After repeatedly inveighing against the corrosiveness of political correctness on humor, British comedy icon John Cleese peppered the capacity crowd in Boston’s Symphony Hall with decidedly “naughty,” ethnically-tinged humor.
You’ll read none of the punchlines here. Well, perhaps just one, told to him by an Australian.
How do you know when a plane full of Englishmen has landed? The whining continues long after the jet engines are cut.
Not his best gag of the evening, but certainly the safest.
Other jokes involved Brazilians’ ridicule of Portuguese in a firing squad, two Jews walking past a Catholic Church doling out cash for conversions, and the telltale sign of whether an airplane is from Greece. (It won’t be impossible to look up the respective payoffs.)
The audience roared (albeit with trepidation at first) – and moderator Jared Bowen, executive arts editor for WGBH, squirmed in his seat, yet succumbed to heaves of mirth. Cleese insisted that “inappropriate” humor isn’t hatred, it’s merely meant to elicit a laugh.
One might wonder whether someone without Cleese’s comedic pedigree and longstanding rapport with audiences would otherwise be cut as much slack in today’s more culturally sensitive, aggression-attuned times. Cleese mourned the loss of humor among American politicians, saying that jests can cut through artifice and anxiety and get to the heart of issues.
The 77-year-old co-founder of the Monty Python comedy troupe said he was puzzled by America’s selection in 1956 of the dull Republican Dwight Eisenhower over the urbane Democrat Adlai Stevenson, who Cleese quoted as saying, “If the Republicans promise to stop telling lies about us, we’ll promise to stop telling the truth about them.”
Left out of the anecdote is Eisenhower’s august military career in World War II, but Cleese’s observations about government had less to do with policy than with personality.
Comedy icon John Cleese, with Gerri Weiss and Lesley President Jeff Weiss.
Yet, his estimation of President-elect Donald Trump — he couldn’t say the name without breaking up into paroxysms of laughter — underscored his scorn for man and message, alike. He likened Trump’s cabinet choices to assembling the crew for a pirate ship, though he later conceded that he, himself, would never consider running for public office.
“Too boring,” he said. “You have to toe the party line.” In addition, he offered, he would need to consign himself to being surrounded by the “ugly men” of Parliament.
Finding comedy
Yet Cleese never thought he’d become a professional comic, either. He was admitted to Cambridge to study physics, though wasn’t particularly adept at that subject, so he was steered toward archeology. He found that pointless, and instead studied law, but broke into comedy as part of a university troupe called Footlights, which he compared to Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Club. He and his fellow troupers — accountants, law students and the like — ended up being a hit. Cleese was hooked, and so began the career path that would include Monty Python albums, TV programs and movies, and a number of non-Python projects, including his beloved “A Fish Called Wanda,” where he acted alongside fellow Python player Michael Palin, as well as actors Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline.
Looking back at his oeuvre, he considers only the first 60 percent of the iconic “Holy Grail” film as worthwhile, and insists “Life of Brian” is the pinnacle of the Monty Python screen work.
Cleese pointed out that, to his mind, comics can’t really poke fun at pain, but can rightfully target the foibles and patterns of self-defeating behavior associated with it.
“Life of Brian,” he said, lampooned organized religion, not faith itself, and certainly not Jesus, but how people “cherry-pick the Bible.” He criticized the “prosperity gospel,” wondering how anyone with even scant knowledge of scripture can conclude that Jesus is interested in personal wealth. The Sermon on the Mount doesn’t say “blessed are the filthy rich,” after all. Instead, he believes Jesus — like Buddha — is more about keeping one’s own ego in check.
And, when it comes to unchecked ego … well, back we go to politics.
Cleese said he believes the repeal of the broadcast Fairness Doctrine has spurred the rancor among American partisans, but things aren’t any better in the United Kingdom. There, he said, all the newspapers trade in boldfaced lies and are owned by billionaire expatriates, like Rupert Murdoch, who exploit the gullibility and prejudices of the public.
Nevertheless, Cleese said he sees no parallel between the ascension of Trump and the Brexit vote, as Britons were rightly skeptical that keeping their fortunes tied to the EU’s weaker economies was in their best interest. However, he believes a rapprochement is possible, and that decent people will put forth a more flexible cooperative among the UK and the European nations.
Cleese’s optimism seemed to contrast with the dour outlook that he said afflicted his depressive mother, who nevertheless possessed a keen, though dark, sense of humor that he inherited. When she expressed her lack of desire to go on living, which she did with some frequency, she appreciated Cleese’s offer to have her assassinated by a London street thug. It’s an offer she never accepted — she lived until 101.
Dressed comfortably in black, with an open shirt and no socks — he kicked off his shoes to show his bare feet, after commenting on Bowen’s red shoelaces — Cleese was clearly at ease with the crowd, which awarded him a standing ovation at evening’s end.
The series
Cleese was the fourth speaker — though Jan. 18’s event was an evening-long Q & A moderated by Bowen, rather than a traditional lecture — of Lesley University’s Boston Speakers Series. The next event is Feb. 22, with former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey.