“Monty Python” actor John Cleese is taking aim at the so-called “wokes” who he believes are putting a strain on creativity.
In an interview with Reason Magazine’s Nick Gillespie, Cleese labeled the education system and “wokeism” the “enemies of creativity.”
“It’s the internal interruption that I was talking about. You think of an idea and you immediately think: ‘Oooh, is that going to get me into trouble? Well, that person last Thursday got away with it,'” the actor explained. “But all that stuff immediately stops you being creative.”
When asked what “percentage” of his work would be “inadmissible or not permitted” by today’s standards, Cleese said it “changes unpredictably.”
“I mean, in my day there was an enormous explosion in England, I think it was 196[5], when Kenneth Tynan, who was our best theater critic, deliberately used the word f***. And, I mean, it was nuclear,” he offered as an explanation, adding, “Now I can say f***, and one or two people might twitch. Most people aren’t bothered by it at all, but that was the forbidden word.”
Now, he argued the “forbidden word” today is the N-word:
Now, just consider this situation: If I actually pronounce the N-word today, which I’m not going to—relax! But if I did, it would be in the papers tomorrow. Now, how useful is that? The woke people, I think, miss something quite badly. The meaning of a word depends on its context. If I use sarcasm, then what I’m meaning is the opposite of the words I’m actually saying.
Cleese added, “If you don’t get irony, then if you take it seriously, you completely misunderstand the intention of the writer or speaker.”
Monty Python legend @JohnCleese on giving offense and getting laughs https://t.co/g6ukBw4Yg7
— reason (@reason) December 18, 2022Do you think "wokeism" is an enemy of creativity?
Cleese shared how important he believes laughter is because it “takes us to a part of our mind where we’re probably healthier than we are at any other time, and it’s this thing about laughing at yourself.”
However, he said, “I’m not so sure that the wokes would ever laugh at themselves, no matter how hilarious they are.”
The actor also suggested people too often take words out of their context to create controversy.
“I mean, just now I said ‘shut up’ to you,” he noted. “But everybody smiled, because they knew it was done with affection and as a joke. If that was reported tomorrow in The Hollywood Reporter, that I’d said that to you without any giving of context, it would look as though I was being very rude and unpleasant”
Cleese shared an example of controversy that erupted after he attended the South by Southwest festival.
“We had a fellow who was Puerto Rican, we had someone who was African American, we had someone who was Jewish, we had a Scot, and an old white Englishman,” he began.
Despite noting the participants were teasing each other and how there was an atmosphere of “joy at the freedom of it,” he accused The Hollywood Reporter of taking the comments out of context and sparking controversy.
“I mean, why? What are they getting out of it?” he asked.
Finally, Cleese suggested, “There are people sitting there who are deliberately waiting for the thrill of being offended.”
