Iconic 'Monty Python' Director Terry Gilliam Rips 'Superficial Nonsense' of Hollywood Political Correctness
One of the many reasons that millions flocked to support then-candidate Donald Trump was their outspoken and unapologetic opposition to the left’s increasingly authoritarian culture of political correctness.
The bipartisan pushback against PC culture is now extending even to Hollywood.
Legendary American-born British actor and director Terry Gilliam, who first gained fame as part of the “Monty Python” comedy group, was the most recent public figure to criticize the left.
In a recent interview with AFP after winning a lifetime achievement award at the Cairo International Film Festival, Gilliam — who is certainly no fan of Trump — blasted Hollywood for its incessant focus on “superficial nonsense” about inclusivity and identity.
“In Hollywood, there’s a lot of pressure if you’re going to have a transgender character, then you have to have a transgender actor — it’s ridiculous,” Gilliam said.
“If you’re going to have a serial killer then you’ve got to have a serial killer actor who has killed many people? It’s illogical.”
The iconic director mentioned actress Zoe Saldana, who he said was “pilloried” for darkening her skin in order to more accurately portray soul singer Nina Simone in a film.
“If I’m going to play an Italian on film I’ll darken my skin, I’ll try to look Mediterranean,” Gilliam said.
This is far from the first time that Gilliam has pushed the envelope against political correctness.
The Guardian reported that he caused a controversy in July 2018 when he pushed back against a BBC commentator who said that Gilliam’s “Monty Python” troupe wouldn’t be diverse enough to be accepted today.
The BBC’s Shane Allen had said, “If you’re going to assemble a team now, it’s not going to be six Oxbridge white blokes. It’s going to be a diverse range of people who reflect the modern world.”
Gilliam said that Allen’s remark “made me cry: the idea that … no longer six white Oxbridge men can make a comedy show. Now we need one of this, one of that, everybody represented … this is bulls—.”
“I no longer want to be a white male, I don’t want to be blamed for everything wrong in the world: I tell the world now I’m a black lesbian … My name is Loretta and I’m a BLT, a black lesbian in transition,” he continued jokingly.
Gilliam added that Allen’s comments had “made me so angry, all of us so angry. Comedy is not assembled, it’s not like putting together a boy band where you put together one of this, one of that everyone is represented.”
In April 2019, the star further lamented how political correctness had affected comedy in an interview with The Wall Street Journal to promote his new film “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.”
“With respect to the old adage about the difference between British and American comedy — the British laugh at themselves while Americans laugh at everybody else,” Gilliam said. “I still think it’s pretty true, but it’s changing because now we can’t laugh at anybody because it causes offense. There’s a kind of egotism out there: ‘Oh, they were making fun of me.’ Never heard of you. I’m making fun of an idea.”
He also hearkened back to his controversial response to Allen’s commentary the year prior and said, “The idea is that we’re already excluded because the world has changed. I said I’m tired of being, as a white male, blamed for everything that’s wrong in the world.” He also reiterated his joke about being “Loretta … a black lesbian in transition,” a reference to a scene from the 1979 hit “Life of Brian” in which a male character asked his friends to refer to him as “Loretta” because that’s how he wanted to identify.
“People now might take offense at that,” Gilliam said. “And when offense becomes so easy, it takes the fun out of offending!”
That’s a statement worth remembering, as the constant “offense” taken by the politically correct, if left unchecked, will prove to be the death of comedy.
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