Monty Python and Philosophy

by Gary L. Hardcastle

  Monty Python’s Life of Brian does not blaspheme against God but it does hold religious hypocrisy up for ridicule. Terry Jones calls this “heresy.” He says, “The Life of Brian isn’t blasphemous, it’s heretical. It’s not blasphemous because it takes the Bible story as gospel; you have to believe in the Bible, you have to understand and know the Bible story to understand it for the film really. It’s heretical because it’s making fun of the way the church represents it. Heresy is basically talking against the church’s interpretation, not against the basic belief.”4 It’s true that Monty Python’s criticism is directed at religious believers, but it is not necessarily anti-religious: in fact, one could be religious and agree with it completely.

  “A New World, a Better Future”: The Question of Humanism

  In their eager desire to be followers, a crowd of people takes Brian as a prophet. But does Brian actually teach anything? Does he have a message or a philosophy of any kind?

  In fact, Brian “preaches” twice in the movie: once in the marketplace when he is masquerading as a prophet to hide from the centurions, and once to the multitude from the window of his mother’s apartment. In the market, Brian’s message is a hodgepodge of phrases and parables presumably taken from the other apocalyptic teachers—and some clearly pilfered from Jesus. For example, Brian says, “Don’t pass judgment on other people, or you might get judged yourself,” which sounds as if Brian is parroting what Jesus says in Matthew 7:1. And in Brian’s rising panic he blurts: “Blessed are they . . . who convert their neighbor’s ox . . . for they shall inhibit their girth . . . .” At this point, Brian’s sermons have no message—or, at least, he is too scared to express it.

  At his mother’s apartment, however, Brian speaks his own words, and if anything can be called Brian’s religious teaching, it would be found here. To the crowd gathered outside his mother’s window, he says with real passion: “You’ve got it all wrong. You don’t need to follow me. You don’t need to follow anybody. You’ve got to think for yourselves. You’re all individuals.” “You’ve all got to work it out for yourselves,” he adds. “Don’t let anyone tell you what to do.”

  From this one might deduce that Brian does have at least one principle, for his philosophy seems to be that one should be an individual. One should think for oneself. One shouldn’t be a follower. Perhaps this teaching is meant only to set up the joke when Brian says, “You’re all different!” and from the crowd a man named Dennis objects, “I’m not!” Dennis thereby creates a nice little paradox, since he both rejects Brian’s teaching and accepts it at the same time, whereas all the rest who follow the crowd in accepting Brian’s teaching actually fail to accept it. But the passion in Brian’s voice when he says this, and his pained look, suggest that this is more than a joke; it suggests that here he is sincere, that this reflects his real thoughts. That this quote is in fact a message that the Pythons wanted to send comes through in this comment from Michael Palin, who says that Monty Python’s Life of Brian reflects “the basis of what Python comedy was all about, which is really resisting people telling you how to behave and how not to behave. It was the freedom of the individual, a very Sixties thing, the independence which was part of the way Python had been formed” (The Pythons’ Autobiography, p. 306).

  Yet Brian’s “sermon” reflects not only the Sixties but also a principle basic to most modern philosophy, and especially the eighteenth-century movement called the Enlightenment, namely, the principle that individuals should think for themselves. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is often taken to identify the motto of the Enlightenment in his slogan: “Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own reason!”5 But Brian’s central principle can also plausibly be seen to represent a kind of existentialism. Existentialists maintain that human beings have no intrinsic purpose or essence; there is no such thing as “human nature.” Therefore it is up to each individual to determine the meaning of one’s own life and to take responsibility for one’s actions. In fact, every individual is “condemned” to do so. Existentialist philosophers like Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) were all, in different ways, interested in seeing how individuals could live authentic lives, how one could be true to oneself. Brian’s “sermon” certainly fits this tradition. And one might go even further and also see Brian’s teaching, like that of many of the existentialists, as a form of humanism. This is the view that human beings are the fundamental source of value, and that improving this world should be the primary focus of human activities. Whether Brian intends this or not, this is what Judith sees in him when she tells Mandy that Brian will “lead them with hope to a new world, a better future.”

  Brian does not say much about the nature of God, but he is not necessarily teaching secular humanism. His message could be a religious or theistic humanism. Theistic humanism combines the belief in God with humanist values.6 It is the view that meeting “this-worldly” human needs is the primary thing that God wants of his followers. On this view, God’s primary interest is in feeding the hungry, healing those who are ill, caring for widows and orphans, and so on. If Brian thinks this way, then he would be teaching humanism not because he lacks faith in God but precisely because he has that faith. Perhaps he gets his humanism, as he got the idea that one should not judge lest one be judged, from Jesus. For example, in what is sometimes called “the Sermon on the Plain” (Luke 6: 17-49), Jesus is portrayed as having a profoundly humanistic regard for the poor, the hungry, and the excluded. It is possible, then, that Brian is not trying to be anti-religious but instead is trying to improve the religion of his followers. The idea that Brian’s teachings are meant to agree with a specifically Christian humanism comes through in this comment from Graham Chapman (who played Brian): “We did want to annoy [many churches] quite frankly because we felt they’d rather got the wrong end of the stick. They seem to forget about things like loving one another—more interested in joining their own little club and then thinking of other people in terms of ‘that lot won’t go to heaven, just us’ which is really stupid and rather unChristian . . . . That movie, if it said anything at all, said think for yourselves, don’t blindly follow, which I think isn’t a bad message and I’m sure Mr. Christ would have agreed” (The Pythons: Autobiography by the Pythons, pp. 286-87). Monty Python’s Life of Brian therefore criticizes religious belief, not when it involves belief in God, but when it is gullible and careless with the message.7

  To the extent that one can say that Brian has any philosophy to offer, then, it seems to be an existentialist humanism, not necessarily divorced from belief in God.

  “Life’s a Piece of Shit”: The Question of Heroism

  Many Christians have been humanists; several have been existentialists. But, even if Brian’s “teachings” are not incompatible with an authentic religious faith, one might have the sneaky suspicion that the movie as a whole has an anti-religious or anti-theistic or even nihilistic view. The movie as a whole seems to present life as meaningless or absurd.

  As it happens, there is a philosopher, Albert Camus (1913-1960), who is famous for his embrace of both an existentialist humanism and the view that life is absurd. So now a question about this movie’s philosophy can be asked clearly: Is Monty Python’s Life of Brian teaching Camus’s philosophy?

  In Camus’s novels and essays, the term ‘absurd’ does not mean silly, like a Prefect named Biggus Dickus or a food vender who sells ocelots’ earlobes. To say that life is absurd means that it has no pre-given meaning—events happen that can crush the individual, events that are not part of a greater plan, that are not “meant to be.” Camus does not believe that ours is a universe in which human beings have much importance; this is not a benevolent and rational universe. As Bob Lane has eloquently put it, Camussees human beings as small and mortal specks on a minor planet, in an ordinary solar system, located no place in particular, in infinite space, and subject to all sorts of dark irrational forces, over which we have little control. Human bei
ngs must therefore live and die with the fear and anxiety, the frustration and futility that people today know. One must live in the present moment and attempt to find out the actual, bare, given facts of human existence; to find them out, to face them and to live with them.8

  People long for life to make sense, and they long for happiness, but the universe fails to add up. In response to human longing, the universe is silent.

  I think it’s fair to say that this is the vision of Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Brian lives and moves in a world in which, as Camus says, life is absurd. One sees Camus’s influence in the film whenever events seem meaningless or suffering calls out for remedy, but one sees it above all in the ending of the movie. Brian and the rest are being crucified, but they are not really criminals; their executions are pointless. There is no sign that their deaths play a role in a larger struggle or that they are going to a better place. The words of their song present Camus’s perspective explicitly:For life is quite absurd.

  And death’s the final word.

  You must always face the curtain with a bow.

  Forget about your sin—give the audiences a grin.

  Enjoy it—it is your last chance anyhow.

  Brian lives—and then dies—in an absurd world.

  What should one do about the absurdity of life? What can one do? This is a crucial question. Camus argues that in the face of the absurd, the best that one can do—the noble life—is to rebel against the absurdity of life. To do this, one would have to be able to act without hope of reward, conscious that in the long run it makes no difference how one acts. One would refuse to believe in or hope for God-given purpose and instead fight for one’s goals, creating a meaningful life in the very choices one makes.

  Several of Camus’s writings illustrate what it would mean to live one’s life in this way, as an “absurd hero.” Three examples of the absurd hero are the characters of Meursault in Camus’s novel The Stranger, Dr. Rieux in The Plague, and Sisyphus in The Myth of Sisyphus. Meursault lives unreflectively. Because he lives unreflectively he lives spontaneously, until he kills someone he does not know and is tried and executed for this murder. It is not easy to see Meursault as a hero, but Camus insists that he is. Let me come back to this. The character of Dr. Rieux is easier to like: he cares for those afflicted by a plague even though they cannot be cured and even though by doing so he may catch the disease. And Sisyphus, the character from the Greek myth, is punished by the Gods by being forced to pointlessly and eternally roll a rock up a hill just to watch it roll back down. According to Camus, however, Sisyphus would not surrender his happiness to the fact that his achievements do not last, and for this reason he would be able to find a grim satisfaction in the task. From a cosmic perspective, the actions of these three characters are insignificant, but they are heroes because they live honestly and authentically.

  So the question arises: Is Brian too an absurd hero?

  It seems clear that Camus himself would say “No.” Speaking of the meaningless labors of Sisyphus, for example, Camus says, “There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.”9 Camus apparently means that no matter how difficult one’s life becomes, one is a free being and so one can always rise above one’s circumstances. But Brian is not haughty enough to scorn. He does not look down on his fate. On the contrary, he is constantly irritated and frustrated. The Myth of Sisyphus also says that “[t]he struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart” (p. 91). It is true that Brian is involved in the struggle for liberation from the Romans. But the movie makes it clear, first, that the struggle is a farce and, second, that Brian is more interested in the homier benefits of Judith. Brian may be placed in an absurd situation, but no one would think he triumphs over it by concentrating on his freedom, by refusing to hope, or by realizing the absurdity of his situation. On the contrary, Brian whines about his lack of freedom, constantly hopes that things will work out, and does not ever become conscious of the absurdity of his situation. Brian lacks a rebellious or defiant recognition of the meaningless of human life. He is not heroic in Camus’s sense.

  If Camus has the final say about heroes, then one might conclude that Monty Python’s Life of Brian is pretty cynical. It presents an absurd universe that does not even have a hero in it. But there may be another way to think about the meaningfulness of life and how one should live in a world in which death is the final word. On this scale, Brian fares better.

  One thing to note is the centrality of lying to Camus (and to all of the French existentialists). The greatest failure of a person, they say, is when one lives a lie, when one deceives oneself and lives in “bad faith.” Camus has said that Meursault is an absurd hero because he does not lie and that The Stranger is “the story of a man who, without any heroics, accepts death for the sake of truth.” This, Camus adds, is a portrayal of “the only Christ we deserved.”10 But despite what Camus says, it’s not clear that Meursault really is an ideal person. Robert C. Solomon argues persuasively that far from being a completely honest hero, Meursault never reaches the level of consciousness where one can choose to tell the truth or to lie. There is nothing in Meursault to which he can be true.11

  One thing that we can say in Brian’s favor, however, is that he does not live a lie. Brian is bluntly, almost childishly forthright. At the beginning of the movie he caves in to the pressure of his sharp-tongued mother, but as he comes into his own, he eventually is able to throw this off. Monty Python’s Life of Brian is in part the story of growing up and becoming—not becoming a hero, but an adult. Perhaps this explains why the song at the beginning of the movie says that there was a baby named Brian who grew up to be . . . a teenager named Brian, who then grew and grew until he who grew up to be . . . a man named Brian. He is not an absurd hero, but he is also not a liar. From this perspective, Monty Python’s Life of Brian rejects Camus’s austere idea of what human beings should aspire to and reflects instead an appreciation for more mundane satisfactions. Brian does live in Camus’s absurd universe. He does so, however, not as a rebellious hero but as an adult: he does not wait for a miracle. Instead, he hates the Roman occupiers, he loves Judith, and he in general does his best. Brian is buffeted by forces that he cannot defeat, but he nevertheless tries to do good, he is sincere, and he makes for himself a life that gains meaning through his own decisions. Perhaps those of us who admire Brian should invent a term: “absurd decent guy.” If this is plausible, then Monty Python’s Life of Brian exemplifies another form—a new form—of existentialist humanism. On this perspective, what Monty Python’s Life of Brian offers as a counterweight to nihilism is humor. One cannot rebel against the absurd, but one can laugh at it. Here Brian represents a different understanding of what a hero really is. It is an understanding that rivals that of Camus. If this is plausible, then one can reject the idea that the almost completely unreflective killer Meursault is a hero. From this perspective, one can find heroes closer to home.

  3

  What Mr. Creosote Knows About Laughter

  NOËL CARROLL

  And by his side rode loathsome Gluttony,

  Deformed creature, on a filthie swyne:

  His belly was up-blown with luxury,

  And eke with fatnesse swollen were his eyne,

  And like a Crane his necke was long and fyne,

  With which he swallowed up excessive feast,

  For want whereof poore people oft did pyne;

  And all the way, most like a brutish bear,

  He spued up his gorge, that all did him deteast.

  ...

  In shape and life more like a monster, than a man.

  —Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene

  Part VI: “The Autumn Years” of Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life begins with a song about the glories of having a penis which is appreciated by all the audience in the cabaret, including the talking fish in an aquarium in the vicinity of the piano. The fish have the human faces of the Monty Python crew superimposed over their bodies and the
y call to mind something of the unsettling hybrid creatures found on hellish landscapes by Hieronymus Bosch, the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Dutch artist. Their enjoyment of the ditty, however, quickly vanishes when they catch sight of the entrance of Mr. Creosote into the restaurant. “Oh shit!” cries one of them as they whiz off-screen.

  Mr. Creosote, a gargantuan figure, lumbers into the dining room. The music that accompanies his entry recalls the giant shark’s in Jaws, and his belly is so ponderous it nearly scrapes the floor. His face, framed by muttonchops, is swollen to the point of swinishness. He is dressed in a tuxedo but his body is mis-shapen, more like a pyramid of wobbling flesh than a human form. As Creosote ambles to his table, he commands a flurry of attention from the sycophantic maitre d’. This is obviously a very, very good customer, one who could eat whole families under the exceedingly expensive tables of this lavish eatery.

  Creosote is also a very churlish customer. He is consistently curt to the point of rudeness. When asked how he is faring, he says “Better” and pauses before completing his thought—“Better get a bucket.” In other words, he never responds civilly, but only commands imperiously. When the aforesaid bucket is brought to him, he proceeds to vomit into it with the force of a fire hose in complete obliviousness to his surroundings and to the sensibilities of his fellow diners. He doesn’t do this once but several times and then repeats the spectacle on the back of the cleaning woman who is trying to clean up the mess he is making. He shows no concern for anyone else; his inclinations are the only lights by which he steers. In every way, Creosote is crude, gruff, and utterly selfish.

  Thus, his vomiting elicits no sympathy. He treats it as his privilege; he’s paying for it; so he’ll do whatever he wants. Creosote clearly, as a matter of course, stuffs himself to the point that his body cannot absorb the mass he ingests. He retches in order to gorge himself again. He is gluttony personified.