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It’s…

Monty Python’s Flying Circus & Postmodern Thought

Bachelorpaper Marloes Matthijssen

267167

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Index:

Prologue 04

Part 1 :Pre-Python 05

The BBC 06

Television in the sixties 07

Introducing 08

Part 2: It’s… 09

Monty Python’s Flying Circus 10

Structuring the series 11

Impact 13

Part 3: Post-modern theory 15

Introduction 16

Theories 17

Two Examples: 19

Jameson 19

Derrida 20

Part 4: The Spanish Inquisition 22

English humour 24

Stream of Consciousness 28

Metafiction 32

Deconstruction 38

Epilogue – conclusion 48

Bibliography 52

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Prologue

Always look at the bright side of life

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 audience a grin,

Enjoy it -- it's the last chance anyhow!

So always look on the bright side of death! Just before you draw your terminal breath.

Life's a piece of shit, When you look at it.

Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true,

You'll see it's all a show, Keep 'em laughing as you go.

Just remember that the last laugh is on you!

And always look on the bright side of life... (whistle)

Always look on the bright side of life (whistle)

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Prologue

The last Monty Python film, the Meaning of Life, came out in 1983. I was three years old then.

Thanks to extensive reruns of their movies and television shows, I grew up to become a great fan

of those five Englishmen and one American: Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, John Cleese,

Graham Chapman and Terry Gilliam. The special, crazy humour of Monty Python captured me

and never let me go, and I still embarrass myself from time to time with friends, when I’m

laughing my head off and they cannot understand the humour in all the silliness shown on

screen.

I immediately thought of Monty Python as a subject for this paper. I’d like to combine their

humour with the theories of postmodernism, thus trying to find some sort of explanation of why

their television shows were universally considered as a revolutionary new way of looking at the

world. It’s also quite a thankful subject: in all the books that are written about the Pythons, I

really miss this deeper exploration of how their humour possibly works.

And that lack of information really created some problems for me when I started writing. I

realised I had to figure out a lot all by myself, because the few books that dive deeper into the

material have long been out of print. It seems so strange to me that the information about a

unique phenomenon like Monty Python, whose sketches have been memorised by many

generations all over the world, is allowed to slip away so easily. The Americans seem to do best to

keep the Python spirit alive: they released a gigantic DVD collection with all the episodes of the

three series of shows. Nothing like this exists in Europe so far. So I had to limit myself in my

investigations, as I only have episodes from the first series of the television show on old video

cassettes.

But ‘always look at the bright side of life’, as the Pythons sang. I tried my best to immerse myself

into this world and bring up some sense in all the silliness. To get the unique atmosphere of the

series across to the reader, I added the original scripts of the sketches to my words, as well as a

CD with many sketches and songs. But no matter how funny the scripts are, they can’t express

the fabulous acting or the crazy Gilliam-animations, so there’s only one thing for it if you want to

see what Python is about: go and see the shows and movies for yourself!

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Part 1:

Pre-Python

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Pre-Python

The BBC

In order to understand a phenomenon, you have to place it in it’s context. That’s why I’ll start

with a quick history of the BBC, and British television in the sixties.

The British Broadcasting Company, as the BBC was originally called, was formed in October

1922 by a group of leading wireless manufacturers including the great radio pioneer Marconi.

Daily broadcasting by the BBC began from Marconi’s London studio on November 14. This was

followed the next day by broadcasts from Birmingham and Manchester, and over the following

months the transmitter network spread across the UK. Wireless quickly caught on as a medium

of mass communication. By 1925 the BBC could be heard throughout most of the UK, and by

1927 it changed it’s name into the British Broadcasting Corporation.

On the second of November 1936 the BBC opened the world's first regular service of high-

definition television. On June 2 1953, a single event changed the course of television history. An

estimated 22 million TV viewers – many crowded into neighbours’ living rooms - saw the young

Queen crowned. The television age had arrived. The event prompted many to buy their own sets,

and it was evident that television would soon be as important as radio to UK audiences. Colour

television broadcasts began on BBC Two in 1967, followed by BBC One in 19691.

The BBC (nicknamed the Beeb, or “Auntie Beeb”) is controlled by a board of governors, highly

distinguished individuals who are appointed by the government to oversee the activities of the

Director General and the Board of Management. This BBC Board of Governors is supervised by

the Chairman, who is appointed directly by the Prime Minister. Just as the BBC is under pressure

from politicians, they in turn are subject to pressures from lobby groups, like the National

Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association who fought against declining moral values2.

1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/heritage/story/index.shtml 2 J. Yoakum, TV Guide. P. 18

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Television in the sixties

1960-1969 was a turbulent decade of great social and technological change: numerous

assassinations, war in Vietnam, the fight for civil rights and women’s liberation and a manned

landing on the moon. Youth culture surfaced: peace marches, hippies, Woodstock, sexual

freedom and revolutionary new music, film and television. Television in the sixties steadily

grew larger and larger in everyday life, "did you see … last night?" became the standard

opening sentence for a good conversation. From 1955, the ITV network started competing

with the BBC providing more choice for the viewers.

In 1960 Sir Hugh Carlton Greene, the new Director-General of the BBC, who wanted to steer

away from the cosiness of the fifties, came with a fresh approach to the making of radio and

television: he believed that the best ideas came from below, not above. By giving people all the

freedom to act out their ideas he was responsible for a nine-year period of extraordinary

creativity. Instead of the safe, conservative programming that the people were used to see on the

BBC emerged a new and fresh line of television shows that reflected the gritty times in Britain,

filled with ongoing inflation and fierce riots in Northern Ireland. There were realistic drama series

like Z Cars and Cathy Come home and a whole range of new comedy shows.

Apart from the ongoing Benny Hill and Tommy Cooper shows, there were groundbreaking fresh

series like Steptoe and Son (1962) and Till Death Do Us Part (1965) that dealt with family problems

of working class people in a painfully recognisable way. But the magic word in comedy was

‘satire’. That Was the Week that Was (1962) was a late-night show with a biting look at current

affairs, Beyond the Fringe (1961-1964 with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore) a stage revue with such

brutal attacks on authority that it became the talk of the country. David Frost, the star of that

show, had his own show with sketches and songs around a weekly theme called The Frost Report

(1964) and a few years later appeared At Last, the 1948 Show (1967), a platform for the comedian

Marty Feldman.

These last shows were written by a whole team of scriptwriters, who provided the stars of the

show with all their material, from dialogues to songs. Five of those writers were unhappy with the

way their material was treated. Their sketches were often considered ‘too weird’ and rejected, or

their material only made it to the shows in a weakened way. These young men had a plan, and

we’ll look closer to them in the next chapters.

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Introducing

In 2003, the Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club reached its 120th birthday.

‘Footlights’ became a household word in British society, as their annual shows first aired the

talents of some of the foremost comedians and actors. John Cleese, a law student, and Graham

Chapman, who studied medicine, met in 1961 when they both auditioned unsuccessfully for a

new Footlights show. The next year, when they were seniors in the club, they started writing

material together that resulted in successful revues and a job at a BBC show, The Frost Report.

At Oxford University, cabaret nights and revues produced another writing team: Michael Palin

and Welshman Terry Jones. They started contributing monologues for David Frost and Marty

Feldman, but a lot of their material didn’t get aired on television. Together, they started a

children’s TV show called Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967) with co-writer Eric Idle, a former

Cambridge-student. This program was highly popular with adults as well because of it’s crazy

humour: absurd sketches alternated with musical interludes from the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band

and surreal animations from American Terry Gilliam. Two regular viewers were Cleese and

Chapman, former colleagues at The Frost Report, and the idea emerged to do a whole new show

together.

Cleese called Palin and Jones, who just finished a show called The Complete and Utter History of

Britain (1969), a comedy with the main idea to replay history as if television was already invented

then, like showing an estate agent trying to sell Stonehenge to a young couple looking for their

first home (“'It's got character, charm and a slab in the middle”) 3. The six men agreed on the

plan to work together, and the BBC decided to give them thirteen shows on their rough drafts.

The only concrete information they needed was a title for the shows. The original plan to give

each show a different title was rejected by the BBC, as were names like ‘Owl Stretching Time’,

‘Sex and Violence’, ‘The Toad Elevating Moment’ and ‘A Horse, a Spoon and a Basin’. The BBC

had started calling the six men ‘the Flying Circus’, and after a few discussions ‘Monty Python’s

Flying Circus’ was chosen. It’s a made-up name that just everybody happened to like, and the

television shows with that silly title caused eternal fame for John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry

Jones, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin and Eric Idle (same order as on the front picture).

3 http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/

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Part 2: It’s…

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It’s…

Monty Python’s Flying Circus

The six men (from now on referred to as ‘The Pythons’) were tired of rigid formats and the ever

returning sentence ‘yes, that’s funny, but they won’t understand that in Bradford’ from their

script-writing days. Given total freedom by the BBC, they started pondering about a whole new

formula for television comedy. Welshman Terry Jones was most fanatical about this plan as he

got inspired by Spike Milligan, an Irishman who was born and raised in India who startled the

world of radio and television with his Goon Show and Q series.

The Goon Show, starring Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and Michael Bentine, was an

unpredictable, anarchic radio comedy with crazy characters and weird sound effects, that featured

for example live reports of climbing Mount Everest from the inside. The Q shows were a

groundbreaking television comedy that featured sketches in strange costumes with the tags still

on, crazy make up and jokes that crossed all lines of decency and taste. Chaos was everywhere as

sketches ended suddenly and characters started complaining about the poor job of the script

writers.

Jones was very impressed with Milligan’s attempts to break with the shape of the traditional

English comedy approach: short sketches about fixed characters, with a logical succession of

beginning, middle part and an ending through a punchline. His thoughts were also triggered by

an animation Terry Gilliam did for the Do Not Adjust Your Set-show: it was called ‘Beware of

Elephants’ and linked all sorts of images together in a fluid way. Jones combined these

inspirations and explained his plans to the others: he wanted to break up the sketch-format using

Gilliam’s animations to serve as a bridge between the material. The others agreed, and the team

started the writing process.

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Structuring the series

The Pythons agreed on writing two weeks in a row at home, and then come together to read out

the new material for the approval of the others. The six men all slightly knew each other from

various television shows they had done. At the writing stage of Frost Report, five of the Pythons

came together, but there had also been some occasions in the past where they briefly met each

other: John Cleese had starred in an American Gilliam-animation about obsessions for a Barbie-

doll, and he’d also hired Michael Palin as a co-actor for a movie called How to Irritate People in the

Frost-days. But there was nothing more than a nodding acquaintance with each other, which

resulted in writing teams that were quite predictable: there was a Cambridge side, with Eric Idle,

Graham Chapman and John Cleese, and an Oxford side that consisted of Terry Jones, Michael

Palin and the American Terry Gilliam who were familiar to each other because of their children’s

show.

After some weeks of extensive writing and evaluation, explicit styles began to surface. If a sketch

featured ‘acts of abuse and doing strange things to small animals’ 4, it was almost certainly written

by Cleese and Chapman. When there was an overly talkative person with an odd disability that

showed itself at the most embarrassing times, for instance when hosting a TV show, it must have

been a contribution of Eric Idle, who preferred to work alone to sharpen his wordplay. And a

typical Palin-Jones sketch opened with a slow, dramatic overview of the scenery, and then a

camera suddenly zooming in on absurdities like a nude man sitting at an organ. Terry Gilliam

stopped after a few times to try and explain his work in the meetings, but he was there when the

material was evaluated.

The new sketches were read out in front of the whole group, and democratically decided upon: ‘if

it made us laugh, it was in; if it didn’t, we sold it to other shows’, according to Eric Idle5.

Everybody had the right to suggest different ways of improving the sketches, and when there was

enough material six or seven shows would be compiled. With the shifting of the ideas certain

patterns began to emerge, that were enlarged in themes and in the linking within the

programmes. With the dismissal of the traditional idea of using punchlines to finish a sketch and

instead preferring to flow from one segment to the other, the Pythons unleashed their full writing

potential: they could freely choose their material because ideas wouldn’t be rejected anymore for

having a weak ending. The Pythons loved the new, surreal ideas that resulted from this freedom:

4 Yoakum: TV-companion. P. 39 5 Morgan: MP speaks. P. 37

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‘The idea of having characters in quite elaborate costume just coming in to say one word – ‘So’ or

‘It’s’ – in the middle of a bit of narration, all that seemed very fresh’6.

Because the six men wrote and performed everything their selves, the atmosphere was quite

competitive. They all felt some or their best writing came to surface as they all had extensive

experience as gag writers and highly respected each others skill. It was really a writer’s show: if

they were all really satisfied with the text, then the casting was done. Roles were distributed

equally amongst each other with some simple rules: the person who wrote a scene tended to get

first-say at casting and the tallest Python’s, Chapman and Cleese, were felt to be the most suitable

authority figures. They were all brought up in the university cabarets so it was all in their nature

to get on stage and show their own material.

The BBC gave them thirteen shows, and £ 5000 for each episode. This tight budget required

rigorous planning and finished writing of the entire series, ‘because we’d be shooting stuff for

show 13, show 1, or show 2 while we’re in one location, so that while you’re at the seaside you

can do all the seaside bits’7. Director Ian McNaughton, who’d directed Spike Milligan’s Q-series,

had to deal with Pythons Gilliam and Jones who had their very own fixed ideas of filming,

lighting and editing, but they had a very good working relationship. Their main guidance for the

handling of the material was the laughter of the audience of 320 people, a BBC-regulation that

was a leftover from their radio-days.

Between short bits of film and studio material, Gilliam’s cut-out animations provided the linking

in between. He used photocopies from old books or paintings or draw pictures himself when he

wasn’t able to find the right material to fit his storyboards. He cut out the figures he needed,

draw or airbrush possible missing bits and pushed them around in front of the camera, by hand.

The working process was so laborious (it took him weeks to deliver the short films) that his

animations often arrived on the day of recording, with no-one who would have seen it

beforehand, but there was great trust within the team. Together, they created thirteen episodes of

Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the first one to be aired on October 5, 1969.

6 Morgan: MP speaks. P. 40 7 Morgan: MP speaks. P. 49

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Impact

The show started with John Phillip Sousa’s Liberty Bell March, showing hyperactive Gilliam-

animations that flew all over the television screen in bizarre situations. A gigantic foot came

crashing down on top of them (a cut-out of Bronzino’s painting Venus and Cupid), and that was

the signal for the show to begin. From a promotional advert in the Radio Times:

“Monty Python’s Flying Circus is the new late programme on Sunday night. It’s designed “to subdue the violence in us all”. The first Python show broadcast on October 5, 1969, demonstrated quite clearly that the group was something quite unrecognizable. It presented a surreal mix of violence (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart hosts a program depicting famous deaths); television parodies (“We find that nine out of ten British housewives can’t tell the difference between Whizzo butter and a dead crab”. “It’s true, we can’t!”).; occasions where all propriety is ripped to shreds (an interviewer proceeds to address his guest as “sugar plum” and “angel drawers”).; some intellectually tainted comic bits (Picasso paints while riding a bicycle, followed by Kandinsky, Mondrian, Chagall, Miró, Dufy, Jackson Pollock… “and Bernard Buffet making a break on the outside”); and a loopy premise allowing for both slapstick and social commentary (the tale of the World ‘s Funniest Joke, appropriated by the army as a weapon against the Nazis, who fail miserably at developing a counter joke of their own). Running throughout the program were gags and animations about pigs. In the weeks that followed, the program became more fragmented, more surreal, more violent. Sheep nesting in trees gave way to a man playing the “Mouse Organ” (namely, some rodents trained to squeak at a certain musical pitch accompanied by a pair of heavy mallets), to a cartoon of a pram that ingests the doting women who lean in too closely. Kitchen-sink melodramas were turned on their heads, as when a young coal miner returns home to his playwright father, who rants about his son’s values (“LABOURER!”). A scandal-mongering documentary examines men who choose to live as mice (“And when did you first notice these, shall we say, tendencies”?). And a confectioner is investigated for fraud in labelling his latest product, Crunchy Frog (“If we took the bones out, it wouldn’t be crunchy, would it?”)8.

The BBC didn’t seem to know what to do with the first series of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

The shows were put out late at night at different times that kept changing, at times when some of

the British regions switched back to regional television. Michael Palin claimed that the shows

were put out so late that insomniacs, intellectuals and burglars were the only people up. The word

‘cult’ was soon implied on Python, as many people didn’t understand the purpose of the shows.

Tom Sloane, head of Light Entertainment at the BBC in those days, absolutely detested Monty

Python’s Flying Circus and even supportive actors of the show, like Carol Cleveland who played

the women-parts when the other Python’s weren’t suitable in drag, didn’t have the slightest idea

8 Morgan: MP speaks! P. 69

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of what was going on. And apart from some returning characters there seemed to be no rules in a

Monty Python Episode. Each production had it’s own shape, with sometimes a very loose theme

and only a handful of characters that stopped by a bit more regularly. The material flowed from

one bit to the other, with Gilliam’s animations functioning as bridges or escape routes in the

show. The cast itself was as fluid as the material: the six Pythons were so chameleonic in their

appearances on screen that it left many people wondering at home which one of them actually

was that one Monty Python guy. The lack of a star-personality and the constant confusion in the

series gave the show it’s freshness and originality. As David Morgan put it in his book Monty

Python Speak: ‘It made the Pythons seem like a rugby team which kept changing the ground rules

and moving the goal posts, and still played a smashing good game’9.

Even though it seemed that the BBC tried to sabotage that crazy show which they couldn’t really

understand, with irregular broadcasting schedules and virtually no publicity whatsoever, Monty

Python managed to attract a huge fan base all over the world. Lumberjacks, dead parrots and

spam would never be the same again, and Sousa’s Liberty Bell March always gained a few

sniggers, as it made too many people think of a Divine Foot crashing down.

9 Morgan: Monty Python Speaks! P. 2

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Part 3:

Post-modern Theory

The Philosopher's Song

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant

Who was very rarely stable. Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar

Who could think you under the table. David Hume could out-consume

Schopenhauer and Hegel, And Wittgenstein was a beery swine

Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel. There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya

'Bout the raising of the wrist.

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.

Plato, they say, could stick it away Half a crate of whiskey every day.

Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle, Hobbes was fond of his dram,

And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart: "I drink, therefore I am"

Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed; A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed!

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Introduction

Let’s travel another year back in time, to 1968. The year of Marcel Duchamp’s death and the

assassination of Martin Luther King. The war in Vietnam demanded more and more victims. May

brought a violent revolt of Parisian students, a month later Andy Warhol was shot in New York.

It was a time of great political turmoil, mass demonstrations and fierce strikes. No wonder it also

rumbled in the world of art. In the sixties, artists and critics started to fight against the rigidity of

high modernism, and this struggle would slowly lead to the birth of a new set of ideas:

Postmodernism.

In this paper I’d like to examine the post-modern features of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. In

order to do that, I will dedicate this chapter to a quick explanation of the main post-modern

theories. It’s quite difficult to try and clarify postmodernism, as it is a concept that appears in a

wide variety of disciplines, including sociology, philosophy and all the corners of the world of art.

It's also hard to locate it temporally or historically because it's not exactly clear when it begins.

According to A. van den Braembussche10, postmodernism indicates a profound change in

Western culture, an extricable entity of several often contradicting tendencies that were put

together under one name. It was often used as a go-as-you-please-ticket in the mass-media, very

useful for an instant air of importance and trendyness when describing works of art.

This over-usage of the idiom caused the unfortunate widespread idea that postmodernism is

nothing but a hollow word, but to my opinion the post-modern set of ideas can be a great tool

for the investigation of cultural phenomena. There’s a welcome, enormous freedom in it’s

application that stimulates your own creativity when writing about the subject. And finally, I

think it’s important to realise that so many of our cultural products are really entangled in post-

modern thought. Whether we are talking about architecture, fashion, commercials or, in this

particular case, a funny television series, postmodernism is already in the DNA. Or as Steven

Shaviro puts it in his book Doom Patrols: “postmodernism is not a theoretical option or a stylistic

choice; it’s the very air we breathe11”.

10 A. vd Braembussche: Denken over Kunst. P. 310 11 http://www.theedge.abelgratis.co.uk/booksns/doompatrols.htm

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Theories

As the term itself clearly indicates, postmodernism owes it’s existence to the notion of

modernism, as a reaction against it. Considering modernism, there are two meanings of the word

I’d like to mention here. The first is the philosophical meaning, originating from the 18th century,

the age of Enlightenment. It was based on the successes of science and technology in explaining

various natural phenomena in rational and mechanical terms and in utilizing them for the benefit

of mankind. The age of Enlightenment was based on rational thinking, with the firm belief that

everything could be submitted to reason: tradition, customs, history, even art. “Truth”, revealed

through the application of reason, was the keyword in that time. This truth could be applied in

the political and social spheres to “correct” problems and “improve” the political and social

condition of humankind. This kind of thinking quickly gave rise to the exciting possibility of

creating a new and better society, freed from the shackles of rigid institutions as the Church and

monarchy. Through truth and freedom, the world could be made into a better place.

The second meaning of modernism lies on the world of art, dating back to the late 19th century.

Modernism, or modern art, is created by artists who veered away from the traditional concepts

and techniques of painting, sculpture, and other fine arts that had been practiced since the

Renaissance. The peak of modern art lies roughly between 1910 and 1930, where the notion of

the avant-garde was very important: a deliberate reaction against the current views, in search for

the progression of art through new ways of using the notions of form and technique. According

to an artist of the avant-garde, the worst thing you can do is repeat something that has already

been done before.

As I already mentioned above, postmodernism is a reaction against modernism. But there’s still

no consensus about the nature of this reaction: some call it a rejection of modernist values,

others rather speak of the ultimate phase of modernism. To prevent a further confusion of

tongues, it’s important to notice that “postmodern” can be used in three different contexts12: a

sociological or historical position, a philosophical approach and thirdly the point of view in the

world of art. They’re all discussed in Lyotard’s La Condition Postmoderne from 1979, considered by

many as the bible of postmodernism.

Within the first context, postmodernism can be understood as a new type of society. It’s a

profound break with the modern or industrial era: instead of the focus on capitalism or the

12 A. vd Braembussche: Denken over Kunst. P. 311

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possession of the means of production, societies now aim at a new form of power, the access to

information. Knowledge is the key to the world, and it is therefore an important component of

the circulation of goods: data are merchandise now.

The second context refers to the realm of philosophy: in the postmodern era uncertainty strikes.

Science doubts the notion of definitive values, religions rapidly loose their followers. Political

ambitions have been swapped for short term economical gain repeatedly, so people lost their

faith in politics. Art transformed into a jungle of different styles, all connection seems lost. And

because of this, the universal ideals of the Enlightenment lost it’s credibility. How can we trust in

the happy-end of any meta-narrative when Auschwitz happened? Philosophy, as the legitimizing

foundation of science, politics and art, is in a crisis-situation.

Finally, the third context of postmodernism is the world of art. Postmodern art rejects the

preoccupation of modernist values like purity of form and technique, and sought to dissolve the

divisions between art, popular culture and the media. This results in a few characterizations:

-the blurring of the boundaries between high art and low art (mass culture, popular genres)

-instead of “l’art pour l’art”, the denial of the notion of autonomy in art: the world of art is part

of the all-embracing cultural industry

-emphasis on stylistic impurity, to accomplish eclecticism and a conscious mixture of historic

styles

-a preference to parody, pastiche, playfulness and the superficial exterior of culture, instead of the

modernist focus on authenticity and deeper meaning

-modernist issues like fear and alienation, originality and the artist as a genius are replaced by

schizophrenia and the fragmenting of the subject, the decline of the genius-cult and the idea that

art is based on coincidence and repetition.

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Two Examples

To be able to screen Monty Python’s Flying Circus for postmodern content, I chose to get the

aid of two different thinkers whose theories can help me in my investigation. I will do this

because there is no ultimate and clear definition of what postmodernism exactly is, thanks to

one of it’s central premises: the rejection of meta-narratives sabotages a definitive, universal

truth about itself. Postmodernism aims to unseat such fundamentals and embraces diversity,

contradiction and a good laugh instead.

Fredric Jameson

Frederic Jameson, born on April 14 1934 in Cleveland - Ohio, is a Marxist political and literary

critic and theorist. Jameson's best-known works include The Political Unconscious, Postmodernism: The

Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, and Marxism and Form; he has published dozens of books on

politics, culture, and literature. Jameson's neo-Marxism, with its emphasis on social and historical

totality, is influenced by the philosophy of Hegel, the Frankfurter Schule and the theories of

Baudrillard. According to Jameson, we live in a new era: late capitalism (or multinational

capitalism/media capitalism). As the title of one of his most famous books already explains,

postmodernism is the cultural logic of this time and is accompanied by profound changes in

Western culture. It is a panoramic sweep of the postmodern cultural scene, connected to the

economic system of late capitalism13. Jameson distinguishes four features of postmodernism.

The first one is the disappearance of the modernist border between autonomous art and mass

culture. All cultural aspects will eventually turn into merchandise in the universal cultural

industry, causing a (re)valuation of mass culture like comic books or horror movies.

The second feature is the loss of the notions of ‘nature’ and ‘reality’ as a foundation for the

critical and social position of art. When these illusions shatter, postmodernism arrives which has

drastic consequences in philosophy and art: in philosophy, a radical criticism of representation

occurs, and in art the differences between ‘culture’ and ‘nature’ disappear. This causes a never-

ending chain of images, where ‘reality’ is replaced with a perpetual sham world, without true

meaning, content or reference. Jameson also speaks of a hyper-reality to define a world that’s

constructed of omnipresent phantom-images. Secrets and illusions are banished, everything is out

13 Best & Kellner: Postmodern theory. P. 182-183

20

in the open, screaming for attention from television screens and billboards, everywhere in our

lives.

This immediately explains the third feature: the fading of emotions. Modernist diseases like fear

and alienation or estrangement are replaced: with a postmodern sense of fragmentation and

schizophrenia. When everything is turned into merchandise, the “death of the subject” is a fact

and imitation and the usage of pastiche roam freely, adding more and more to the chain of the

phantom images.

These hollow representations are the bearers of a commercial pragmatism. This causes the fourth

feature of postmodernism: the age of the simulacra. Television is a good example: there’s a total

flow of images, so fast and final that we cannot respond with a philosophical reflection about the

interpretation of the images. They no longer refer to ‘reality’, they only refer to each other in an

endless chain. They are hollow images, sham images: simulacra.

To go a bit deeper into this matter, we need the help of another man:

Jacques Derrida

Jacques Derrida, who was born on July 15 1930 in Algeria, is a French philosopher noted for

originating the practice of deconstruction as a method of reading texts. Derrida's earliest work

was in phenomenology. His major work began in 1966 with an essay entitled Structure, Sign

and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences and with several essays on language,

writing and speech, and literary interpretation. He has written about Plato, Hegel, Nietzsche,

Freud and Heidegger and a number of other literary figures like Genet and Joyce. Derrida's

work is most known for a densely literary style: his texts are full of wordplay and allusions,

and typically require intensive rereading. Derrida's work has been controversial; many

analytic philosophers and scientists disagree with his positions, describing his philosophy as

being composed of tricks and gimmicks similar to those of the Dadaists.

‘Intertextuality’ is an important concept in the works of Derrida. It already emerges in

semiotics, in the writings of Roland Barthes, Michael Riffaterre and Julia Kristeva. Intertextuality

can mean two things: firstly, it means ‘that what’s already presumed’ and by which a text has

meaning, makes sense. It points to the importance of earlier texts: they can give the reader a code

to understand new texts. The second meaning is a radicalization of the first explanation: here,

intertextuality no longer refers to reality but only to other texts. According to Derrida, every text

is written in the margin of other, already existing texts, otherwise it has no chance to originate or

21

to be understood. A logical question pops up: where does a text begin and where does it end?

What’s part of it and what not? Deconstruction can be seen as a form of therapy for texts: it

detects the things that are written in the margin. Footnotes, a preface, delineation, references,

even the white spots on a page, they all give meaning to the text. But it is not meant as a tool for

critique or the search for truth. Deconstruction tracks down the blind spots, where a text

involuntarily betrays the tension between what it wants to say (verbatim) and it’s accidental

features (the subsidiary).

Deconstruction leads to a radical criticism to representation. In our language, we use signs to be

able to refer to everything in the world. In written language, the sign itself is stronger than the

writer and the message he wanted to spread with it: the sign can live on, like an orphan who

continues his life without his father. Texts can live their own way, as everyone is free to cite and

quote and give birth to new meaning. When the signifier, the pure form, gets detached from the

signified, the content, all references to reality are gone: what’s left is an endless chain of signifiers,

an infinite trail, constant postponement: displacement. It’s an imaginary hunt for ‘the real thing’,

but the chain is made of supplements and is always one step ahead.

In his philosophy or art, Derrida also uses deconstruction and margin-writing. A fine example is

his essay Parergon: a Greek word that literally means ‘what is beside the work (ergon = work)’, is

translated with ‘side issue’ but also with ‘ornament’ and ‘frame’. Derrida plays with the notion of

the frame in his essay: white lines frame the text about the importance of the frame. According to

Derrida, why should you ignore the frame when you want to talk about a painting? Where begins

a work of art, and where does it end? The parergon, the frame, is as essential as the ergon, the

painting: they need each other to be what it is. It’s a play with the inside and the outside of things,

what belongs and what not, the essential question when defining a philosophy. Between the

painting and the wall is the frame, which is on the inside and outside at the same time: a twilight

zone that mocks all rational measurement. The logic of the parergon deconstructs the binary

thinking that is so essential to the old metaphysical tradition14.

14 A. vd Braembussche: Denken over kunst. P. 327-342

22

Part 4:

The Spanish Inquisition

The Spanish Inquisition

JARRING CHORD (The door flies open and Cardinal Ximinez of Spain (Palin) enters, flanked by

two junior cardinals. Cardinal Biggles (Jones) has goggles pushed over his forehead. Cardinal Fang (Gilliam) is just Cardinal Fang)

Ximinez: NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is

surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our

*three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no...

*Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again. (Exit and exeunt)

23

The Spanish Inquisition

Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition. This strange sketch is remembered as one of the best

Python bits ever. Right in the middle of another scene, three cardinals storm into the room,

dressed in faded red robes, bringing evil instruments of torture: a dishwashing rack, soft cushions

and a comfy chair. The cardinals keep forgetting their lines, and return throughout the whole

episode to try and do their part right, disrupting all other sketches.

Although it’s originating from the second series (and I have to limit myself to the first one to

write this paper), I really wanted to mention the Spanish Inquisition, because it nicely sums up

the two biggest weapons in Monty Python’s quest to conquer the world: fear and surprise.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus was a real nightmare for the conservative, prudish Britons.

Gratuitous violence, swearing, cruelty to small animals in weird cartoons and the first pair of

bare breasts ever shown on screen: Monty Python had it all. But this bold sense of making

television scared the Pythons as well, just before they embarked on their very first recording

day: was this strangeness really going to work out alright? John Cleese said to Michael Palin,

just before they would step in front of the camera’s: ‘Do you realise this could be the first

comedy show ever without any laughs?15’. They did realise that they we’re trying to do

something completely different.

Although many people thoroughly disliked the show, quite a bit more became immediate fans.

They embraced the strangeness of the humour and all the surprising elements in each new

episode: Monty Python’s Flying circus had no formula, except perhaps ‘expect the

unexpected’. A total lack of predictability was the cornerstone for both the intense hatred and

immediate passion. It constantly reinvented itself: instead of a star personality, there were six

chameleonic men and the weirdest sketches and cartoons ever showed in a television show.

In this chapter, I’d like to use the postmodern theories mentioned earlier to try and figure out

why Monty Python’s Flying Circus set many off in a fit of laughter, and still does this very

day. To be able to do this, I have to enter the world of the typical English humour.

15 Documentary ‘Life of Python’

24

English humour humour1 British English, humor American English noun

1 [uncountable] the quality in something that makes it funny: Mr Thorne failed to see the humour in the

situation.

2 [uncountable] the way that a particular person or group find certain things amusing: English humour |

sense of humour: Ackroyd's often bizarre sense of humor

3 [uncountable] the ability to understand and enjoy amusing situations or to laugh at things: Paul

radiated humour and charm. | sense of humour: It's vital to have a sense of humor in this job.

4 good humour the ability to remain cheerful, especially in situations that would make some people

upset or angry: Danny reacted to these criticisms with his usual good humour.

5 in a good humour/in a bad humour etc in a good or bad temper

6 [countable] one of the four liquids that in the past were thought to be present in the body and to

influence someone's character

7 out of humour old-fashioned in a bad temper16

The expression ‘English humour’ is widely accepted and frequently used around the world.

People from many countries adore this particular sense of humour. But when looking for a

definition of this phenomenon, only a short list of general characteristics can be found: absurdity,

irony, understatement, self-parody, sophistication, morbidity and cruelty. Since no definition can

be found, the question of the existence of this special type of humour has certainly arisen.

George Mikes, a writer for the satirical comedyshow That was the week that was, formulates this

problem in his very own way: ‘English humour resembles the Loch Ness Monster in that both

are famous but there is a strong suspicion that neither of them exists. Here the similarity ends:

the Loch Ness Monster seems to be a gentle beast and harms no one; English humour is cruel’.

In the list of characteristics, ‘sophistication’, ‘morbidity’ and ‘cruelty’ are listed next to each

other. A rather strange combination of qualities, that could be explained by travelling back in

time, to the Victorian Era. The height of the industrial revolution in Britain and the apex of the

British Empire. It is often defined as the years from 1837 to 1901, when Queen Victoria reigned.

It was a time of many contradictions, a clash between the widespread cultivation of an outward

appearance of dignity and restraint, and the widespread presence of prostitution, child labour

and the exploitation of the colonies. Very well-known is the Victorian prudery: swimming in the

ocean meant undressing in a bathing machine, a wooden cart with walls and roof, that could be

wheeled into the water. It was improper to say the word ‘leg’ in mixed company (‘limb’ was the

16 Longman Dictionary of comtemporary English

25

preferred euphemism) and people even dressed up the legs of their piano with skirts, all in the

name of modesty.

An expression from that time is ‘to keep a stiff upper lip’. It means to hide your emotions, to stay

calm and serious no matter what. Dignity mattered most of all: the British were expected to

‘know their place’. They had to accept their status in the class-system, either working-class,

middle-class or upper-class, and to behave in a manner oppropriate to that status. And they

learned this at a very young age: everybody knows the stories that are set in strict boarding

schools, with ridiculous house-rules and corporal punishment. No wonder the English have a

firm tradition to escape in sillyness.

Satire is very important to understand English humour. For centuries, the British have used

humour - in literature, song and cartoons - to challenge political leaders and social or political

attitudes. Satire is a literary technique of writing or art which principally ridicules its subject

(individuals, organisations, states) often as an intended means of provoking or preventing

change. Satire is not exclusive to any viewpoint. Parody is a form of satire that imitates another

work of art in order to ridicule it. There are several types of satire:

- Diminution: reduces the size of something in order that it may be made to appear

ridiculous or in order to be examined closely and have its faults seen close up. For

example, treating the Canadian Members of Parliament as a squabbling group of little

boys is an example of diminution. Gulliver's Travels is a diminutive satire.

- Inflation: A common technique of satire is to take a real-life situation and exaggerate it to

such a degree that it becomes ridiculous and its faults can be seen, and thus satirical. For

example, two boys arguing over a possession of a car can be inflated into an interstellar

war. The Rape of the Lock, a mock-heroic poem written by Alexander Pope is an example

of inflation.

- Juxtaposition: Places things of unequal importance side by side. It brings all the things

down to the lowest level of importance on the list. For example, if a guy says his

important subjects in school include Calculus, Computer Science, Physics, and girl-

watching, he has managed to take away some of the importance of the first three.

- Parody: Imitates the techniques and style of some person, place, or thing to ridicule it.

Parody is used for mocking or mocking its idea of the person, place, or thing. The line

between parody and satire is often blurred. Satires need not be humorous - indeed

26

they are often tragic - while parodies are almost inevitably humorous. Parodies are

imitative by definition, while satires need not be. 17.

But strict censorship meant that satire in film and television was rare before the 1950s: satire's

comedy makes a serious point and it can be a powerful subversive tool. It's the job of satire to

provoke, to attack and ridicule the powerful. So it's inevitable that it can be controversial. In

fact, it could be argued that if satire doesn't make at least some people angry, it has failed.

Satire enjoyed a renaissance in the United Kingdom in the early 1960’s, when government

censorship rules began to relax. There was a real ‘Satire Boom’, led by Peter Cook, David

Frost, Alan Bennett, and the television programme That Was The Week That Was.

Apart from satire, the English love to laugh at simpler matters of life: sex and violence. The

1960’s were also the time of The Benny Hill Show and Confessions of a window cleaner.

Schoolboy-humour, that goes back to the anxiety about sex which dates from the Puritans of

the sixteenth century and reached its height in the Victorian age. These historical attitudes

explain Britain's censorship rules governing matters of sex, which have generally been much

stricter than in the rest of Europe. Fictional violence is a rich source of comedy. Violence is

energetic and visually exciting, so it's not surprising that it was a common feature of silent

comedies from film's very early days. They were carrying on a ‘slapstick tradition’ - people

falling down or hitting each other, but never really getting hurt - which had been popular on the

stage for decades, even centuries18.

Last but not least: the British are famous for their eccentrics, which might explain the stranger

side of their sense of humour. Eccentricity is part of the British way of life. Whether you look

odd, act odd, or really are odd, you will fit in somewhere. People enjoy the diversity and

combine it with tolerance and ridicule, but don’t really mind it at all. Mild eccentricity is the

basis of much loved situation comedies. Mavericks, non-conformists, and the person who

disagrees. The late Screaming Lord Such and his Monster Raving Loony Party were much

admired, not much voted for, but admired and necessary. Surrealism, the art movement born in

the 1930s, may have been more associated with France or Spain, but in comedy, the British have

claimed surrealism as their own and exported it to the world. The result is a dada-esque absurdity,

which can be seen as the extreme version of the stiff upper lip. It’s basically a non-reaction;

17 Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia 18 Mark Duguid: The British Sense of Humour

27

refusing to show any emotion. Behaving as always, keeping a straight face, whatever may happen

around you. This attitude can make the weirdest things comical: when the protagonist and

antagonist say serious while dancing with fish or returning a dead pet, the seriousness and

commitment they express will be fundamental.

So, in a nutshell, the national motto ‘accept your status – don’t aspire’ can be blamed for the

typical English characteristics in their sense of humour. Whether people try to live by this rule

and oppress their true nature, or rebel against it with a strong craving for the extraordinary, that

doesn’t really matter. The motto will be distilled in a cruel comfort: however hard things may be

in life, it always helps to know that there's someone worse off. It’s not strange that the main

character in comedy is often the anti-hero: the loser, a victim of his own ambitions, failing,

trying and failing again for the sake of entertainment. It’s very interesting that laughing and

expressing fear are closely related: just look at the pictures taken during a roller-coaster ride,

or a documentary about chimpanzees who back off from their enemies with the widest grins.

When dealing with grave matters like sickness and death, laughter is often the only way to

brake the tension and bring some relief. This humour which is based on the grotesque, the

morbid or the macabre is called black humour, and the English master it like no one.

28

Stream of conciousness

Bronzino. Venus, Cupid and Time. 1540-45.

(Allegory of Lust). National Gallery, London

Terry Gilliam, being interviewed in the documentary Life of Python from 1990, directed by

Mark Redhead:

‘When I went out of inspiration, I used to run through The National Gallery, just 15 minutes or so. I saw Bronzino’s Venus and Cupid and Venus, and the original painting is gigantic, ten feet or something. And of that whole painting, the only thing that struck me was a bit on the left bottom, the foot of cupid (-that became the gigantic foot crashing down in the introduction to the series, M.-). Bronzino would go crazy, the guy spent years painting on it and along comes some jerk who throws away everything, only keeping a tiny bit. There’s something very satisfying about working like that; you’re dealing with great works of art that people pay thousands of dollars for, and I reduce it to something as small as a foot. That says something about life’.

Terry Gilliam’s animations were the cornerstone in Monty Python’s abolition of many

conventions in television and comedy. His bizarre creations worked as the glue for the anarchic

non-structure of the program. Indeed, it was the stream of consciousness nature of Gilliam's

animations that convinced the other members that the entire show could have that sort of

aimless, meandering feel. He worked with stop-motion, cut-out animations: Gilliam used

photocopies from old photographs and paintings, cut out the figures he needed, assembled a

background from other bits of ready-made material and wiggled the paper forms in front of the

camera, frame by frame. These animations worked a safety-net for the show: when a sketch

suddenly ended, Gilliam took over the episode and brought the viewer to other sketches through

his surreal, strangely associative animations. All the loose bits, the studio-work and the out-door

scenes that were shot in a random order, were linked together through these animations in a

stream of consciousness-style.

29

Stream of consciousness: a narrative technique in which a writer presents directly the uninterrupted flow of a character's thoughts, impressions, and feelings, without the conventional devices of dialogue and description. It first came to be widely used in the early 20th century. Leading exponents have included the novelists Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and William Faulkner. Molly Bloom's soliloquy in Joyce's Ulysses is a good example of the technique. The English writer Dorothy Richardson (18731957) is said to have originated the technique in her novel sequence Pilgrimage, the first volume of which was published 1915 and the last posthumously. The term stream of consciousness was introduced by the philosopher William James in 189019.

The animated shorts that Gilliam created are organic pieces, flowing along, daydream-like, with a

twisted purpose. The actions of the animation may appear outrageous to the viewer (who is

thrown into the situation without any explanation or context) but the objects performing these

actions do them in a logical and completely realized way. This only renders them even more

absurd. Each object/action is unrelated and yet related to the animation preceding it through

some sort of (often-incidental) link. An item in one scene, say a car, will play a background part

and then open up to be the lead for the next scene. He often creates fully realized stop motion

colleges full of images that may seem unrelated to each other but are in fact part of a larger

action.

When closely watching a Gilliam animation, you'll pick up the incredible detail he layers his

frames with. This detail helps to tie all of the pieces together while providing a richness to each

individual segment. This detail also helps to visually sell the joke and makes the action seem that

much more absurd. When you're viewing Donald Duck, you prepare yourself for a certain

reaction because of the unreality of the situation. When you view a criminal standing in a

darkened alleyway (in animation), you're not sure how to prepare yourself because of the reality

of the images. You're thrown even further when the criminal jumps in front of an innocent man

and demands that he raise his arms. After a moment, the man raises his left arm, than his right

one, than another left and another right and another left and so on and on. And as the arms keep

raising, your emotions go from unease to humour as the absurdity of the situation goes on. This

is the genius of Gilliam, being able to take a situation and play it in a number of ways before

taking it in a completely unexpected direction20.

Gilliam’s animations can be seen as a collage, a very postmodern feature in art. He combines

various elements to construct his own style. He often uses familiar images like important works

of art, who possess a certain symbolic value. Gilliam loves to use this symbolic value in strange

19 Hutchinson’s Encyclopedia 20 Evans: Packed full of goodness

30

actions, to surprise, mock and inflict laughter. I’ll give two examples of his animations to clarify

this phenomena. I’ve written out the scenes, so its reproduction can be coloured by my

perception. The ideal situation would be to see them for yourself, but Monty Python episodes

can be quite hard to get to unfortunately…

1.

Kitschy background music: little bells, harp-music. Botticelli’s Venus can be seen, just being

beautiful on her shell with her long hair modestly in front of her groin. A human arm stretches

out from behind the shell. Its hand goes to the one bare breast of Venus and twists her nipple.

Immediately the music changes into a cheery dance-tune, as if the hand switched to another

channel on a radio. Venus starts dancing woodenly, frantically and falls of her shell. A new shot:

we see an aquarium with a paper form of Venus sinking to the bottom. The camera zooms out: it

is a pet shop, the setting for a new sketch: The infamous Parrot Sketch.

2.

This is a famous sculpture of Rodin, ‘The Kiss’. But in the Gilliam-cartoon that features the same

image, the woman has holes in her thigh. The male figure suddenly starts playing her like an

instrument, perhaps an ocarina: his mouth was already on the instrument’s mouthpiece, his

fingers just have to be set to the right hole-positions.

31

Botticelli’s Venus is a symbol for beauty. After a Gilliam-makeover, she is a silly dancing

character who moves strangely because she needs her hands on a certain spot to stay decent.

Rodin’s statue represents love, but Gilliam ridicules the tender pose by turning the woman into a

musical instrument. The collage style of the animations and the structuring of the Monty

Python episodes demolish the barrier between so-called ‘high art’ and ‘low art’: grave elitist

subjects like art history, philosophy and literature are now equal to popular subjects like

football and pop tunes.

Literary Football Discussion / Undertakers Film – episode 11, series 1 (Two chairs in an interview set. We see two people: a smart interviewer and a footballer who is not overly bright, in a blazer.) Interviewer: From the plastic arts we turn to football. Last night in the Stadium of Light, Jarrow, we witnessed the resuscitation of a great footballing tradition, when Jarrow United came of age, in a European sense, with an almost Proustian display of modern existentialist football. Vimally annihilating by midfield moral argument the now surely obsolescent catennachio defensive philosophy of Signor Alberto Fanffino. Bologna indeed were a side intellectually out argued by a Jarrow team thrusting and bursting with aggressive Kantian positivism and outstanding in this fine Jarrow team was my man of the match, the arch-thinker, free scheming, scarcely ever to be curbed, midfield coguoscento, Jimmy Buzzard. Buzzard: Good evening Brian. Interviewer: Jimmy, at least one ageing football commentator was gladdened last night by the sight of an English footballer breaking free of the limpid tentacles of packed Mediterranean defense. Buzzard: (Looks quite confused… thinks a moment and says) Good evening Brian. Interviewer: Were you surprised at the way the Italians ceded midfield dominance so early on in the game? Buzzard: (Confused, thinks a moment and come to the conclusion) Well Brian... I'm opening a boutique. Interviewer: This is of course symptomatic of a new breed of footballer as it is indeed symptomatic of your whole genre of player, is it not? Buzzard: (Looks around, thinking, once again says) Good evening Brian. Interviewer: What I'm getting at, Jimmy, is you seem to have discovered a new concept with a mode in which you dissected the Italian defence, last night. Buzzard: (pauses for thought) I hit the ball first time and there it was in the back of the net. (smiles and looks around) Interviewer: Do you think Jarrow will adopt a more defensive posture for the first leg of the next tie in Turkey? Buzzard: (confidently) I hit the ball first time and there it was in the back of the net. Interviewer: Yes, yes - but have you any plans for dealing with the free-scoring Turkish forwards? Buzzard: Well Brian... I'm opening a boutique.

32

Metafiction

According to Patricia Waugh’s Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction,

‘metafiction’ is a term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws

attention to its status as an artefact, in order to pose questions about the relationship between

fiction and reality. In providing a critique of their own methods of construction, such writings

not only examine the fundamental structures of narrative fiction, they also explore the possible

fictionality of the world outside the literary fictional text21.

Metafiction, primarily associated with postmodern literature, does not let the readers forget they

are reading a work of fiction. In this chapter, I’d like to demonstrate the metafictional features of

Monty Python’s Flying Circus. In order to do this, I need some characterictic metafictive devices.

On Wikipedia, the free encyclopeadia, I found a nice collection that really helped me out:

- A novel about a person writing/reading a novel

- A story that addresses the specific conventions of story, such as title, paragraphing, plots

- A non-linear novel, which can be read in some order other than beginning to end

- Narrative footnotes, which continue the story while commenting on it

- A story that anticipates the reader's reaction to the story

- Characters who do things because those actions are what they would expect from

characters in a story

- Characters who express awareness that they are in a work of fiction

Intertextuality is very important in understanding metafiction and the subject of the next chapter,

deconstruction. It indicates the importance of earlier texts, as they can give the reader a code to

understand new texts. This is essential for two important characteristics of the special Monty

Python-comedystyle, parody and pastiche. Parody is a genre of work that imitates the style of

another work, usually with mocking or comic intent. Parodies exists in all art media, including

literature, music and cinema. In ancient Greek literature, a parody was a type of poem that

imitated another poem's style. Indeed, the Greek roots of the word ‘parody’ can be recognized

elsewhere: ‘para-’ in, for example, ‘parapsychology’ and ‘-ody’ in ‘ode’. The original Greek meant,

roughly, ‘mock poem’. Parody is similar to satire and distinguished from pastiche: the latter is a

21 http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Metafiction.html

33

stylistic imitation where the intent is homage, rather than mockery. Pastiche is the French version

of the Italian word ‘pasticcio’, a kind of pie made of many different ingredients22.

To be able to understand pastiche/parody, you have to be familiar with the subject it wants to

ridicule. In Monty Python’s Flying Circus, a lot of the sketches mock different television formats,

the rigid structures of a certain programme. Monty Python rewrites television by mixing

conventions from ‘the game show’, ‘the talk show’ or ‘the commercial’ with absurd or black

humour. And then you’ll get sketches like these…

Blackmail (from And Now For Something Completely Different) (Music up-- wild applause and cheers from the audience) Announcer: Hello! Hello! Hello! Thank you,thank you. Hello good evening and welcome, to BLACKMAIL! Yes, it's another edition of the game in which you can play with *yourself*. (applause) And to start tonight's show, let's see our first contestant, all the way from Manchester, on the big screen please: MRS. BETTY TEAL! (applause, which suddenly stops when the clap track tape breaks) 'Ello, Mrs. Teal, lovely to have you on the show. Now Mrs. Teal, if you're looking in tonight, this is for 15 pounds: and is to stop us from revealing the name of your LOVER IN BOLTON!! So, Mrs. Teal, send us 15 pounds, by return of post please, and your husband Trevor, and your lovely children Diane, Janice, and Juliet, need never know the name... of your LOVER IN BOLTON! (applause; organ music. Shot of the organist, who has an afro and is stark naked.) Thank you Onan! And now: a letter, a hotel registration book, and a series of photographs, which could add up to divorce, premature retirement, and possible criminal proceedings for a company director in Bromsgrove. He's a freemason, and a conservative M.P., so that's 3,000 pounds please Mr. S... thank you... to stop us from revealing:

-Your name, -The name of the three other people involved, -The youth organization to which they belonged, -And the the shop where you bought the equipment!

A duck, a cat and a lizard (discussion) / Vox Pops on smuggling – episode 5, series 1 (Scene: a chairman of discussion group, in suit and glasses. Next to him are three stuffed animals) Chairman: Well to discuss the implications of that sketch and to consider the moral problems raised by the law-enforcement methods involved, we have a duck, a cat and a lizard. Now first of all I'd like to put this question to you please, lizard. How effective do you consider the legal weapons employed by legal customs officers, nowadays? (shot of lizard; silence) Well while you're thinking about that, I'd like to bring the duck in here, and ask her, if possible, to clarify the whole question of currency restrictions, and customs regulations in the world today. (shot of duck; silence) Perhaps the cat would rather answer that? (shot of cat; silence) No? Lizard? (shot of lizard again and then back) No. Well, er, let's ask the man in the street what he thinks. (Cut to film: vox pops.) French Au Pair: I am not a man you silly billy. Man on Roof: I'm not in the street you fairy. Man in Street: Well, er, speaking as a man in the street... (a car runs him over) Wagh! Man: What was the question again? Voice Over: Just how relevant are contemporary customs regulations and currency restrictions in a

22 Tiscali Encyclopaedia

34

modern expanding industrial economy? (no answer) Oh never mind. Pepperpot: Well I think customs men should be armed, so they can kill people carrying more than two hundred cigarettes. Whizzo Butter - episode 1, series 1 Voice Over: (during an animation) Yes, mothers, new improved Whizzo butter containing 10% more or less is absolutely indistinguishable from a dead crab. Remember, buy Whizzo butter and go to HEAVEN! (Cut to a group middle-aged lower-middle-class women (Pepperpots) being interviewed.) First Pepperpot: I can't tell the difference between Whizzo butter and this dead crab. Interviewer: Yes, you know, we find that nine out of ten British housewives can't tell the difference between Whizzo butter and a dead crab. Pepperpots: It's true, we can't. No. Second Pepperpot: Here. Here! You're on television, aren't you? Interviewer: (modestly) Yes, yes. Second Pepperpot: He does the thing with one of those silly women who can't tell Whizzo butter from a dead crab. Third Pepperpot: You try that around here, young man, and we'll slit your face. A game show, a talk show and a commercial, Monty Python-style. These sketches are still funny

today: the formats haven’t really changed, everyone will still recognize the parody.

But Monty Python goes one step further: for some reason they love namedropping. Famous

composers, philosophers and painters throughout the centuries return in Monty Python, usually

involved in everything but the subject they’re famous for.

Song 'And Did Those Feet' / Art Gallery / Art Criti c – episode 4, series 1 (Interior of art gallery. Two figures enter. They are both middle-aged working mothers. Each holds the hand of an unseen infant who is beneath the range of the camera.) Janet: 'Ello, Marge! Marge: Oh hello, Janet, how are you love? Janet: Fancy seeing you! How's little Ralph? Marge: Oh, don't ask me! He's been nothing but trouble all morning. Stop it Ralph! (she slaps at unseen infant) Stop it! Janet: Same as my Kevin. Marge: Really? Janet: Nothing but trouble ... leave it alone! He's just been in the Florentine Room and smeared tomato ketchup all over Raphael's Baby Jesus. (shouting off sharply) Put that Baroque masterpiece down! Marge: Well, we've just come from the Courtauld and Ralph smashed every exhibit but one in the Danish Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition. Janet: Just like my Kevin. Show him an exhibition of early eighteenth-century Dresden Pottery and he goes berserk. No, I said no, and I meant no! (smacks unseen infant again) This morning we were viewing the early Flemish Masters of the Renaissance and Mannerist Schools, when he gets out his black aerosol and squirts Vermeer's Lady At A Window! Marge: Still it's not as bad as spitting is it? Janet: (firmly) No, well Kevin knows (slaps the infant) that if he spits at a painting I'll never take him to an exhibition again. Marge: Ralph used to spit - he could hit a Van Gogh at thirty yards. But he knows now it's wrong - don't you Ralph? (she looks down) Ralph! Stop it Stop it Stop chewing that Turner! You are ... (she disappears from shot) You are a naughty, naughty, vicious little boy. (smack; she comes back into shot holding a copy of Turner's Fighting Temeraire in a lovely gilt frame but all tattered) Oh, look at that! The Fighting Temeraire - ruined! What shall I do? Janet: (taking control) Now don't do a thing with it love, just put it in the bin over there.

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Marge: Really? Janet: Yes take my word for it, Marge. Kevin's eaten most of the early nineteenth-century British landscape artists, and I've learned not to worry. As a matter of fact, I feel a bit peckish myself. (she breaks a bit off the Turner) Yes... (Marge also tastes a bit.) Marge: I never used to like Turner. Janet: (swallowing) No ... I don't know much about art, but I know what I like. World Forum (from Live at the Hollywood Bowl) (An important-looking current affairs set. On the back wall behind the presenter huge letters say: 'World Forum') Presenter: Good evening. Tonight is indeed a unique occasion in the history of television. We are very privileged, and deeply honoured to have with us in the studio, Karl Marx, founder of modern socialism, and author of the 'Communist Manifesto'. (Karl Marx is sitting at a desk; he nods) Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov, better known to the world as Lenin, leader of the Russian Revolution, writer, statesman, and father of modern communism. (shot of Lenin also at desk; he nods) Che Guevara, the Cuban guerrilla leader. (shot of Guevara) And Mao Tse-tung, leader of the Chinese Communist Party since 1949. (shot of Mao; the presenter picks up a card). And the first question is for you, Karl Marx. The Hammers - the Hammers is the nickname of what English football team? The Hammers? (shot of Karl Marx furrowing his brow- obviously he hasn't got a clue) No? Well bad luck there, Karl. So we'll go onto you Che. Che Guevara - Coventry City last won the FA Cup in what year? (cut to Che looking equally dumbfounded). No? I'll throw it open. Coventry City last won the FA Cup in what year? (they all look blank). No? Well, I'm not surprised you didn't get that. It was in fact a trick question. Coventry City have never won the FA Cup! So with the scores all equal now we go onto our second round, and Lenin it's your starter for ten. Teddy Johnson and Pearl Carr won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1959. What was the name of the song? ... Teddy Johnson and Pearl Carr's song in the 1959 Eurovision Song Contest? Anybody? (buzzer goes as in ‘University Challenge’ - zoom in on Mao Tse-tung) Yes, Mao Tse-tung? Mao Tse-tung: 'Sing Little Birdie'? Presenter: Yes it was indeed. Well challenged! (applause) Well now we come on to our special gift section. The contestant is Karl Marx and the prize this week is a beautiful lounge suite. (curtains behind the presenter sweep open to reveal a beautiful lounge suite; terrific audience applause; Karl comes out and stands in front of this display). Now Karl has elected to answer questions on the workers' control of factories, so here we go with question number one. Are you nervous? (Karl nods his head; the presenter reads from a card). The development of the industrial proletariat is conditioned by what other development? Karl: The development of the industrial bourgeoisie. (applause). Presenter: Yes, yes, it is indeed. You're on your way to the lounge suite, Karl. Question number two. The struggle of class against class is a what struggle? A what struggle? Karl: A political struggle. (Tumultuous applause.) Presenter: Yes, yes! One final question Karl and the beautiful lounge suite will be yours... Are you going to have a go? (Karl nods) You're a brave man. Karl Marx, your final question, who won the Cup Final in 1949? Karl: The workers' control of the means of production? The struggle of the urban proletariat? Presenter: No. It was in fact, Wolverhampton Wanderers who beat Leicester 3-1. (Cut to stock film of goal bring scored in a big football match. Roar from crowd. Stock footage of football crowds cheering.) Voice Over: and CAPTION: 'IN "WORLD FORUM" TODAY: KARL MARX, CHE GUEVARA, LENIN AND MAO TSE-TUNG. NEXT WEEK, FOUR LEADING HEADS OF STATE OF THE AFRO-ASIAN NATIONS AGAINST BRISTOL ROVERS AT MOLINEUX'.

From the earliest beginning of the show, Monty Python was immediately labelled as ‘cult’.

According to the Longman Dictionary, a cult film/figure/TV show etc is a film, music group etc

36

that has become very popular but only among a particular group of people. It was a select group

of intellectuals that passionately embraced Monty Python from the first beginning, and no

wonder. To get the parody, you have to know the code: when you have no clue who Lenin and

Marx are and what they stand for, the joke wouldn’t be half as funny.

Python had its share of critics. Some argued that many of the sketches were culturally elitist,

alienating viewers who didn't share the team's ‘Oxbridge’ background (Oxford and Cambridge).

Background certainly is important when dealing with the members of Monty Python: they all

came from middle-class families, the social class that includes professional people such as

teachers or managers, but does not include the nobility or the people who work mainly with their

hands23. Although nobody escapes the Monty Python-mockery, from the screeching housewife to

the raving Lord, it was the affluent middle class they ridiculed most. The people with safe lives,

governed by fixed rules and regulations, and a preoccupation with domesticity and good taste.

Even when the Pythons escaped their quiet towns, fled to University and ended up with a career

in television, the middle-class way of thinking was still present when they came up with new

revolutionary ideas to make comedy: ‘yes, very clever and funny, but will they understand it in

Bradford?’. Fortunately, their own TV show provided them with all the weapons they needed to

charge the stuffy safeness. With an entire lack of structure and constantly using elements of

surprise and shock, Monty Python set out to make a TV show that made its viewers

uncomfortable. This was no escapist entertainment to a world where ‘everything was all right’:

the traditional spectator enjoyment, usually the aim for all television producers, is undermined by

all sorts of self-reflexive elements.

From the start of the show, confusion reigned: first episodes where called ‘part two’ and many

announcements by the BBC were imitations by the team and already part of the show. During

the sketches, there are often subtitles that demand the attention of the viewer with silly facts

(‘these captions cost 12 shilling each’) or inappropriate commentaries that sabotage the

concentration on the acting and the story. Linearity was laughed at and fragmentation embraced:

rather then developing the characters and following a logical storyline, loose sketches were

connected with strange and violent cartoons that the audience had never experienced before.

Monty Python also loved to use the ‘painful things that were not spoken about’. Taboos,

stereotypes and a general cruelty to everything, that were definitely part of British society but

23 The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

37

were kept hidden by the stiff upper lip, for the sake of decency and modesty. All the things

television usually discarded in favour of the ‘pretty picture’ and the ‘feel-good factor’ were

lovingly embraced by the Monty Python team, to be able to break though the narrow reality of

conventions and rules. In their show, in their world, Frenchmen always wear striped shirts,

berets and a thin moustache (sometimes shared). The women are pretty airheads with big

breasts that mess up the few lines they have in a sketch. Sex and violence are favourite

conversational objects of the common man in the streets. When a joke was meagre, characters

would comment on this (‘what a terrible joke!’, or ‘we’ve done that!’). The joke itself was

often sabotaged within a sketch: messages like ‘and now, the punchline!’ appeared in big

capital letters on screen, distracting the acting. In the Science Fiction sketch, about a man-

eating blancmange from another galaxy, we see a doctor trying to solve the mystery of people

turning into a Scotsman. When he asks himself a question, a voice-over suddenly states:

For viewers at home, the answer is coming up on your screens. For those of you who wish to play it the hard way, stand upside down with your head in a bucket of piranha fish. Here is the question once again. Dr. Charles, repeating himself once more: With what sport is Wimbledon commonly associated? (SUPERIMPOSED CAPTION: 'TENNIS') Assistant: Cricket! Charles: No. Tennis!

And to mention a last self-reflexive joke that often returns throughout all the series: In a sort

of anticipation of reviews and criticism, faked letters from viewers often appeared as an

important element of the show, featuring complaints from angry people and random silly

messages that completely sabotage the pace of the show.

Letter and vox pops (policeraid) – episode 5, series 1 (Cut to viewer's letter in handwriting, read in voice over.) Female: Dear BBC, East Grinstead, Friday. I feel I really must write and protest about that last sketch. My husband, in common with a lot of people of his age, is fifty. For how long are we to put up with these things. Yours sincerely, E. B. Debenham (Mrs). (Cut to another letter.) Male: Dear Freddy Grisewood, Bagshot, Surrey. As a prolific letter-writer, I feel I must protest about the previous letter. I am nearly sixty and am quite mad, but I do enjoy listening to the BBC Home Service. If this continues to go on unabated ...Dunkirk... dark days of the war... backs to the wall... Alvar Liddell ... Berlin air lift ... moral upheaval of Profumo case ... young hippies roaming the streets, raping, looting and killing. Yours etc., Brigadier Arthur Gormanstrop (Mrs). Apart from these in-jokes, Monty Python has even more tricks up their sleeve to confuse and

surprise the audience. I’d like to examine some of them in the next part of this chapter,

‘deconstruction’.

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Deconstruction

Deconstruction: Rarely has a critical theory attracted the sort of dread and hysteria that deconstruction has incited since its inception in 1967. [Beginning of an eleven-page entry in A Dictionary of Critical Theory (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991).]

Dread and hysteria, two words the Pythons wouldn’t object to as a description of the effects of

their show. The ‘theory’ of deconstruction by Jacques Derrida also encountered a lot of these two

crazed emotions: Derrida’s complex work has both been worshipped and spat upon during the

years. In this final chapter, I want to dive even deeper into the Monty Python material, using

Derrida’s ideas about deconstruction. His theories are mainly about literature, but I think

television shows can also be seen as ‘texts’: they are messages directed to an audience, a form of

communication with the people that were present in the BBC studios as well as the people who

watch the show at home. In chapter three I tried to give a basic explanation of Derrida’s main

elements of thought. For a quick summary, here’s Derrida himself.

I would say that deconstruction loses nothing from admitting that it is impossible; also that those who would rush to delight in that admission lose nothing from having to wait. For a deconstructive operation possibility would rather be a danger, the danger of becoming an available set of rule-governed procedures, methods, accessible practices. The interest of deconstruction, of such force and desire as it may have, is a certain experience of the impossible.... Deconstruction is inventive or it is nothing at all; it does not settle for methodological procedures, it opens up a passageway, it marches ahead and marks a trail; its writing is not only performative, it produces rules -- other conventions - for new performativities and never installs itself in the theoretical assurance of a simple opposition between performative and constative. Its process involves an affirmation, this latter being linked to the coming [venir] in event, advent, invention24.

Deconstruction is not a technique or a method. So ‘applying it’ will be problematic, as there is

no closed set of general rules. In deconstruction, everything depends on context, so every

deconstruction will be different as there are many traces to be followed. It is an endless quest,

as every element leads to another. Therefore deconstruction cannot be used to analyse a text:

an analysis implies a final solution. In deconstruction, heterogeneity, ambiguity, plurality,

complexity and multivocality are respected25.

Deconstruction can be seen as a form of therapy for texts. It detects the issues that are written

in the margin, the blind spots. ‘Inside’ and ‘outside’ are important notions: what belongs to a

24 Derrida - Psyche: invention of the Other 25 www.cobussen.com

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text, and what not? Derrida used the metaphor of the painting in his essay Parergon: where

begins a work of art, and where does it end? The parergon, the frame, is as essential as the

painting it surrounds: they need each other in order to be what they are. Derrida plays a game

with ‘inside’ and ‘outside’: between the painting and the wall is the frame, which is on the inside

and outside at the same time. Does it belong to the painting or does is belong to the background,

the wall? Is it a main issue or a side issue? The ambiguous logic of the parergon deconstructs the

binary thinking that is essential to the old metaphysical tradition26.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a televised play with opposites. The team loved to blur the lines

between all sorts of contrasting subjects, on very different levels. The question ‘what is Monty

Python?’ is in a sense as difficult to answer as ‘what is deconstruction?’ as it constantly avoids

rules, conventions and regulations and is always looking for new ways to look at the world. In

their scriptwriting and acting, the six men loved to unite the most basic opposites: man/woman,

good/bad, dumb/intelligent. Every member of the Monty Python team loved to play the

screeching housewives, also known as Pepperpots, who populated many of the sketches. They

embodied every stereotype ever invented about middle aged women, but still never very

convincing as real women: the obvious wigs, flowery dresses, hairy legs and chest hair even

magnified the strange nature of these creatures. In the strange world of Monty Python,

everything is possible: obvious retards were brain surgeons, homicidal barbers craved to be a

lumberjack, the luncheon meat Spam tasted fine with lobster thermidor au crevettes and pet shop

owners were not easily convinced to take back the dead parrot they just sold. The following text

is another great example of their play with contrasts, a wonderful play with the misunderstanding

between the working class and the cultural elite. Only not how you’d expect it.

Working Class Playwright – episode 2, series 1

(Opening Scene: A sitting room straight out of D.H. Lawrence. Mum, wiping her hands on her apron, is ushering in a young man in a suit. They are a Northern couple.) Mum: Oh dad... look who's come to see us... it's our Ken. Dad: (without looking up) Aye, and about bloody time if you ask me. Ken: Aren't you pleased to see me, father? Mum: (squeezing his arm reassuringly) Of course he's pleased to see you, Ken, he... Dad: All right, woman, all right I've got a tongue in my head - I'll do 'talkin'. (looks at Ken distastefully) Aye ... I like yer fancy suit. Is that what they're wearing up in Yorkshire now? Ken: It's just an ordinary suit, father... it's all I've got apart from the overalls. (Dad turns away with an expression of scornful disgust.) Mum: How are you liking it down the mine, Ken? Ken: Oh it's not too bad, mum... we're using some new tungsten carbide drills for the preliminary coal-face scouring operations.

26 A. van den Braembussche: Denken over kunst. P. 327-342

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Mum: Oh that sounds nice, dear... Dad: Tungsten carbide drills! What the bloody hell's tungsten carbide drills? Ken: It's something they use in coal-mining, father. Dad: (mimicking) 'It's something they use in coal-mining, father'. You're all bloody fancy talk since you left London. Ken: Oh not that again. Mum: He's had a hard day dear... his new play opens at the National Theatre tomorrow. Ken: Oh that's good. Dad: Good! good? What do you know about it? What do you know about getting up at five o'clock in the morning to fly to Paris... back at the Old Vic for drinks at twelve, sweating the day through press interviews, television interviews and getting back here at ten to wrestle with the problem of a homosexual nymphomaniac drug-addict involved in the ritual murder of a well known Scottish footballer· That's a full working day, lad, and don't you forget it! Mum: Oh, don't shout at the boy, father. Dad: Aye, 'ampstead wasn't good enough for you, was it? ... you had to go poncing off to BarnsIy, you and yer coal-mining friends. (spits) Ken: Coal-mining is a wonderful thing father, but it's something you'll never understand. Just look at you! Mum: Oh Ken! Be careful! You know what he's like after a few novels. Dad: Oh come on lad! Come on, out wi' it! What's wrong wi' me?... ye tit! Ken: I'll tell you what's wrong with you. Your head's addled with novels and poems, you come home every evening reeling of Chateau La Tour... Mum: Oh don't, don't. Ken: And look what you've done to mother! She's worn out with meeting film stars, attending premieres and giving gala luncheons... Dad: There's nowt wrong wi' gala luncheons, lad! I've had more gala luncheons than you've had hot dinners! Mum: Oh please! Dad: Aaaaaaagh! (clutches hands and sinks to knees) Mum: Oh no! Ken: What is it? Mum: Oh, it's his writer's cramp! Ken: You never told me about this... Mum: No, we didn't like to, Kenny. Dad: I'm all right! I'm all right, woman. Just get him out of here. Mum: Oh Ken! You'd better go ... Ken: All right. I'm going. Dad: After all we've done for him... Ken: (at the door) One day you'll realize there's more to life than culture. There's dirt, and smoke, and good honest sweat! Dad: Get out! Get out! Get OUT! You ... LABOURER! (Ken goes. Shocked silence. Dad goes to table and takes the cover off the typewriter.) Dad: Hey, you know, mother, I think there's a play there .... get t'agent on t'phone. Mum: Aye I think you're right, Frank, it could express, it could express a vital theme of our age... Dad: Aye. (In the room beneath a man is standing on a chair, banging on the ceiling with a broom.) Man: Oh shut up! (bang bang) Shut up! (they stop talking upstairs) Oh, that's better. (he climbs down and looks at the camera) And now for something completely different ... a man with three buttocks... Mum and Dad: (from upstairs) We've done that! (The man looks up slightly disconcerted.) Man: Oh all right. All right! A man with nine legs. Voice Off: He ran away. The last words of this sketch can be a bit cryptic, because it continues on other sketches that

were shown earlier in this episode. The whole show revolves around one weird idea, instead of

the usual linear storyline. This particular episode features various freaks of nature.

41

The show starts with an unsuccessful interview by a talk show-host who has trouble saying

indecent words. He’s trying to talk to a man who claims to have three buttocks, but, on his part,

is too shy to actually prove this statement. Another quite hopeless performance is by the man

with two noses, who blows his much anticipated second nose underneath his blouse.

Derrida: I do not 'concentrate' in my reading ... either exclusively or primarily on those points that appear to be the most 'important', 'central', 'crucial'. Rather, I deconcentrate, and it is the secondary, eccentric, lateral, marginal, parasitic, borderline cases which are 'important' to me and are the source of many things, such as pleasure, but also insight into the general functioning of a textual system27.

To fully enjoy Monty Python, you have to treat everything shown on screen as equally important.

There are no margins here, no side-issues: the tiniest detail can suddenly come back later and

demand full attention in a completely different setting. The strangest things are blown up to

function as a sort of ‘leitmotiv’ during the entire show and even during entire series: bits of

animation, returning characters, certain expressions or customs. To name but a few: flying sheep,

slides with different sort of trees, singing Vikings, the sentence ‘You’re no fun anymore!’, the

famous Gumbies (disturbed men with handkerchiefs on their head with a liking for shouting), a

sixteen-ton weight, the hermit who announced many episodes with a telltale ‘It’s…’ and a man

behind a desk on various strange locations stringing sketches together with a famous ‘and now

for something completely different’, which is often followed by something completely the same.

These references keep popping up many times and can become a sort of codeword for the

attentive Monty Python-viewer. For instance, the casual mentioning of the city ‘Bolton’ (and it’s

palindrome Notlob) can cause great hilarity because it earned a symbolic content in the legendary

Parrot-sketch. Because of this sketch, the budding Bolton Choral Society cannot and will not be

taken seriously by the audience, no matter how beautiful they sing. Another example is one of my

favourite sketches, Whizzo Chocolates. It’s an interview with a director of a candy-factory who

has very unique ideas about manufacturing original sweeties. In many other episodes, the

‘Whizzo’ brand keeps coming back. Even in our world: J.K. Rowling, the writer of the famous

Harry Potter series, uses two Whizzo-chocolates in her own Wizard-world: the cockroach cluster

and the chocolate frog sound very familiar. Think of the word Spam for unwanted e-mail, that

must come from the legendary sketch about a restaurant where you cannot escape the luncheon

meat. And Sousa’s Liberty Bell March will never be taken seriously again.

27 Derrida: Limited Inc.

42

Whizzo Chocolates – episode 6, series 1 (Cut to Inspector Praline.) Praline: Hello again. I am at present still on film, but in a few seconds I shall be appearing in the studio. Thank you. (Cut to studio. A door opens. Inspector Praline looks round door. ) Inspector Praline: (to camera) Hello. (he walks in followed by Superintendent Parrot and goes to desk) Mr Milton? You are sole proprietor and owner of the Whizzo Chocolate Company? Milton: I am. Praline: Superintendent Parrot and I are from the hygiene squad. We want to have a word with you about your box of chocolates entified The Whizzo Quality Assortment. Milton: Ah, yes. Praline: (producing box of chocolates) If I may begin at the beginning. First there is the cherry fondue. This is extremely nasty, but we can't prosecute you for that. Milton: Agreed. Praline: Next we have number four, 'crunchy frog'. Milton: Ah, yes. Praline: Am I right in thinking there's a real frog in here? Milton: Yes. A little one. Praline: What sort of frog? Milton: A dead frog. Praline: Is it cooked? Milton: No. Praline: What, a raw frog? (Superintendent Parrot looks increasingly queasy.) Milton: We use only the finest baby frogs, dew picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope and lovingly frosted with glucose. Praline: That's as maybe, it's still a frog. Milton: What else? Praline: Well don't you even take the bones out? Milton: If we took the bones out it wouldn't be crunchy would it? Praline: Superintendent Parrot ate one of those. Parrot: Excuse me a moment. (exits hurriedly) Milton: It says 'crunchy frog' quite clearly. Praline: Well, the superintendent thought it was an almond whirl. People won't expect there to be a frog in there. They're bound to think it's some form of mock frog. Milton: (insulted) Mock frog? We use no artificial preservatives or additives of any kind! Praline: Nevertheless, I must warn you that in future you should delete the words 'crunchy frog', and replace them with the legend 'crunchy raw unboned real dead frog', if you want to avoid prosecution. Milton: What about our sales? Praline: I'm not interested in your sales, I have to protect the general public. Now how about this one. (superintendent enters) It was number five, wasn't it? (superintendent nods) Number five, ram's bladder cup. (exit superintendent) What kind of confection is this? Milton: We use choicest juicy chunks of fresh Cornish ram's bladder, emptied, steamed, flavoured with sesame seeds whipped into a fondue and garnished with lark's vomit. Praline: Lark's vomit? Milton: Correct. Praline: Well it don't say nothing about that here. Milton: Oh yes it does, on the bottom of the box, after monosodium glutamate. Praline: (looking) Well I hardly think this is good enough. I think it would be more appropriate if the box bore a large red label ‘warning lark's vomit’. Milton: Our sales would plummet. Praline: Well why don't you move into more conventional areas of confectionery, like praline or lime cream; a very popular flavour I'm led to understand. (superintendent enters) I mean look at this one, 'cockroach cluster', (superintendent exits) 'anthrax ripple'. What's this one, 'spring surprise'?

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Milton: Ah - now, that's our speciality - covered with darkest creamy chocolate. When you pop it in your mouth steel bolts spring out and plunge straight through both cheeks. Praline: Well where's the pleasure in that? If people place a nice chocky in their mouth, they don't want their cheeks pierced. In any case this is an inadequate description of the sweetmeat. I shall have to ask you to accompany me to the station. Milton: (getting up from desk and being led away) It's a fair cop. Praline: Stop talking to the camera. Milton: I'm sorry. (Superintendent Parrot enters the room as Inspector Praline and Milton leave, and addresses the camera.) Parrot: If only the general public would take more care when buying its sweeties, it would reduce the number of man-hours lost to the nation and they would spend less time having their stomachs pumped and sitting around in public lavatories. Announcer: The BBC would like to apologize for the extremely poor quality of the next announcement, only he's not at all well. Parrot: We present 'The Dull Life of a City Stockbroker' (as the next sketch).

Many ‘great names’ of cultural history have a firm place within Monty Python: Attilla the

Hun and Mozart both love to host all sorts of tacky game shows, Cardinal Richelieu loves to

drop by regularly and Picasso challenges colleagues like Kandinsky and Braque in a painting-

by-bike competition.

Spot the Braincell-quiz (live at the Hollywood Bowl, 1982)

Quizmaster: Ha ha ha ... ha ha ha. Good evening, Madam! And your name is? Pepperpot: Yes, Michael. Quizmaster: Ha ha ha! Jolly good -- and what is your name? Pepperpot: I go to church regularly. Quizmaster: Ha ha ha, I see. And which particular prize do you have eyes for this evening? P: I'd like the blow on the head. Q: The blow -- on the head! P: Yes, just there, where it hurts. Q: Jolly good! Well now Madam your first question for the blow on the head this evening is: Which great opponent of Cartesian dualism resists the reduction of psychological phenomena to a physical state and insists there is no point of contact between the extended and the unextended? P: I don't know that. Q: Well -- have a guess! P: Oh... Henri Bergson? Q: ...is the correct answer! (Piano chords) P: Ooh, that was lucky. I never even heard of him. This namedropping, which I mentioned earlier in the Metafiction-chapter (in this case it’s John

Cleese’s favourite philosopher Hernri Bergson) is a parasitic use of symbolic value, one of the

main postmodern features. Against the drive toward militant innovation and originality,

postmodernists embraced tradition and techniques of quotation and pastiche. While the

modernist artist aspired to create monumental works and a unique style and the avant-garde

movements wanted to revolutionize art and society, postmodernists were more ironic and playful,

44

eschewing concepts like ‘genius’, ‘creativity’ and even ‘author’28. Monty Python’s references to

famous names, but also the use of all sorts of television-images in short flashes and the collage-

like animations can be compared with to a musical technique: sampling, which is taking a portion

of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument in a new recording.

For instance, using a Beethoven-theme in a rap song immediately ads a certain distinct

atmosphere which can be exploited and played with in new material. Sampling foregrounds the

pastiche quality of narration in sound and vision. As we’ve seen earlier this chapter, pastiche (or

parody, the distinction is quite vague) refers to an imitation of a previous work of art or a style

that composes using recognizable part of other styles. While the modernist historical

canonization of works of art takes them out of their context and makes them appear to be the

organic productions of a single (ingenious) mind, all works of art have emerged as parts of

multiple conversations, both private and public. In the postmodern era, concepts like

authenticity, meaning and originality were not so important any more. With gigantic, ever-

growing libraries of sound, image and video recordings available that can be easily accessible

through the internet, sampling quickly became a popular tool. Any material can be juxtaposed or

strung out in succession to form an audio and/or visual narrative.

Finally, very important in deconstruction is the notion of inside/outside. What belongs, and what

does not? This is also an important concept in Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The things you

normally don’t see when watching TV really play a significant role in the televised revolution that

is Monty Python. Many actions are needed in order to make a television show: a script has to be

written with real characters and believable storylines, actors have to be cast and a whole crew is

needed for recording: cameramen, sound and lighting-engineers, costume-designers and a

director. Everything is aimed at creating a perfect illusion: the people at home have to believe in

the characters and the situations shown on screen, in order to sympathize with them and feel the

need to watch other episodes as well. The strength of Monty Python is that they never wanted to

create this perfect illusion: all aspects of the show emphasize the message ‘this is only television

folks!’. In their material, the invented world of Monty Python, many elements of the reality

behind it all, the technical aspects of creating television, are not stashed away but often put in the

spotlights!

There’s a constant sense of fragmentation in the show: sketches end suddenly and arbitrary, with

the characters in it often complaining about this, (‘I’m not going to sleep with that producer

28 Best & Kellner: Postmodern theory

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again’ (John Cleese), suggesting better endings or just wandering off, doing something for

themselves or chat casually with the other people around. In Monty Python, the characters really

seem to lead a life of their own: when they feel neglected or maltreated in the show, they

sometimes sabotage other sketches. Also, the fine line between the actors and the characters they

portray is often blurred: when the camera focuses on them, they sometimes aren’t fully prepared

to play the scene and stumble over their lines. The names of the characters and the names of the

actors get mixed up sometimes: there are many sketches that feature the Monty Python members

as schoolboys of about nine years old, being interviewed about what they would like to see in a

television sketch. And sometimes, the people on screen aren’t even in character yet, they are still

preparing themselves when something strange happens to the scene they’re supposed to be in.

The next sketch is a great example of this, an endless discussion of hermits about cave decoration

and life in the country. All this nagging is suddenly interrupted by The Colonel, a character that

inhabits quite a lot of episodes in the first season. Angry because of the silly humour of the show,

the great amount of badly written sketches and the fact that he doesn’t get the funny lines makes

him stop other sketches when there’s too much nonsense.

Hermits (the last part) – episode 8, series 1

Fifth Hermit: (calling from a distance) Frank! Second Hermit: Yes Han. Fifth Hermit: Can I borrow your goat? Second Hermit: Er, yes that'll be all right. Oh leave me a pint for breakfast will you? ... (to first hermit) You see, you know that is the trouble with living half way up a cliff - you feel so cut off. You know it takes me two hours every morning to get out onto the moors, collect my berries, chastise myself, and two hours back in the evening. First Hermit: Still there's one thing about being a hermit, at least you meet people. Second Hermit: Oh yes, I wouldn't go back to public relations. First Hemit: Oh well, bye for now Frank, must toddle. Colonel: Right, you two hermits, stop that sketch. I think it's silly. Second Hermit: What? Colonel: lt's silly. Second Hermit What do you mean, you can't stop it - it's on film. Colonel: That doesn't make any difference to the viewer at home, does it? Come on, get out. Out. Come on out, all of you. Get off, go on, all of you. Go on, move, move. Go on, get out. Come on, get out, move, move. (He shoos them and the film crew off the hillside. We see the camera crew and John Cleese fully dressed as a hermit who still had to play his part.)

This colonel loves to show off his power by talking directly to the director, giving him

instructions to settle things straight.

Army Protection Racket (fragment) – episode 8, series 1

Colonel: Are you threatening me? Dino: Oh, no, no, no.

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Luigi: Whatever made you think that, Colonel? Dino: The Colonel doesn't think we're nice people, Luigi. Luigi: We're your buddies, Colonel. Dino: We want to look after you. Colonel: Look after me? Luigi: We can guarantee you that not a single armoured division will get done over… for fifteen bob a week. Colonel: No, no, no. Luigi: Twelve and six. Colonel: No, no, no. Luigi: Eight and six ... five bob... Colonel: No, no this is silly. Dino: What's silly? Colonel: No, the whole premise is silly and it's very badly written. I'm the senior officer here and I haven't had a funny line yet. So I'm stopping it. Dino: You can't do that! Colonel: I've done it. The sketch is over. Watkins: I want to leave the army please sir, it's dangerous. Colonel: Look, I stopped your sketch five minutes ago. So get out of shot. Right, director! Close up. Zoom in on me. (camera zooms in) That's better. Luigi: (off screen) It's only 'cos you couldn't think of a punch line. Colonel: Not true, not true. It's time for the cartoon. Cue telecine, ten, nine, eight... (Cut to telecine countdown.) Dino: (off screen) The general public's not going to understand 'this, are they? Colonel: (off screen) Shut up you eyeties!

In the world of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, nothing is certain. Everything is challenged, even

the most basic rules of creating television. That’s why so many people immediately adored Monty

Python: because of the exciting sense that you would see something completely different each

episode and were allowed to laugh at everything, even the most cruel and/or simple stuff. It was

all tied together in a format-less format, resulting in highly successful television series, books,

records and movies that are still popular today. Because it tackles every subject in it’s very own

way, Monty Python cannot be copied. Many comedians from the next generation struggled with

this legacy: many sketches they practiced would be abandoned for fear of being ‘too

Pythonesque’. But what is Pythonesque? To me, it’s that wonderfully overwhelming sense of

strangeness that immediately sets in, a special kind of humour which I tried to analyse a bit in this

paper. But when I’m approaching the final stage of it, I realise that trying to pinpoint ‘why is this

so funny’ is like trying to grasp a slippery eel, or following an endless trail of references: it is so

special because it dares to makes fun of so many conventions, renewing itself constantly and still

be recognizable. Think of the use of the coconuts in Monty Python and the Holy Grail: as soon

as you see the men in knightly outfits, hopping through the fields and banging coconut shells

together to make a clip-clop sound, and all this with a straight face, you’ll immediately be in a

special kind of liberating mood that can last a very long time. As John Cleese puts it: ‘The nicest

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thing anybody ever said about Python was that they could never watch the news after it. You get

in a certain frame of mind and then almost anything is funny!’29.

29 Morgan: Monty Python Speaks! P. 71

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Epilogue: Conclusion

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Conclusion

The goal of this paper was to find some sort of explanation why Monty Python’s Flying Circus

was considered to be a televised revolution. I wanted to find out why their specific kind of

humour was so special and effective, as it touched people from all over the world. And this was

not just in the early seventies: the work of the six Pythons remains popular even still.

When working on this paper, I encountered a lot of problems. I was surprised that it was so hard

to find useful literature on the subject of humour: tragedy is over-analysed, but humour seems to

be taken for granted or treated as something trivial. Interesting subjects such as ‘black humour’,

‘satire’ and the different kinds of humour in various countries must be discussed somewhere, but

it seems that you only encounter them by stumbling upon them by sheer coincidence. Thankfully,

the internet is a useful tool in dealing with coincidence: by clicking on lots of different links you

can suddenly encounter the most useful things. By chance, I got in contact with two people who

helped me a lot with this subject: Drs. Franca Jonquiere of the University of Amsterdam (UVA)

provided me with her interesting lecture about the humour of Monty Python, and Katrina G.

Boyd of Indiana University kindly mailed me her article ‘Pastiche and Postmodernism in Brazil’

and chapters of the book she’s currently writing about the work of Terry Gilliam, which helped

me a lot in dealing with the postmodern tools effectively.

And the postmodern tools were useful indeed. Monty Python’s chameleonic nature can only be

tackled by postmodern theories, that allow a great freedom in application. Postmodernism aims

to unseat stern fundamentals such as truth and purity and embraces diversity, contradiction and a

good laugh instead. Exactly the aims of the television show. The collage-technique proved

extremely useful for discussing the value of the cartoons within the programme. The strange and

violent animations were not only the ‘face’ of the show (as the actors loved dressing up so much

that they were barely recognizable), they provided the series with a unique structure: a stream-of-

consciousness flow, a daydream-like linking of different subjects that resulted in a total freedom

of material and many surprised people in front of the television. Nobody was safe in Monty

Python: the six men loved to shock with sex, violence and random silliness, smashing the borders

of decency and good taste. Philosophy, high art and politics were suddenly subject to laughter,

next to jokes about dancing with fish and flying sheep.

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Monty Python rewrote TV by mixing the conventions from all sorts of TV-formats with the

most inappropriate subjects, mocking the traditional class system with it’s separate furnished

cubicles for different kinds of people. And they even went beyond that: from time to time they

ignored some of the most basic rules of making television, creating an unpredictable, and for

many people ‘uncomfortable’ comedy show. You never knew what to expect, as the programme

seemed to play a game with it’s viewers. Joked were half-finished or were repeated so much that

it became annoying, characters would suddenly go on strike and stop acting seriously. Monty

Python’s Flying Circus can be seen as a form of sabotage-TV. Nothing was taken seriously, not

even themselves, and because of that they were able to use all sorts of taboo-subjects and liberate

television. In order to examine these guerrilla-techniques, I tried to used different angles. I

already mention the discussion about collage and stream of conciousness, but I also employed

some of the main theories of two great Postmodern thinkers, Fredric Jameson and Jacques

Derrida.

Jameson helped me to deal with the subject of fragmentation in Monty Python. Especially in the

first series, the show consisted of very short bits of acting, film and animation, that were put

together in a very fast pace, stream-of-consciousness style. This results in a distinct flow, that no

longer refers to reality. Monty Python didn’t even aim at trying to create an inner reality: the show

can be seen as an endless chain of references, all sorts of parodies or pastiches. When dealing

with Monty Python, the distinction is hard to make as it is not always clear if they imitate in order

to mock or to pay an homage. The Oxbridge boys incorporated lots of things in their show they

really loved themselves, like slapstick, mime and various expressions of history, art and

philosophy. The TV show can be seen as a journey through absurdity by various self-reflexive

ways.

The idea of the chain brought me to Derrida. Using a very basic form of his difficult concept of

deconstruction, I tried to dive deeper into the material. I discovered that thinking about ‘what is

written in the margin’ provided a great clue for the popularity of Monty Python. By treating

everything as equally important, the team was able to tackle an endless amount of subjects for

their show. Many critics were amazed by the scriptwriting: one episode of the Flying Circus

featured ideas for a dozen new television series. Because of their format-less format, everything

was possible in the short bits the episodes were built of, even sabotaging the basic rules of

making TV. A televised play with opposites, that felt fresh and exciting. Monty Python was not

so much about jokes, but about an entirely different state of mind: I think the series and the

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movies became so enormously popular because you soon felt part of an in-crowd, a sense of

belonging to a select group of people that dared to laugh with these rebellious young men and by

doing that shake off many stuffy regulations. Seeing one show would only astonish, but seeing

more meant you learned certain codes. Because of the sheer unexpectedness all around, the

elements that did return from time to time felt like codewords: a sort of extra, hidden jokes that

not everyone would recognize. Because of the chameleonic nature of the series, everything could

be turned into such a codeword, which caused an elaborate play of references and deeper

meanings, an endless chain of special silliness that continued in movies, records, books and live

shows.

The Pythons didn’t think it was all that special themselves. They just felt lucky they had the

opportunity to make money with inventing and acting out the strangest things. The six men

weren’t very fond of the many elaborate explanations of their work that were written in the

seventies and eighties, so I think they wouldn’t subscribe this paper either. They just wanted to be

creative in all sorts of media, exploring the boundaries of laughter and comedy.

I’d like to end with an appropriate quote of David Morgan, the author of the book which I relied

on most for writing this paper, Monty Python Speaks.

Python was not about jokes; it was really about a state of mind. It was a way of looking at the world as a place where walking like a contortionist is not only considered normal but is rewarded with government funding; where people speak in anagrams; where highwaymen redistribute wealth in floral currencies; and where BBC newsreaders use arcane hand signals when delivering the day’s events. And as long as the world itself is accepted as being an absurd place, Python will seem right at home.

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Bibliography

Books:

- Steven Best and Douglas Kellner: Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations. The Macmillan Press LTD, London 1991

- A. van den Braembussche: Denken over Kunst. Uitgeverij Coutinho, Bussum 1994 - Richard Dienst: Still life in real time, theory after television. Durham & London 1994 - Fredric Jameson: Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism. Verso, London 1991 - Bob McCabe and all Python-members: The Pythons. Orion Publishing Co, London 2003 - David Morgan: Monty Python Speaks. Avon Books, New York 1999 - Jim Yoakum: The Non-Inflatable Monty Python TV-Companion. Dowling Press Inc. Nashville,

Tennessee 1999 About the history of the BBC and English humour:

- http://www.bbc.co.uk/heritage/story/index.shtml History of the BBC - http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/ Comedy guide of BBC-programmes - http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tours/humour/tourBritHumour1.html an article about typical

British humour by Mark Duguid

About postmodernism in general: - http://www.theedge.abelgratis.co.uk/booksns/doompatrols.htm About Steven Shaviro - http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Metafiction.html metafiction and Patricia Waugh

About Terry Gilliam:

- http://www.digitalmediafx.com/Features/terry-gilliam.html Packed full of Goodness, an article by Noell Wolfgram Evans

About Derrida:

- www.cobussen.com Ingenious website about deconstruction in music - http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/EngLit/ugrad/hons/theory/Ten%20Ways.htm Ten ways of

thinking about deconstruction - http://kubnw16.kub.nl/~ljansen/filosoof/gesch/derrida.htm Jacques Derrida: leven en werk - http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/4F70/deconstruction.html Deconstruction, some

assumptions. Copyright 1996 by John Lye And many thanks to:

- The Longman Dictionary of contemporary English - Wikipedia, the free Encyclopaedia - Hutchinson Encyclopaedia - Tiscali Encyclopaedia - http://orangecow.org/pythonet/sketches/ Monty Python in Australia: they wrote out all the

Flying Circus sketches!