who is known as one of the cleanest comics alive feels there’s too much political correctness to encounter.

“I don’t play colleges, but I hear a lot of people tell me, ‘Don’t go near colleges. They’re so PC,’” he said on ESPN’s “The Herd with Colin Cowherd” back in 2015.

“They just want to use these words: ‘That’s racist,’ ‘that’s sexist,’ ‘that’s prejudice,'” he continued. “They don’t know what the h*** they’re talking about.”

Seinfeld had already answered social justice warriors the year before when they claimed his ‘90s sitcom “Seinfeld” and his long-running show “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” were racist because they didn’t contain enough people of color.

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“People think it’s the census or something,” Seinfeld said on “CBS This Morning.” “This has gotta represent the actual pie chart of America? Who cares? Funny is the world that I live in. You’re funny, I’m interested. You’re not funny, I’m not interested. I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that.”

Seinfeld’s acts typically contain no sexual references, swearing or controversial topics — and even he has been targeted by social justice warriors. Does that sound “stupidly politically correct”?

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2.) Chris Rock. Rock also flat-out refuses to play colleges. Unlike Seinfeld, though, Chris Rock’s disgust with the outrage culture on campuses comes from actual experience.

“Kids raised on a culture of, ‘We’re not going to keep score in the game because we don’t want anybody to lose.’ Or just ignoring race to a fault. You can’t say, ‘The black kid over there.’ No, it’s ‘the guy with the red shoes.’ You can’t even be offensive on your way to being inoffensive,” Rock said to Vulture in 2014 about his reason for quitting the college circuit.

“You can’t even be offensive on your way to being inoffensive.”

Rock said there’s a danger now to being filmed all the time, as comedians work their material out in front of audiences — a joke being tested may end up on social media, where it could anger people. He said this makes comedians self-censor themselves.

3.) “Can We Take a Joke?” No film has better shown the dangers of political correctness on a free society than, “Can We Take a Joke?”

The 2015 documentary drew parallels between the predicaments comedians find themselves in today with outrage culture in the ‘60s, when comedian Lenny Bruce was actually arrested on obscenity charges for his edgy humor.

Whether arrests and new laws are around the corner or not is up for debate, but “Can We Take a Joke?” certainly doesn’t paint a bright picture: The director speaks to people who have had their lives and livelihoods threatened or completely ruined due to the aggression of the easily offended.

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“[Comedy is] a way of broaching topics that we’re not quite comfortable about yet, so if you can joke about something, it actually helps open things up,” the film’s director, Ted Balaker, told Reason in 2015 before his film’s release.

Balaker said through interviews with comedians like Adam Carolla and Gilbert Gottfried, it became clear today’s “outrage mob” feels more empowered thanks to smartphones and social media — and they’re instilling fear in today’s comedians. It’s a fear that, as Mel Brooks said, could be the “death of comedy.”

(photo credit, homepage and article images: Angela George, Flickr)

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