This episode of Some More News starts out slowly, but it builds to an excellent climax, and then Cody's ending credits song is hysterical.
He makes an excellent point about how Ben Shapiro and his gang of right-wing ghouls are seething rage-o-holics who get off on seeing movie characters, who represent people they hate: non-trad-wife women, non-religious people, gay people etc. get murdered.
However, Cody seems sincerely confused when these wingnuts compare their movie to "Blazing Saddles." And at first glance, it does seem a ridiculous comparison.
But Cody needs to take the thesis of his review one step further to understand why they make that comparison.
Blazing Saddles is a political movie, in that it presents a Black man becoming sheriff in a racist white town in the 1800s American west. The movie mocks the racist attitudes of the townsfolk in funny, creative ways.
"Run, Hide, Fight Infidels" is also a political movie. And as far as right-wingers are concerned, also very funny. To most people, seeing characters in a movie murdered is not funny. But far-right extremists, like Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh, are not most people.
Cody discusses a murder scene that is edited using a jump cut, often employed in humorous contexts. The victim, who is kicked off a roof, takes an unrealistically long time to actually hit the ground. The fall is shot from multiple angles, as the victim screams and flails.
Cody shows an excerpt of Shapiro, Walsh and two other ghouls after they watch the clip, and it's clear they think it's one of the funniest things they ever saw. I guarantee you, that is what makes them think of Blazing Saddles.
I am reminded of a line from Margaret Atwood: "Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them." Right-wingers respond to Blazing Saddles, a film that laughs at their racism, with a film about funny murder.
Cody also makes the point that these right-wingers hold beliefs that are very similar to the Muslim extremists in the film. But I think that's why they used them as their instrument of retribution - they all hate the same people, but the right-wingers can say: "WE aren't fantasizing about killing our political opponents, it's those MUSLIMS."
