What was going on in England in the 1970s to give Monty Python so much comedy fodder that is still relevant today?
What was going on in England in the 1970s to give Monty Python so much comedy fodder that is still relevant today?
Their jokes about assigning gender to babies and to being transgender, dressing in drag, like all of it was a send-up.
Sure, they did punch down if you were a person who were in those groups, but the fact that it was large enough social event to be relevant enough to be a comedy skit on a television show or a movie seen by millions implies that there were some serious things going on back then that they could see and wanted to address.
What the hell was going on that put all of those things in their mind?
the sexual revolution took place in the 60s/70s, partly due to invention of the contraceptive pill, which became available to unmarried women in 1967. homosexuality was partially decriminalized in 1967. abortion was legalized. no fault divorce was introduced.
it was the biggest social movement of their lives, perhaps started by women joining the workforce for world war II.It was ABSOLUTELY started by women joining the workforce due to WWII.
I like to make a joke how Hitler was the biggest driving force in the feminist movement. Not because I support Hitler, and not because I'm anti-feminist.
I do it because it amuses me so much to say a wild and absurd claim like that, where womens feminists movements happened because of Hitler, and then watch their faces when I explain in a calm voice, with logic and reason, that there is a legitimate explaination for how all of womens progressive movements happened because of the most evil man in modern history.
I make sure to carefully tiptoe around saying that HE was a feminist. He was not. I never claim that. But by making THE LISTENER frame it in their own mind that way, and then explaining facts and truths, their faces contort trying to find the flaw. It's great.
Again, not pro-hitler, not anti-feminism. Just very much pro-trolling chaos.
To make your little prank more airtight you should say “driving force behind the feminist movement,” not “in the feminist movement,” because he was not in the feminist movement.
To summarize: America is like 50 years behind culturally rhe rest of the civilized world. They already got the social issues we are currently dealing with sorted out
note the items i listed were for the UK. Americas stances on them are devolving.
Check the history of comedy.
Mel Brooks 'The Producers' movie had two gay men. Bugs Bunny was in drag in the 1940's. "Some Like It Hot" came out in the 1950s. Heck, pretty much any Hollywood movie made before the Hays Code would have had gay gags.
Milton Berle was the King of Comedy and he did drag for years.
The Pythons didn't invent anything
This is why the whole woke thing is so stupid to me.
"I'm sick of Hollywood putting DEI bs in my movies not like the old days!"
The old days: "Come see two men dress as women to escape the mob!"
Since this is a comedy thread, I'll paraphrase John Cleese.
The great thing about anger is that it really works. It makes you physically stronger and less likely to feel pain. If you're angry all the time you aren't worrying about things because you've got a target to go after.
I'll throw in another comedy classic.
The musical "The Music Man" is about a conman who gets the whole town in an uproar over a pool table.
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Was that nuns on the run
This is it exactly. Before magnetic tape, Comedians told the same jokes For generations.
Modern comedians act like they’re the first people to come up with jokes because of the first people to record them.
Sometimes I wonder about how many songs the average person would know throughout history. An ancient Roman would be exposed to songs from the entire Empire, while a 1000 AD English farmer might only hear a few dozen in their whole life time.
I was there when the deep magic was written (or soon after to catch reruns), Monty Python was skewering the Post War Conservative British cultural zeitgeist in ways which audiences hadn't quite seen before, through the lens of British toffs (oxford and cambridge) playing at being proletarians skewering toffs. It was different for British TV, but it was like a sea change when American audiences finally caught up and began taking notice. It was smart comedy, pointed, brutal, and hilarious. America wasn't doing anything like this, at that time, going more for the broad jokes that would appeal to the lowest common denominator. Sure others have mentioned Brooks, and Berle, and Cartoons which had been sending up cultural norms for decades, but they weren't Python, Python, at the time were a thing of their own. Monty Python's Flying Circus ran from 1969 to 1974. Saturday Night Live started in 1975.
Let’s put this another way: why are the same routines from the 70s still relevant today? It’s like all the movements of one generation have had almost zero effect on society as a whole.
problem is the progress goes to about then. I have often commented that things have been going downhill post seventies but it was hard to notice for awhile and I would get blowback on how bad particular groups had it. Thing is they had it way worse in the 60s and the 50s and have seen little progress in the eighties onward. Feels to me like progress pretty much stopped or reverted since then on the environment, our infrastructure, and our social programs but like the few decades before had massive progress.
Yes, we seem to have forgotten most of the achievements of the 70's
The UK is an incredibly Classist society with a long-running "know your place" kind of mindset and very low Social Mobility for an European nation - people very much are defined by their class (all the way to ther being a very specific, non-regional, English language accent for the upper class) and one's social class is very much inherited.
The 60s and the 70s were the peak point for the result of the post War (that being WWII) increase in social mobility in Britain with lots of Working Class lads and lasses making it big in, amongst others, the arts (and you see it not just in Comedy but also Acting more in general and especially in Music were almost every great British star from that age had working class origins).
All this has in the meanwhile being reversed, hence once again almost all modern British artists are the sons and daughters of the upper-middle and upper classes.
During that golden period the massive mix of people from all origins in the arts created all kind of original and "not knowing your place" art expressions, and I believe the Money Pythons are one of those.
Love seeing foreign people attempt to explain the culture of a country they've never been to.
That's such an interesting statement.
Irrelevant for my post, since I lived in Britain for over a decade, but interesting.
Thank you for sharing that tidbit about yourself.
The queer community has been known and active for a very long time. The stonewall riots occured in 1969, making it prime time to make media about the LGBTQ community.
If one views MP’s comedy of men playing women’s parts as part of traditional theater in England (historically men played all parts, including women’s roles, especially in Shakespearian times) then the act of cross-dressing is not punching down, it is a tradition that the anachronism makes humorous.
They certainly mocked gender stereotypes of the era, but even when they had characters that were gay they didn’t really attack the “gay” part, just exaggerated the character’s flamboyance for effect. Another stereotype that we still see in movies and TV today, it hasn’t stopped being humorous, we just acknowledge the stereotype vs any overriding prejudice that may have been more the norm 40-50 years ago.
I’m a pretty big fan, collected all the Flying Circus and movies, and I absolutely could be wrong about my take, it’s been a while since I watched a lot of their act. But I do remember not cringing hard at any of the gender or gay roles. For the time they were pretty kind and didn’t usually directly mock the person for being female or gay, it was just who they were in that role. Nonetheless, some of it wouldn’t work today.
Lot's of things were going on in the 70's. The peace movement, people living together in collective housing, higher sexual freedom and more flexible sexual identity, generally rebelling against authorities, cannabis becoming popular. All this was also expressed in art, music, paintings and movies.
In UK this may have been further emphasized by a very backwards school system, with many attending boarding schools and wearing uniforms.
Something I remember when attending public school in Denmark in the 70's as extremely backwards compared to conditions here.I think older generations hated the 70's, and they are probably still remembered as being a bit silly. But they are also remembered for being a time of optimism, where ideals and hopes for a better future were high.
I’m pretty sure that was the 60s
It started in the 60's. But flower power peaked in the 70's.
Dressing in drag had been a staple ofEnglish comedy for decades if not much, much longer In the first world war guys were doing it for concert troupes (essentially, vaudeville acts by and for the soldiers.)
It literally goes back to Shakespeare, something all Brits are completely aware of.
In addition, transgender people have always been around, and it seems as if the conservatives have been terrified of them forever. So there's obvious potential for comedic value.
Echibit A: Queen, I Want to Break Free.
This is the most correct answer. English Theater, historically, had men playing the women’s parts. There’s a long, long tradition of it. So MP dressing in drag follwed the tradition, the viewer might find it both appropriate, and humorously anachronistic, along with MP’s exaggeration of the characters makes for great humor.
In addition to the comments from others, it's worth remembering that a lot of their humour is timeless. Shakespeare made drag jokes. The handsome cabin boy is as old as sailing.
Basically, taboo is funny - and these subjects have been taboo for most of human history.
I grew up in Seattle in the 80's. I really thought all races and sexualities were accepted and that men and women were equal. Boy was I surprised to find out a lot of our nation was backwards as fuck.
Monty Python made such sense to me philosophically so it was second nature to watch it. I didn't even think of it as British and for me it will always be timeless
Monty Python and its absurdities are a breath of fresh air in a world gone stale.
The 1970s was going on.
We've been fighting this fight for far longer than anyone can remember is what happened.
Drag mainly.