this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2026
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[–] FrChazzz@lemmus.org 41 points 1 week ago (9 children)

Blazing Saddles. Took me a bit to understand this when I was younger. When I first saw it, I thought it was simply outdated humor. Then I thought it was edgy. Then I finally grasped that the whole joke is actually directed at racist white folks and that their racism just makes them look really stupid.

[–] Goatboy@lemmy.today 19 points 1 week ago (7 children)

The quintessential example. Rocky Horror is another.

I'd also include the controversy around "Baby It's Cold Outside".

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 week ago (4 children)

If I stay people will think we had sex!

OMG! He's pressuring her into sex!

[–] null@lemmy.org -1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The song has a line where the girl asks what's in her drink. You can interpret that however you want.

[–] damnedfurry@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You can interpret that however you want.

Not if you want to be accurate:

“Hey what’s in this drink” was a stock joke at the time, and the punchline was invariably that there’s actually pretty much nothing in the drink, not even a significant amount of alcohol.

See, this woman is staying late, unchaperoned, at a dude’s house. In the 1940’s, that’s the kind of thing Good Girls aren’t supposed to do — and she wants people to think she’s a good girl. The woman in the song says outright, multiple times, that what other people will think of her staying is what she’s really concerned about: “the neighbors might think,” “my maiden aunt’s mind is vicious,” “there’s bound to be talk tomorrow.” But she’s having a really good time, and she wants to stay, and so she is excusing her uncharacteristically bold behavior (either to the guy or to herself) by blaming it on the drink — unaware that the drink is actually really weak, maybe not even alcoholic at all. That’s the joke. That is the standard joke that’s going on when a woman in media from the early-to-mid 20th century says “hey, what’s in this drink?” It is not a joke about how she’s drunk and about to be raped. It’s a joke about how she’s perfectly sober and about to have awesome consensual sex and use the drink for plausible deniability because she’s living in a society where women aren’t supposed to have sexual agency.

[–] null@lemmy.org -2 points 1 week ago

I'm not debating that at all. I'm merely pointing out that we live in a post-Cosby society.

[–] Goatboy@lemmy.today 3 points 1 week ago

She knows exactly what's in the drink.

The context is that she doesn't want to leave.

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