Mel Brooks’s unapologetically in-your-face western spoof broke all the rules and redefined satire – it is just as relevant for today’s polarised world

As part of a long career, Mel Brooks created Blazing Saddles, released in 1974. For me, it redefined satire for the 20th century. The film was made at a time when America was in crisis. It had just been through the Vietnam war and the civil rights movement. The country was deeply divided and in the midst of a serious identity crisis – like it is again today. Against this background, and surely in need of a good laugh, Brooks decided to make a “comedy western”, two film genres that don’t traditionally go together.

Westerns were white American. Certainly, the earliest examples are propagandist. No other culture mythologises its own creation in such a cinematic way. One tried and tested western blueprint is the tale of the...