The Power of Words: And Who Gets The Power To Choose?

At around eight each evening, I go brain-dead and bone-tired and just want to flop in front of the TV. So, to paraphrase my father, I seek out not the most highbrow of entertainment.

Last night, I was particularly zombie-fied (it had been a tough week), and was happy to find a rerun of "Blazing Saddles" on TV Land. I knew it would be cut to ribbons but thought it would be amusing still and also bring back memories of when my folks took us to see it way back when.

Yes, I knew it would be dubbed. But I was surprised at how it had been edited - what was removed and what was left in, which words were OK and which were verboten.

Of course, the "seven deadlies" were removed. That goes without saying. (And for some reason, “screw” is now on this list. Or at least it is in TV Land) And the many, many mentions of the "n" word were obliterated. The people would only get out the "ni" sound and then some other sound (a gunshot, a church bell, the whinny of a rearing horse) would come in and drown it out. But you knew what they were talking about. "Black" and "white," even "schvartze" (Yiddish for "black") were allowed to stay. But so many potentially offensive race references and stereotypes were left in - except for the one famous line when Cleavon Little and Madeline Kahn were in the dark and she was commenting on the size of his schnitzengruber (or something like that). That scene was simply cut. Another reference I found interesting was how the editors dealt with references to homosexuality. It's OK for Dom DeLuise to play an obviously flaming Busby Berkeley type, scolding his chorus of male dancers by calling them "sissy-marys," yet no one in the movie was allowed say "faggot." I remember another instance of censorship of this word when I was driving home from Christmas at my father's and stepmother's house, listening to NPR for company. They were playing Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" and they cut the word. Excuse me? NPR? Home of the open mind? Censorship? Jeez. We got the context. I didn't feel offended, and the several gay people I knew at the time didn't feel offended, either.

But what about negative stereotypes of the elderly, the mentally challenged, Prussian soldiers, Mexican bandits, alcoholics, Klan members, bimbo secretaries, American Indians, and all the rest that were left in? Why are only certain groups protected? The size of their lobbying groups? The number of outraged letters the network would get?

And have any members of these groups ever actually SEEN a Mel Brooks movie? He lives to offend. Nothing mean-spirited is meant (as far as I can see). I can see that certain words should be struck from the lexicon completely, in any context. But the fact of them was clear in Blazing Saddles, which was set in 1874.

Did Germans flood Brooks with letters when “Springtime For Hitler” appeared in the first production of “The Producers?”

Don’t know.

The second movie of that night’s double feature was “Young Frankenstein.” I would have loved to see that, too, but I was leaving TV Land for Bed Land. I wonder if the censors had cut “schvanstukker.”

After all, no one wants to offend the very powerful coalition of Reanimated Transylvanians. They can really get ugly.