MovieChat Forums > Blazing Saddles (1974) Discussion > Dancing around like a bunch of Kansas Ci...

Dancing around like a bunch of Kansas City Fa**ots


Is this a real term? Anyone know the origin of it? I have no idea why, but this scene cracks me up every time.

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KC was a booming metropolis at the time, so of course attracted a lot of people.

In addition, back then, that word didn't just describe homosexual men. It was anyone who was flamboyant, and a general term of insult. It carried about as much weight as calling someone an azzhole now.

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Actually in 1974, when BS came out and I was 18, *beep* was used exclusively to describe homosexual men. If it had an earlier, broader meaning, it's simply another humorous anachronism in a movie that's full of them.

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We used it all through grade school and high school in the 70's and 80's. "Shut up, fa&&ot" was a very common expression, even said by girls to guys.

Yes, it had to do with homosexual men, but it was also used just as an insult the way mother effer, c*ck sucker and such are used. Until PC took over the world, no one really cared if the term was used unless you were a homosexual man.

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Thanks for making my point for me!

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There is a homosexual aspect to it, but there is also an incestual aspect to "mother fucker" that is almost never implied when it is used.
You are not recognizing the difference, and that is troublesome.

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But the movie isn't set in 1974. How can it an anachronism if at the time the movie was set f@gg0t meant flamboyant and not strictly homosexual?

24/04/1916

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Yeah, but was Kansas City known as a Mecca for fa&&ots? Either in the 70s, or in the 1880s? I mean, why KC fa&&ots as opposed to, say, St. Louis fa&&ots?




I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.

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Or San Francisco f@&&0t$?

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My guess is that KC was one of the last, large towns before hitting the frontier, therefore it was more established and accepting of the gays.

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Kansas City was considered a very modern, cosmopolitan town in the mid-late 18th century. It was known nationally as 'The Paris of the Plains.'

Of course, that was before you could fly over it to Seattle or San Francisco...

- HOW kin I be so brainless, when I is so smart?

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19th century

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I don't know why they included the Kansas City part. Heck, they didn't even CALL homosexuals that in those days. They used words like "mandrake," "Nancy-boy," "sissy," and "sodomite." The women were sometimes called "Sapphists," referencing the ancient Greek poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos.

However, this film was made in the 1970s, had a lot of 70s culture in it, and wasn't exactly historically accurate, and everyone KNEW they were in a movie, so it's not a surprise they'd use a 70s slur for gay guys.

Of course, Taggert was insulting the manhood of his underlings in that scene, so it's not clear if the white guys overseeing the railroad construction were gay or not.

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