Famed comedian John Cleese has been an outspoken critic of cancel culture – and he has been unafraid to speak out against the rush to silence and sideline anyone who disagrees with whatever is currently the only correct ‘woke’ position to take according to the loudest mob on Twitter.
Now he is set to explore these issues in a new series for Channel 4.
The Fawlty Towers star will “”set forth into the minefield of cancel culture to explore why a new ‘woke’ generation is trying to rewrite the rules on what can and can’t be said”, the channel says.
Cleese is now 81, and it’s a peculiarity of modern times that older commentators have found themselves increasingly in the firing line as the dour, humourless, younger generations get busy being outraged on a daily basis by anything and everything. Having the courage to speak out against woke censorship seems to be confined to older, and still more interesting, punks like John Lydon while the manufactured pop bands are all busy singing to the same hymn sheet.
Channel 4 says that the series, John Cleese: Cancel Me, will see the actor and famed funny man “ask whether it is possible to make good comedy without someone taking offence, and will meet some famous faces who have found themselves on the receiving end of cancel culture.”
Apparently, he will “also meet people who are doing the cancelling, to investigate what is driving them”. I’m not sure if you could pay me to take on that dismal chore. However, given that Cleese is unlikely to take any guff, it might be interesting.
He’s previously said that political correctness is “stifling” creativity and that there’s no such thing as a “woke joke”. As if to prove his point, the usual shrill set on social media urged the BBC to stick by its mad decision to remove one episode of the brilliant Fawlty Towers over “racial slurs” and “outdated language”.
The episode, The Germans, is one of the most famous of the Fawlty Towers sketches where ‘the Major’ uses dodgy language in an story about the West Indies cricket team. But as Cleese pointed out: “If you put nonsense words into the mouth of someone you want to make fun of, you’re not broadcasting their views, you’re making fun of them. The major was an old fossil left over from decades before. We were not supporting his views, we were making fun of them. If they can’t see that – if people are too stupid to see that – what can one say?”
The episode was eventually restored but with the usual infantilising warnings making much ado about nothing.
In his younger days, Cleese made his name in Monty Python’s sketches which conservatives sometimes wanted censored. Now, he’s defending the same shows from the kind of intolerant liberals whose non-stop campaign to cancel everything by employing a special mix of bullying, whinging and wailing would leave even the most die-hard censors of the fifties in the shade.
He told BBC Radio 4 in September last year that what started out as a good idea – ‘let’s not be mean to people’ – had gone too far.
“The main thing is to try to be kind. But that then becomes a sort of indulgence of the most oversensitive people in your culture, the people who are most easily upset … I don’t think we should organise a society around the sensibilities of the most easily upset people, because then you have a very neurotic society,” he said.
Basil Fawlty might have summed it up best when he exploded in ‘Waldorf Salad’:
“This is typical. Absolutely typical… of the kind of…ARSE I have to put up with from you people! You ponce in here expecting to be hand… waited on hand and foot, while I’m trying to run a hotel here! Have you any idea of how much there is to do? Do you ever think of that? Of course not! You’re all too busy sticking your noses into every corner, poking about for things to complain about, aren’t you? Well let me tell you something – this is exactly how Nazi Germany started! A lot of layabouts with nothing better to do than to cause trouble! Well, I’ve had fifteen years of pandering to the likes of you, and I’ve had enough! I’ve had it! Come on, pack your bags and get out.”
Perhaps the Channel 4 series should just be that hilarious scene on a loop. It might be the best response to the idiotic but destructive culture which is busy cancelling humour, difference and common sense amongst much else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFMpySg_UrM&t=2s