So the author is right - nobody wants to literally make the same movie today, because the same movie is already have been made! It's however a prime example of being right on technicality and completely wrong on substance - the point is not to make a copy of Blazing Saddles, the point is making that kind of irreverent and boundless satire, which is appropriate in all times and all societies - but I can't see how Woke Hollywood could ever make something like that.
Another argument is "but we don't submit to every woke demand and not everybody is getting cancelled" - of course not! If Hollywood tried to submit to every woke demand and avoid every complaint from twitter mob, no movie would be ever made at all. Of course, there's a lot of complaints that are ignored. That doesn't exclude the fact that there are clear boundaries where Woke Hollywood would never dare to tread. And irreverent no-holds-barred satire of the Blazing Saddles mold is out of these boundaries.
Next argument is "well, there are stand-up comics and they aren't thrown in jail". Yeah, sure, we're not there yet. But we also not where we were when Blazing Saddles was made. We're somewhere in between the one and the other. And we're moving away from the Blazing Saddles.
So you'd be tempted to ask - why would Woke Hollywood or their woke twitter mob watchdogs object to lampooning corrupt politicians or racists? And the answer to that is exactly the reason why woke cancel culture is so awful - because the intent does not matter. If something can be taken as offensive by any construction of the most hostile reading of it - and a hostile reading (watching) of Blazing Saddles surely could find a lot of "problematic" things within it - completely ignoring the intent, the context and concentrating only on the form and the worst possible interpretation of it that could be invented - then it's unacceptable and must be destroyed.
That's exactly the crux of the problem and the point of the argument about Blazing Saddles - the problem is that even when you agree on the premises, like racism is bad, corrupt politicians are bad, etc. - if you express it in a manner that may seem to somebody, even in theory, "problematic", you're still the enemy.
I don't think the author's argument is that comedies can't be made but more that we're seeing less of them because there is more cultural friction today and that prevents aspiring directors from branching out.
They literally say "Borat could not be made today". Trying to justify that in a footnote has the same energy as advertising "Our product cures cancer*" and then having "*no it doesn't" on the back of the box. It's just an egregiously false statement.
Maybe that wasn't their argument - they do emphasise the importance of being an established director, and that's a fair thing to assess. But when someone finds themselves having to add a footnote saying "When I said this couldn't be made today, I was ignoring that it was", that should probably be a hint that the argument actually being presented is pretty poor.