Both of those films are as old or older than I am, and I'm a Gen Xer born late 1978. Blazing Saddles in particular is more than a full presidential term older than me. Five decades old.

Image how much our understanding of sociology, education, critical theory, racism, sexism, and literally everything has grown since then. Consider how many Ph.D level academics have been studying all of this, full time, over the last half a century.

Anti-racism wasn't a concept in 1974, really. Making fun of racism was really seen as ironic and enlightened. The 1970s also gave us stuff like All in the Family and other cultural texts seen as progressive. But what progressive means has shifted SO far in fifty years. What racism even means has dramatically shifted, so yes, looking at 2022 America from a 1974 sociological lens is quite literally, unironically behind the times.