The beloved “Monty Python” franchise has been attacked for being “too white,” prompting one of its top stars — Terry Gilliam — to say some outlandish stuff in defense.
Recently, the BBC’s Head of Comedy Shane Allen criticized the classic comedy troupe “Monty Python” for being too white, male, and middle class.
“If you’re going to assemble a team now it’s not going to be six Oxbridge white blokes,” Allen said in June. “It’s going to be a diverse range of people who reflect the modern world.”
“And I think we’ve heard the metropolitan, educated experience,” he continued. “I think it’s about how original a voice you have over what school you went to.”
At the time, “Monty Python” star John Cleese (not one for political correctness) immediately leaped to the franchise’s defense on Twitter:
Speaking at the Karlovy Vary film festival in the Czech Republic, Terry Gilliam pumped his troll factor to 11 when he lampooned the politically-correct backlash by declaring himself a “black lesbian.”
“It made me cry: the idea that … no longer six white Oxbridge men can make a comedy show,” said Gilliam. “Now we need one of this, one of that, everybody represented … this is bullsh*t. I no longer want to be a white male, I don’t want to be blamed for everything wrong in the world: I tell the world now I’m a black lesbian. … My name is Loretta and I’m a BLT, a black lesbian in transition.”
“[Allen’s] statement made me so angry, all of us so angry,” he said. “Comedy is not assembled, it’s not like putting together a boy band where you put together one of this, one of that everyone is represented.”