Some of his Jewish and other ethnic characters are questionable in later movies imo

On the surface, yes, and he walks the tightrope well most of the time in Blazing Saddles, but not always. Like, the humor of an Indian chief speaking Yiddish comes from where, exactly?

Some other ethic characters in other films (that weren't mentioned) are possibilities, but Mel Brooks' Jewish characters???? And yes, I am saying Mel Brooks gets a pass on the portrayal of Jews in his movies. (edit: 'pass' is not right. It's not offensive.)

http://jewornotjew.com/profile.jsp?ID=3

Native Americans could be offended I guess. Although if anything that's a shot at the way Native Americans are always portrayed by non-Native Americans. There might be a gay joke in the movie.

There's no tightrope as far as 99% of the content about race goes in Blazing Saddles. It ridicules racists.

I pretty much agree with this, but let's not pretend that anything about this is "exposing the hypocrisy of Republicans" cause that ship has sailed and sunk

This Franken thing is the top 5 links on both Fox and Breitbart. Must be a huge story.

I can confirm that rednecks are not offended by Blazing Saddles.

In Spaceballs, Vespa is spoiled brat Druish Princess with a huge nose. You sure you're OK with that?

His portrayal of the rabbi doesn't do anyone favors in Robin Hood. You can give him a pass, but it's kinda cringe worthy nowadays and I suspect your opinion wouldn't be shared by a few orthodox Jews. And zz was talking about Brook's entire filmography. So that part of your argument is gone.

1000%.

I'll tell you the Jewish filmmakers who do offend me as a Jew, even though I think they are great...The Coen Bros.

DVaut1: Women should be believed, even if you know they are lying.

Methinks that a lot of politicians are guilty of sexual harassment and that if Franken goes down for something like this then they might be next.

p.s. Don't get me wrong (though I don't think that's possible; I'm the kid who almost went to jail for assault after trouncing a kid who asked 'why do you have all these pictures of n****rs in your wallet?') I think the ideas of having the n-word never said no matter what, along with its cousin, never having a woman objectified even in a photo devoid of context, are waaayy better than the alternative but my idea of a sane world hinges on people asking themselves WHY and THEN coming to the correct conclusion, not mindlessly accepting the conclusion as erring on the side of caution.

I'm a little torn on this and not for political reasons. One, because I've done equally tasteless and sexist dumb **** in the past as Franken did in that photo, as have a lot of men, and I think that very often those actions belong more in the category of poor judgment and mistakes rather than predatory horrible behavior. I think intent matters for something - here I think Franken was being a clown who stepped out of line, rather than predatory. And if that flak vest is anything like the ones we had, I'm at least tossing out "groping" or "fondling" as sensible terms (you might as well try to cop a feel through a phone book). I'm not saying that makes it okay and would expect a lot of people to disagree, especially some women, but clearly he wasn't feeling her up.

That's the picture thing - as to the report of the forcible kissing skit rehearsal, the story there is a little more hazy (and yes, two people can come away from situations like that with two different takes on events). As she tells it, and assuming her version is 100% accurate, it sounds worse than an unwelcome advance but not in assault-type territory & there are degrees in between. Honestly the idea of Al Franken kissing anybody ever seems kind of creepy as it is.

So I'm not sure what the standard should precisely be for calling for a Senator's resignation, but he's around there somewhere. I'm trying to imagine this if you swapped out Franken for Paul Ryan, and I don't see much difference.

Go on

The number might not be zero, but if you go on a quest to find Orthodox Jews offended by Mel Brooks make sure you put your affairs in order at home, you'll be out for a while.

To be clear here, you know we're discussing the allegation that he called this woman on the phone to discuss politics after arguing politics with her on a television show, right? She makes no other allegations... So if she feels threatened by that behavior, I think that's something that's on her. Am I crazy here?

Let's say you write a script where you kiss her, then you rehearse and she gets angry about it... Are you going to still kiss her on stage? The absence of the kiss on stage doesn't seem to me to prove anything either way.

I agree with this, but it does mean we'd be ruling out many/most celebrities from pursuing political office, which I'm fine with... and perhaps also a huge percentage of the population going forward (who under 35 has an unblemished social media history AND has never sexted?)...

Well, first Bernie Bernbaum in Miller's Crossing, the sneaky, weak, sniveling character had me sorta mad, but it's just one character, right?

The real offense though is Walter Sobchak. He's not a great person obviously, but he's the exact opposite of a sniveling weak nebbish caricature of a Jew. Of course he's not really a Jew. It's just so funny to see a guy like that saying shomer shabbos.

To be clear, I'm obviously not saying that many/most celebrities have taken photos pretending to grope sleeping women without their consent... I'm saying many/most celebrities have stuff out there that we would probably count as lewd, unbecoming of a member of Congress by our moral standards, profane, provocative, etc...

There's this guy named Roy Moore. He's been in the news.

the bigger problem with most Mel Brooks movies is that they suck

I can't believe you had to spell this out.

Vespa was hot though.

Me

"Hot Takes! Get yer Hot Takes right here!"

Electing the first virgin might be hard.