Posted on 06/02/2023 6:06:17 AM PDT by Red Badger
It sounds like the ultimate Monty Python scene: A bunch of humorless functionaries review a hilarious script to remove every line that might offend someone. The result is a virtual haiku of disconnected observations without a punchline.
That would make for a funny premise if it were not actually happening to comedy legend John Cleese. With a much-anticipated stage remake of the film classic, Life of Brian, Cleese said he found himself under siege by several actors to drop offensive material from the movie. It is a scene being replayed across movie, television and comedy show venues. We are becoming less funny as activists squeeze edgy and insulting jokes out of material. From commercials to sitcoms, our range of comedy appears to now run the gamut from A to B.
Comedy and satire have long been important forms of political discourse. Since the time of court jesters, comedians have challenged rulers and entrenched political classes. Even in ancient Rome, comedians used performances to challenge social and political norms. Indeed, jokes can lay bare religious, social and political issues in a unique and transformative way. They can allow for a dialogue or recognition of issues that are too sensitive or inflammatory for other forums.
One of the favorite targets of the Monty Python troupe was political activists who lacked any humor or self-awareness. That was the thrust of scenes in Life of Brian involving Cleese's character, Reg, the leader of the “People's Front of Judea” who faced endless demands for countervailing causes — so many that the group never actually gets anything done beyond meetings.
In one scene, an activist named Stan announces that he wants to be a woman and have a baby:
Reg: “You want to have babies?!?!” Stan: “It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.” Reg: “But ... you can't HAVE babies!” Stan: “Don't you oppress me!”
Some actors reading the script urged that the scene be cut, and producers now face a dilemma after Cleese refused to drop it.
For the most part, the war on comedy is working. For nearly a decade, many leading comedians have avoided performing on college campuses because they simply have no material that will avoid triggering one group or another. Six out of ten students in a 2020 survey said offensive jokes can constitute hate speech.
Activists are converting much of the world into their own humorless, ticked-off image. It is hard to enrage others through identity politics if some comedian is making fun of different identities. So the message has become that there’s nothing funny about identity. Satire is now viewed by some as a vehicle for objectification, subjugation and alienation.
These are the modern versions of the Puritans and Victorians, imposing their own rigid demands on artists and writers to conform to their own social values.
In other countries, this crackdown on comedy is being enforced by the state through criminal and human rights laws. With the possible exception of jokes about white men, Christians or conservatives, any reference to the stereotypes of any group is now considered offensive or criminal.
In Canada, a comedian named Guy Earle was charged with violating the human rights of a lesbian couple when they got into a trash-talking exchange during one of his stand-up acts. In Brazil, comedian Danilo Gentili was prosecuted for implying a politician was a prostitute.
Comedians are being prosecuted under hate-speech laws in various countries that criminalize mocking any group or identity. In Scotland, comedians have objected to laws that allow prosecution for inflammatory material that relies on listed characteristics such as age, disability, race (and related characteristics), religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics.
In the United States, the chilling effect on comedy is perfectly glacial.
Comedians like Chris Rock have lashed out at “unfunny TV shows” and lamented that “everybody’s scared to make a move.” Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Saunders and others have raised similar objections.
David Zucker, the director of the classic comedy Airplane!, observed that the movie could not be made today and that activists have squeezed humor out of Hollywood. Doing so, he noted, is the “death of creativity.”
Even fantasy is now subject to social agendas. The new Disney remake of The Little Mermaid was criticized by New York Times movie critic Wesley Morris for lacking sufficient "kink" and being too safe in order to appease parents. Likewise, actress Paloma Faith denounced the entire premise of the film as telling the story of a girl who gives up her voice for a man.
The attack on Cleese’s script should be the height of ironic humor. The movie featuring humorless, clueless activists with no sense of self-awareness is now being targeted by some of the very same characters in real life.
The problem is that the loss of such humor will only increase the rage in society. The ability to laugh about ourselves and others can help vent social pressures and force people out of their myopic, monotonous perspectives.
In the movie Good Morning, Vietnam, comedian Robin Williams left the country rolling in laughter over his role as disc jockey Adrian Cronauer, who savaged every possible political, religious and racial group. His nemesis, Lt. Steven Hauk, fails to replace him on-air with Hauk’s own safe, unfunny jokes. When a general refuses to take Cronauer off the air, Hauk defiantly declares: "Sir, in my heart, I know I'm funny.”
He wasn't funny, of course, which is why he needed a comedy horn to show people when to laugh. That is why we prefer to have comedies written by people like Cleese as opposed to government functionaries.
There is little room for humor in an age of rage. Yet what is lost is not just the sense of release that comes with humor. We are losing an avenue of social discourse that requires both tolerance and perspective. We are becoming "the worst audience ever" of people sitting with knotted brows and crossed arms, no longer capable of seeing the joke beyond our political divisions. Much like the characters from Life of Brian, we are all becoming members of the People's Front of Judea, living in a perpetual state of rage.
Jonathan Turley, an attorney, constitutional law scholar and legal analyst, is the Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law at The George Washington University Law School.
My wife and I went to see it when it was first released. We walked out halfway through. Not what we were expecting at all.
History of the World too
It’s twue! It’s twue!
Here’s an idea: make jokes about people who have no sense of humor. Some are already doing it with the “Karen”, and “Let’s go Brandon shtick”. There needs to be a woke icon that can be the brunt of most humor. A running joke, so to speak. Woketards hate being laughed at. They really don’t understand it.
The ‘tards are an odd bunch. They do not like good comedy. I think it is because they do not understand complex humor. They likely laugh along with others (it’s what they do) without true understanding.
They understand butt, sex, poop, and ding-dong jokes and that’s about it.
Idiocracy was prescient.
Remake?!
“So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space,
‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth!”
BUT, given our current social environment, I think I will have to re-visit “ Life of Brian” with 21st century eyes…
If these people bowing to the demands of “activists” only knew how few the “activists” really represented, they’d toss them out on their ear.
I hope Clease calls their bluff. Expose them to be the tiny band of crybabies that they are.
EC
Alinsky was a genius. However despicable one might find his values, his tactics, and explanations of why and how to use them put him up there with Machiavelli or Von Clausewitz: ignore them only if you want to lose. He absolutely understood how to fight entrenched power and condensed it down into simple things that work.
“I have a theory that by now every line of Blazing Saddles has appeared in at least one FR thread.”
Hang on while I whip this out.
If we utilized Alinsky’s tactics against the libtards, we would win.
Life if Brian is despicably blasphemous. I never liked it, I don’t think it’s funny, I never thought Monty Python was all that funny, and the fact that George Harrison helped finance the movie put him and his cynical ilk in a darker place then they previously inhabited.
Making fun of Christianity never went out of style in Hollywood.
Alinsky’s “The Rules for Radicals”:
1. “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood.
2. “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.
3. “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.
4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.
5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.
6. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones.
7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news.
8. “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new.
9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.
10. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.” It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.
11. “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog.
12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem.
13. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster
The ONE THING about Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is THEY WORK FOR BOTH SIDES OF AN ISSUE!.
They are not ‘Alinsky’s Rules for Left Wing Radicals’, they are ‘Alinsky’s Rules for ALL Radicals’, depending on who is in POWER at the time.................................
Blazing saddles is a biting indictment of racism.
right from the beginning where the racist guys are shown as the idiots and the black guys are the cultured folks.
Wonderful film
I agree that it was despicably blasphemous.. saw it in the theater and never again. Beyond that, I disagree- they had many great moments. What about Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern- schplenden- schlitter- crasscrenbon- fried- digger- dingle- dangle- dongle- dungle- burstein- von- knacker- thrasher- apple- banger- horowitz- ticolensic- grander- knotty- spelltinkle- grandlich- grumblemeyer- spelterwasser- kurstlich- himbleeisen- bahnwagen- gutenabend- bitte- ein- nürnburger- bratwustle- gerspurten- mitz- weimache- luber- hundsfut- gumberaber- shönedanker- kalbsfleisch- mittler- aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm?
I’ve never seen the whole thing, and no doubt much is blasphemous.
The “I want to be a woman” scene is amazingly prophetic.
There are other individual scenes that are funny and not blasphemous.
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