For those too young to remember, Monty Python’s Life of Brian was released in 1979 and immediately caused outrage among Christians, local councils, church leaders and people who had not seen it, but were nevertheless certain that it was blasphemous. Which, of course, made everyone else want to see it. The result was one of the funniest films ever made, and one of the most effective advertisements for the futility of banning things.
Christians survived. Christianity survived. Indeed, one might argue that Christianity survived rather better than some of the careers of the people who condemned the film. The Church did not collapse because a few comedians sang ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ while men hung on crosses. The Pope did not issue a fatwa. There were no global riots. No embassy was burned. No novelist went into hiding. No cartoonist was murdered. People complained, the film was banned in a few places, and then everyone moved on.
But that was Christianity. After decades of waiting, would Monty Python ever announce that they are finally making the long-awaited sequel to Life of Brian, Life of Ahmed? Life of Ahmed, we would be assured, will not mock Islam. Perish the thought. It will merely ‘explore the comic possibilities of religious misunderstanding in a culturally sensitive yet robustly inclusive manner’. In other words, it will do to Islam what Life of Brian did to Christianity, while wearing a stab vest.
The plot could concern Ahmed, a humble camel merchant in seventh-century Arabia, who is repeatedly mistaken for a prophet. Before long, followers gather. Some insist he is the Chosen One. Others insist he is not. Ahmed himself spends most of the film trying to explain that he is not the Chosen One.
Naturally, there would be familiar scenes updated for the modern age. Instead of ‘Blessed are the cheesemakers’, we could have ‘Blessed are the halal butchers’, a mishearing at the back of the crowd of ‘Hallelujah, hallelujah’. The stoning scene, which in Life of Brian featured a group of women disguised as men, could be replaced by a town-square scene in which everyone is instructed that no one may cast the first stone unless they have completed the proper online training module.
There would be the inevitable sermon. Ahmed stands before the crowd and says: ‘You are all individuals.’ The crowd replies: ‘We are all individuals.’ One man says: ‘I’m not’ and is immediately reported to the local interfaith council for failing to conform to the collective mindset. No religious satire would be complete without schism. In Life of Ahmed, the central split could be between the People’s Popular Front of Medina and the Popular People’s Front of Medina.
The film would, of course, include no depiction of the Prophet. No one is mad. The nearest thing to representation would be a pair of sandals behind a curtain, which are never shown directly. In a bold act of cinematic restraint, several key scenes could consist entirely of people reacting to something just off-screen while a caption reads: ‘This sequence has been removed following consultation.’
Of course, to satisfy modern tastes there would be no full frontal window scene of a naked Ahmed taken by surprise at the crowd that has gathered outside. Likewise, there would be no full frontal shot of his girlfriend, as was depicted in Life of Brian, with that famous and generous helping of pubic hair. After all, Ahmed’s girlfriend would only be nine years old.
The promotional interviews for the film could feature ageing comedians explaining that the film is not attacking Islam, but ‘celebrating the universal human capacity for reverence and error’. One would add that Muslims in the West are famously relaxed about satire, and will no doubt appreciate the affectionate spirit in which the film is intended.
The BBC would host a balanced discussion between someone who has not seen the film and thinks it should be banned and someone who has not seen the film and thinks it should be celebrated. Meanwhile, Christians would sit quietly in the corner wondering why their religion remains the only one against which satire is considered both safe and sophisticated. The answer, naturally, is that Christianity long ago made the mistake of becoming forgiving. Turn the other cheek once and people will assume you have given them permission to keep slapping.
The point is not that Muslims should be offended. On the contrary, I am sure they would find nothing whatsoever to object to in such a film. Why would they? After all, this is merely comedy. It is only a film. Nobody is mocking believers. Nobody is insulting the sacred. Anyone suggesting otherwise is surely being oversensitive.
Perhaps Life of Ahmed could be a great healing moment of our age. Perhaps it could prove that all religions can be laughed at equally. Perhaps bishops, imams, rabbis, secular humanists and diversity consultants would join hands outside the cinema and sing together in perfect harmony.
We live in an age when comedians can mock nuns, vicars, crucifixes, hymns, saints, relics, confessionals, rosaries and transubstantiation until the incense runs out. But when it comes to Islam, the jokes suddenly become nuanced and respectful.
I would love to see The Life of Ahmed made. I’d look forward to the reviews, the debates, the think pieces and the solemn declarations that everyone must learn to laugh at themselves. I would relish the scene in which the entire cast sings the closing number: ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Sharia.’
However, I suspect we shall be waiting a very long time.
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
If you enjoy The New Conservative and would like to support our work, please consider buying us a coffee or sharing this piece with your friends – it would really help to keep us going. Thank you!
