Speaking in an interview with Greg Lukianoff of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), John Cleese, the legendary Monty Python comedian, tore into cancel culture. Specifically, Cleese described the current cancel culture environment as being tyrannical, saying that a situation where a detractor can set out to, and often succeed in getting, someone fired for what they say is “totalitarian.”
Cleese’s comments on the matter came when Lukianoff asked about the evolution of cancel culture over time, namely about how audiences reacted in 1979 when his famous “The Life of Brian” came out and faced some criticism over its raunchy and irreverent content, to now, when cancel culture is in full swing across much of the West.
Responding, Cleese, who is now 84, said that in the past people would sometimes get upset and complain or leave. He said, “What I experienced [then] was people who were upset and offended by things.” He added, “And once or twice, I’ve done things that afterwards I felt that I’ve crossed the line and thought I shouldn’t have done that. But people would get upset and complain to the BBC or something like that.” He also said, “Or they might get up and walk out of the show.”
But then Cleese contrasted that with the current state of things, where now, with cancel culture, radicals can get those with whom they disagree fired, something that’s quite different and far worse. He said, “The thing about cancel culture is, it seems to be very organized. And it’s not just protest. It’s trying to get people fired. I don’t mind people protesting, that’s fine. But if you set out to get someone fired … that’s very totalitarian.”
Continuing, Cleese argued that the sensitivity cancel culture creates is very destructive of the “creative flow” and creativity generally, saying, “The enemy of creativity is interruption. And interruptions can come from inside, as well as outside. And if the moment you think of something you think, ‘Ooh, will that offend someone?,’ you’ve interrupted yourself and it will stop the creative flow.”
Cleese also noted that free speech, namely the ability to hear different perspectives and consider quite different viewpoints, has shaped him significantly. He said, describing how free speech has impacted his personality, “All moments in my life that have been important in forming my personality came when I suddenly had a realization that something I believed wasn’t the case. You can’t do that if the people around you are saying you can’t think like that.”
Returning to how the “totalitarian” firings that can happen with cancel culture stops people from thinking about or listening to new ideas, Cleese said, “A lot of people are very frightened of getting fired, and that’s awful, getting fired. There’s good and bad in all of us, and the moment you think you’re more perfect than you are, then that’s trouble … That’s why all this virtue signaling is so foolish now … they also need to know they have a nasty streak too.”
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Watch Cleese here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video