Talk:Monty Python

"The Life of Brian caused much controversy, including allegations of blasphemy by Christians, when it was originaly released as it depicts the life and subsequent cruxifiction of a young Judean called Brian of Nazareth, satirisisng the life of Jesus."

This needs to be reconsidered.

The Python team always denied categorically that the film satirizes the life of Jesus. In fact the film went out of its way to depict Jesus, with Brian foregrounded to make the point that this was about an entirely different character. The film does however satirize both political and religious ideology and what John Cleese called 'closed systems of thinking'. There are some wonderful episodes in the film which demonstrate this admirably. The "What have the Romans ever done for us?" sequence particularly demonstrates how political ideology can blind people to evidence, and the "Tell us Master" sequence demonstrates within the space of a couple of minutes how religious movements can form, split, and evolve to the point where despite the fact that even the most blatant and abusive insults are being hurled, thinking is twisted around to interpret these statements and insults as revered messages. The 'You are all different' section further demonstrates how rigid thinking blinds followers to the actual text of the message.

The final episode, the crucifiction, which caused outrage at the time is wonderful irony. The character who is singing 'Always look on the bright side of life' is a practical joker and an incurable optimist. He is the kind of person you could willingly strangle after 10 minutes in his company. The fact that he manages to convince a bunch of people who are dying a most agonising death, and end the film on a happy, whistly tune is one of the most perverse endings in the whole of comedy. Brilliant!

--CatWatcher 19:30, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

If nothing else "satirisisng" needs to be fixed, (doing that now) Excal