Реферат: Mel Brooks As Jewish Comedian Essay Research

army there is a small group of German soldiers who spend much of the fistfight

sitting with a Ms. Lily von Shtupp (a not so talented lounge singer) singing the

same war song heard in The Producers (Blazing Saddles). Finally, the Indian on

many movie promotional materials (including the video cover) has the Hebrew for

"kosher for Passover" inscribed in his headband. Strangely enough,

these relatively small Jewish references got the attention of the Jewish Film

Advisory Committee, whose director, Allen Rivkin, spoke to a writer about the

offensiveness of the Jewish material. The writer’s response was, "Dad, get

with it. This is another century"(Doneson 128) Blazing Saddles is a movie

of the second type identified. It does not deal with specifically Jewish topics.

It does, however, use Jewish topics as a way of forwarding the plot and the

comedy. Whether the critics were right that Brooks was just using Yiddish

because he found it funny, or if he was using it because he wanted to make a

point about racism and exclusion, what is most important is that he actually

used Yiddish, instead of something more expected (Yacowar 110). 1981’s History

of the World, Part I, falls somewhere between The Producers and Blazing Saddles

in its level of Jewish content (Freidman 236). The movie, is basically, a quick

tour through history going from the discovery of fire to the French Revolution.

Within the movie, there are two skits that are specifically of Jewish interest

(Moses on Mount Sinai and the Spanish Inquisition.) In the "Old

Testament," God identifies himself as the Lord, and asks Moses if he can

hear Him. Mel Brooks, in a robe and white beard say’s "Yes. I hear you. I

hear you. A deaf man could hear you." When Moses tells the people of the

new laws, he says, "The Lord, the Lord Jehovah has given onto these 15

[crash] 10, 10 Commandments for all to obey." Although Moses obviously had

to be Jewish, one wonders why he had to be so klutzy a comic. In Rome, Gregory

Hines, playing Josephus, a slave who is not sold in the auction, attempts to get

out of being sent to the Coliseum where he would be lion food. His excuse is

that "the lions only eat Christians, Christians, and I am a Jew-Jewish