| Your conclusion misses the fact that those outraged people move the needle. Studio Execs are very sensitive to outrage. It's part of the calculus. Often, the outrage is perpetuated within the industry as well. That said - Airplane would get made - they'd just adjust the jokes accordingly. When they made Airplane, there were a lot of gags they didn't use because they just were 'too much' - or not funny. So adjusting the content a bit is always something going on. That said, the 'fear bar' is much, much lower for certain formats. My canary for that is Tina Fey. And Judd Apatow. These are staunchly progressive people, but with serious comedy chops. They have been making some passive aggressive public statements lately with respect to this stuff, you can hear what they think on podcasts. What we need is for Mel Brooks is to come back and save us. He's too old, but if he backed a Ben Stiller remake of 'Blazing Saddles' - I think it would be the funniest thing of the century. |