JOHN NOLTE: The Gloriously Inappropriate and Problematic Blues Brothers (1980).

We live in a literal Woke Police State run by Big Corporations. Ironically, this was something Hollywood frequently warned us about — and now Hollywood is one of our most fascist enforcers. McCarthyism and blacklists have returned with a vengeance.

Well, as the (soon-to-be-blacklisted) Python boys famously suggested, you should “always look at the bright side of life.”

So, yes, there are some benefits to Woke McCarthyism… First off, it’s kind of fun to feel like an outlaw just for daring to enjoy a movie. Secondly, we certainly live in interesting times. Finally, now that movies like Animal House and The Blues Brothers have become the forbidden, like all things forbidden, you cherish and enjoy them all the more.

The Blues Brothers was always a terrific movie, a legitimately great musical-comedy. It’s aged into something even more beautiful, though, and not just because of Woketardism.

You see, in the 41 years since its release, we’ve lost all the legends the movie paid such affectionate tribute to: Aretha Franklin, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, James Brown, and John Lee Hooker. They’re all gone now, and what a treat it is to watch them up on the screen strutting their magic. Each of their numbers, most especially Aretha’s “Think” and Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher,” is a total show-stopper. You can’t help but sit with a big grin on your face mixed with an ache in your heart.

Yes, Giants once walked the earth … including John Belushi.

Best of all, you can sense the reverence John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd (who co-wrote the script with director John Landis) have for these giants. Not only are they eager to introduce their idols to a new audience, but during their respective musical numbers, Aykroyd and Belushi stay almost entirely out of the way. They generously (and appropriately) allow their musical heroes to shine alone in the spotlight.

Both the movie and musical history are better for it.

It’s a massively bloated Hindenburg of a musical comedy, redeemed by the goodwill of its two SNL stars, their brilliant backing band, and the film’s stellar guest artists. And as Nolte writes, “because of all that goodness and good humor and colorblindness and ennobling of the human spirit, The Blues Brothers could never get made today — at least not without everyone involved getting blacklisted by today’s Woke Nazis.”