Let's Talk About Movies: Life of Brian and The Gospel

Alo Party Peoples.

I just watched Monty Python's Life of Brian, a movie about the titular man being mistaken for a godsend. It is also set in Judea during the time of Christ. Just depicting the story of Christ in the context of a comedy would be enough to outrage, and thirty-nine local authorities in the UK did in fact ban the film, but it goes further than that. The actual Jesus shows up near the end, as a pedestrian witnessing criminals being marched off to be crucified. He offers to take the burden of one of the prisoners, who immediately flees the scene, the Roman officers assume him to be one of the prisoners, and take him off to be crucified. Jesus then says "I didn't realize I had to go through all of it." and tries to flee from his fate. They are implying that Christ was just some common do-good-er that got in way over his head.

It isn't just that, at no point is the presence of God ever explicitly depicted. That might be bad enough for some people, but consider this. There is a homeless beggar that claims to have been cured of leprosy by Jesus, but the audience never sees that happen and thus cannot know whether he is telling the truth. If he is telling the truth, then the filmmakers are implying that Jesus ruined someone's livelihood by ridding them of a disease that people took pity on him for and thus gave him money, and he's also an ungrateful jerk that took advantage of Christ's divine charity and had the gall to complain about it afterwards. If he isn't telling the truth, then he's committing blasphemy and, albeit failing, taking advantage of people's sincerely held religious beliefs for his financial gain. He took his blessings, and thought they weren't good enough.

During the Sermon on the Mount, the words "blessed are the peacemakers" are misheard by people in the back as "blessed are the cheese makers", the characters then go on to debate whether that was meant literally, or as a blanket term for all dairy workers, or as something else entirely. On its face, that might be relatively harmless, but ponder this.

My father discussed this film and what its subject at length just before I started writing this, and he interprets "peacemaker" as someone that helps people find a common ground, but others might define peace as stability. Thus those that bring and maintain stability are blessed, and the Roman Empire is often seen as having brought safe travel and commerce to all of the Mediterranean world, thus they would be blessed. Add to that, that the Romans at this time saw ideas like those preached by Jesus, and the local religious establishment for that matter, with their assertion that worldly authority is less important than salvation, as a dangerous threat to stability in Judea. Thus, under that interpretation of "peacemaker", the Romans are blessed and Jesus is damned. While discussing initial drafts with my father, he said I was missing the point, and that the characters were also missing the point of "peacemakers

The thing is, as my father put it, the movie isn't making fun of Christianity itself, it's making fun of the insane things that people have done in the name of Christianity, or misinterpreting good ideas for their own ends. As an example, partway through the film, Brian has attracted quite the following of people who think he is the Messiah, he doesn't want this position, and is literally shunning it by fleeing from them. While running he inadvertently drops a gourd and a shoe. One of his followers picks up the gourd and proclaims it to be a sign. Then another one finds the shoe and thinks that's a sign as well, and thus they think that everyone should take off a shoe for their Messiah. If they were depicting the sale of indulgences or 16th century witch trials, you could argue that they are mocking faith, but they made the decision to stay away from actual events, and stick to stuff they made up.

Was the arguable blasphemy intentional, it probably was. The Python troupe did share a distrust of organized religion, and they clearly thought the material is fit for comedy, in the same way that they thought Arthurian lore was worth making fun of in Holy Grail. But, during early brainstorming sessions for the Life of Brian, they found that they didn't object to any of Christ's teachings, and couldn't find anything to mock about them. That's probably why the focus isn't on Christ himself, and is instead on someone mistaken for Christ that isn't preaching. The persons actually being made fun of are those that take the ideas at the heart of a religion, and use them for their own ends, like the Preachers of the Gourd and the Shoe, or the Catholic Church selling indulgences , or the courts in Salem hanging radicals under the pretense of punishing witchcraft i.e. organizers of religion.

Of course, Life of Brian isn't the only film to criticize faith, or this particular one. Would it surprise you to find that some people think Pleasantville advocates sin? I've already talked about Pleasantville at length, and this is already a long post, so if you've never heard of that movie, read this. Anyways, that movie is commonly interpreted as an allegory for the Garden of Eden, and the man behind that film definitely drew on imagery from Genesis when making it. However, again while discussing this with my father, he argued that the town of Pleasantville wasn't really Eden because it is clearly not paradise. The conformity of the town is not portrayed as a good thing, and it's even shown as soul crushing and, after a while, something akin to torture.

Now I turn things over to my father. Who, when asked if he would write a response to this, wanted to know if that could be an addition to this article. I told him yes. After the end of this paragraph, everything you read will have been written by him. I think he's a smart guy, and we often discuss the subjects of this blog before and after I write about them. Without further ado...

Hey y'all ... wow, what an opportunity. Us parentals often look at our kids and wonder about how things would have been different if we had known what we know now at their age, and desperately desire to communicate our hard earned understanding so they can benefit without paying the price that we did. While watching Life of Brian with my kids was both an opportunity and a risk, I'm betting it will be a bridge for communication and growth well worth the risk.

As Greg mentioned, Life of Brian was widely banned by the religious institutions it satirizes. Monty Python's gig in all things is exaggerating the absurd and ridiculous, and the fact is Christian history and religious institutions (as opposed to personal faith in Christ) has given them way too much material to work with. When my friends and I saw Life of Brian as teenagers it summed up so much of what bothered us in the religiosity we saw around us. Classmates in Church rejecting alcohol/drugs/promiscuity on Sunday but drunk/high/sex-ing on Friday. Out of context scripture and better-than-you hypocrisy fully worthy of parody, ridicule, and rejection. What we saw was real,but there is more to the story.

"Blessed are the cheese makers" mishears, misinterprets, and misapplies the message, and that's the point. While some mishear, misinterpret, and misapply Christ for their own benefit, "blessed are the peacemakers" calls those who follow Christ to be peace makers. The crowd following after the Messiah's gourd or the Messiah's shoe or following after some "thing" are not following after the Messiah, and that's the point. Following after a cross or a church or a preacher is not the same as following after Christ, and following after Christ is life.

By processing through Life of Brian together I hoped to help my kids understand and see through a whole lot of crap and come closer to saving faith in Christ.

(BTW and FWIW, while Life of Brian hardly mentions God or Jesus directly, in one scene it does misrepresent Jesus as an oblivious do-gooder looking to briefly shoulder the burden of a crucifyee  but not really willing to pay the ultimate price. As always, this was a teachable moment Romans 8:28.)

..... and I'm back. As you might have guessed, my father is a confident follower of Christ. This has caused much discussion between us over the years because, as you might have guessed, I am not a very religious person. Unlike those following the Preachers of the Shoe and Gourd, my father did not just go into Christianity blind. He spent decades contemplating the issue, and only when he experienced something that went beyond reason or logic, did he commit. In his words, "knock [on God's door] and the door will open", that if you look for it, revelation will come to you.

Have a nice day.

Greg and Vince B.