Posted on 05/20/2023 12:06:02 PM PDT by lowbridge
Actors warned John Cleese that his Life of Brian stage show should not include a scene about a man wanting to be a woman and have a baby, the comedian has said.
The Monty Python star is working on a stage production of the troupe’s 1979 comedy film, The Life of Brian, which parodies the Messianic message of the New Testament.
In the film version, a character named Stan explains that he wants to be a woman called Loretta and “have babies”, before being told by Cleese’s character Reg that this was impossible.
This exchange reportedly met with opposition from actors in a readthrough of the script for the planned stage show because it could “offend people”, raising doubt as to its inclusion in the final production.
'You can't do that stuff nowadays'
Cleese said performers involved in the readthrough told him: “We love the script, but you can't do that stuff about Loretta nowadays.”
Speaking to the audience for his one-man show, he added: "So here you have something there's never been a complaint about in 40 years, that I've heard of, and now all of a sudden we can't do it because it'll offend people. What is one supposed to make of that?
-snip
Cleese revealed the concerns with the script amid a growing debate about gender ideology, which purports that people born female who identify as male are men, and could give birth to children as men.
This idea has been reflected in the NHS, with the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust recently employing the phrase “birthing people” instead of mothers in an announcement about perinatal mental health care.
In 2021, Brighton and Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust unveiled “gender inclusive” phrases to be used as best practice by medical staff
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
You can’t just post a picture without giving us the whole clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbp4gSQUVnA
“Ahh yes, you got the wrong map, you silly leg-before-wicket English person.”
Frankly I am not inclined to care because he was one of the guys who led us to this point.
"Oh," he would say, "aren't all these walls silly? Let's tear them down, they spoil the view and I am sure they do not really serve any purpose. Oh, look at the cuddly puppies, aren't they cute. Let's invite them in!"
Twenty years later.
"Why is this wolf pack chasing me through the streets? Come rescue me!"
How about no.
Exactly. He’s a raving leftist, but he’s also an intelligent, honest and very funny man who doesn’t want anything to interfere with common sense.
To explain about “common sense,” that’s the basis of humor. That is, having a reality and a realistic reaction to it.
The funny part comes in when people start acting as though reality is not real and crossing the limits of common sense...the very funny cross-dressing movies of years ago, “Some Like It Hot” and “Victor Victoria” were comedies because they were at variance with reality and common sense.
But if you reject those starting points, the humor is gone.
“But if you reject those starting points, the humor is gone.”
I would posit that the humor has merely been displaced elsewhere. Maybe the intended recipient of the humor has now become the butt of the joke.
Don’t do it, John. Stand firm.
Nobody was the butt of the jokes, actually, because at that time nobody really believed they were of the opposite sex or were even ravingly gay, but it was a funny image. The humor came from how improbable this was (like Klinger in MASH).
There was no hatred involved in this, btw.
The modern crazies (trans, etc) weren’t really the butt of the jokes either because they didn’t exist as a protected class at that time and barely existed at all until the last couple of years (when they, along with black criminals, seem to have emerged as our most important citizens).
For something to be funny, you have to start from the normal situation. We have ceased to live in a normal world.
He is also rebooting Fawlty Towers to give his daughter a job. Well, ok, why does Rob Freaking Reiner have to produce? Why go to Castle Rock? Who convinced you they don't suck (they do).
Cleese is in exactly the same "Life of Brian" trap in this reboot, by stupidly moving the hotel to the Caribbean, he's the invader, so it will be hour-after-hour of him 'taking the piss', as the British call it -- and that will wear thin fast -- instead of him being able to ladle out occasionally clever insults to the minority help at home inside Fawlty on the English Riveria.
Now he's got actors -- ACTORS -- telling him to re-write his script (which was Idle/Gilliam at concept, but according to the books the daily re-writes flew fast and furious from all Pythons after George Harrison wrote the $3M check to save the film at the onset of production).
Instead of doing what you're doing, Cleese, why not add some CGI to Life of Brian and maybe have "Loretta" be Mr. Dylan. "I want you all to call me Loretta ... and etch my mutant face on a jug of wine!"
Think of all the fun he could have in the Matthias stoning scene lofl. "Who threw that stone? She did she did! He did he did!"
Which is the irony here imho.
The very topic at hand is exactly the same phenomenon that enabled the Nazi’s. Nobody was allowed to speak against them, even after people knew something was very wrong, they were too scared. Saying anything would be very serious.
How is this any different than the fascistic cult of transgenderism? They want to go after the kids, behind the backs of parents, and is innately anti-Christian. Say anything and you’re ‘a hateful bigot’ and you get cancelled.
Both are death cults.
Absolutely one of the best scenes in the movie, and amazingly decades ahead of its time, at least as regards this issue. Not surprised at the pushback - the devil will not be mocked.
***Sad cultural Marxists cannot take a joke;***
I remember decades ago in thew 1960s, when Harpo Marx got a gig in Moscow. He first had to prove he was a funny man in front of a board of commie commissars. He did his entire act, and not a smile or laugh from any of them. He still got to do his act for the public and they loved it.
Men in women’s clothes has always been good for a laugh in the movies, from Fatty Arbuckle to Carry On Girls so many comedies have used it.
Now you better not laugh or you are labeled a transphobe! (Transmisia is a better word. A revulsion of trannies)
Tit for tat: When I was working in Germany, a German national told a joke. "What is the thinnest book in the library? The Complete collection of German Humor." Then when working in Belgium, I was told the same joke about German humor by a Belgian.
Today I think the least humorous are the screaming pretend harpies of the whole transsexual movement.
Keep joke about man having a baby it tells it like it is the wimp actors warning show just how much of a puss they are.
Loretta indeed LOL
Keep it in a box
2 best lines
Love this pic!
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