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.
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The Monty Python crew were along with their output, in my opinion, greatly overrated and only ‘brave’ in that they made fun of only those things they knew they could get away with.
I seem to recall a recent film with an Islamic flavour that didn’t go down a bundle with ROP aderents and just like ‘Life of Brian’ most strongly amongst those who’d not seen it and demanded that no one else should either.
People always forget that the movie begins with the Wise Men visiting Mandy, realising they’ve come to the wrong house, and then walking a bit farther down the road and finding real Jesus in a crèche scene. Then the movie shifts back to Brian.
And “Romanes eunt domum”, and Brian having to write it out correctly a hundred times, was priceless!
It’s noteworthy to consider what the fans of Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’ do and don’t do. They mock those who found it to be blasphemous. That’s fun. Easy-peasy. They always do that. What they don’t do, ever, is to (a) define blasphemy (b) offer an example of what, perhaps, they would consider to be blasphemous.
Needless to say, there are self-described Christians in this Monty Python fandom – keen to be seen as “reasonable” men and women, whom nothing shocks, especially if the object of the ridicule or insults is any or all aspect(s) of Christianity – to include even Christ Himself; to include even His suffering and crucifixion. Anything for a laugh eh? Ignore those old prudes (or, as I was in 1979, those YOUNG prudes).
Far from being outraged at what greater minds than mine considered blasphemy, Roger Watson opines that “The result [of the outrage] was one of the funniest films ever made, and one of the most effective advertisements for the futility of banning things.”
Well, I wouldn’t say that banning things is always futile. Smoking, for example, is widely recognised as being bad for our physical health and banned in just about every public place (including cinemas) you care to name. Seems to work judging by the lack of smoke in just about every public place on the High Street. Just sayin’
Once again, reading the above ever-so-broad-minded article, I’m reminded of (atheist) George Bernard Shaw’s insightful remark: “It is difficult, if not impossible, for men/women to think differently from the fashion of the age in which they live.” Of course, that should NOT be true of Christians but all too often it’s a case of the shoe definitely, if sadly, fits. Yet, there’s nothing so incongruous (and unattractive) as a broad-minded Christian, as commonly understood today, and reflected in Roger Watson’s admiration of the controversial ‘Life of Brian’.
And to risk a word of defence for the awful narrow-minded bigots who criticised ‘Life of Brian’ back in 1979, it is worth reflecting again on the smoking ban because it seems to me that those who tend to recoil from blasphemous books and films do so, not because they are narrow-minded bigots, but because they believe them to be bad for our spiritual health. There are, of course, in these times of crisis in the Church, self-proclaimed Christians who don’t care; they comfortably place their alleged Faith in the “Sunday” box, tick it and insist that they would never be offended at blasphemy – but that’s because their belief is purely natural – they’re the “gentle Jesus” types who believe only in this world, being nice to people, going automatically to Heaven when their time here is up; Christianity-lite. The idea that it might be wrong to deliberately offend/mock God in the interests of having a bit of fun (as His expense) is so far-fetched to them, that it’s incomprehensible why they would want to be identified as Christians at all.
In the interests of transparency, I must admit to not having seen ‘Life of Brian’ – I was busy doing lots of other things and visiting cinemas wasn’t really my “thing”. I think my previous cinema outing was to see Calamity Jane with my father when I was an even younger youngster than in 1979. I do remember the criticisms of ‘Life of Brian’ so even if I’d been invited to view (can’t remember) I’d have done what I do any time when I’m choosing a thriller to read, or considering going to see a particular film: I’d have read the blurb and thought “Thanks, but no thanks – not for me.” And if I’d known then what I know now, I’d have added: “Life’s too short”.
‘Yet, there’s nothing so incongruous (and unattractive) as a broad-minded Christian’. What, not even a narrow minded Christian, who insists that only their version of Christianity is the true and worthy one, and anyone who holds even slightly different views, is so abhorrent as to be ‘incongruous and unattractive? That level of judgement seems pretty unattractive in itself.
I was never a huge Monty Python fan, so haven’t seen ‘The Life of Brian’, except for odd snippets. So I am not going to judge it one way or the other. Why should I, I don’t have the right to judge something I’ve never seen. It seems that those who haven’t seen it are the ones doing the most pearl clutching, as usual. I’m obviously the unattractive, wrong type of Christian – but I can live with that, I know I’m a decent person.
Well, indeed, where are the politicians and right-on people who adopted the “Je suis Charlie” moniker?