Remember how in 2012 Cleese made fun of America's Fox News, claiming those involved in said channel were stupid and had no idea how stupid they were? What a difference a decade and a bit makes when Cleese now works for the equally stupid British Fox equivalent, GBN. I do hope he spends his 30 pieces of silver wisely.
GBNews made Cleese an offer he couldn't refuse. Cleese expressed his disapproval of GBN hiring Boris but it didn't stop him joining the team. Money speaks louder than conviction.
Money shows a persons true colours and clesses are nasty and rancid ie he hides in plain sight.
John himself supposedly said "the term snowflake is used by sociopaths to discredit empathy"
The irony is pretty big here
It's been a thing of national sorrow to see this once daringly anti-establishment, ground-breaking funnyman decline into a boring, embittered tax avoider.
Absolutely. Vintage Cleese made you proud to be British. Modern Cleese brings snarky narcissists out of the woodwork.
The pompous, smug, waffling prat used to be a staple of British comedy - and a good one. Peter Cook, Terry-Thomas, Graham Chapman's army general in Python, the neighbours (the Ledbetters) in The Good Life, pretty much the entire cast of Wodehouse...
The understanding was always that these entertaining comedians are precisely NOT the pompous twits they portray. And they mined the accent, the overloaded classical education for all the puns, misunderstandings and other comedic nuggets.
But Cleese has BECOME the very thing he once mocked. Dull, selfish, vain, narrow-minded. The poison of the worldview he once transformed into enjoyable ridicule is no longer being transformed, but presented witlessly by an arrogant bore.
This is just an example of how getting old can lead to a genuine disconnect to the present
He's a hypocrite. Ardent brexxie whingeing about too many 'forrinners' AKA immigrants in London - then he himself moves to some Caribbean island - being an immigrant.
Would the old BNP leader Nick Griffin have;
1. Appointed Sunak, Patel, Braverman, Kwarteng, Javid, Zahawi, Badenoch etc.? I'm saying No.
2. Would Nick Griffin have presided over record legal immigration into this Country? I'm saying No and in fact he proposed a repatriation programme.
3. Would Nick Griffin have diverted the Border Force, RNLI and Royal Navy into French waters to taxi illegal migrants attempting to invade our borders onto British shores and then put them up in 4 start hotels all expenses paid? I'm saying No.
4. Would Nick Griffin have presided over the whitewashing of the Grooming Gang reports as the Tories did? I'm saying No.
Compared to the rest of the Pythons, Cleese's humour was always angry and nasty. He has just got angrier over the years
Cleese recently appeared in a Roman Polanski movie, so he can spare me the moral indignation about other people's decisions.
He’s become a frustrated angry old man… like Basil Fawlty!
Basil would definitely have ranted about brexit and ‘woke’ too. Sad John Cleese can’t see he’s become what he used to send up.
Poor man has completely lost touch, starting with the entire concept of "woke," a word he can't define yet it absolutely outrages him.
Stan : It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.
Reg : But... you can't have babies!
Stan : Don't you oppress me!
Reg : I'm not oppressing you, Stan! You haven't got a womb! Where's the foetus going to gestate? You going to keep it in a box?
Stan : [starts to cry]
oh he gets it. The world appears to have turned into a bizzare Monty Python sketch.
JC is the worse type of Python. Clinging on to old concepts.
Choking progress, because he is seen as not funny now, due to being not funny, too angry & cantankerous
So we have to be careful of what we say because it might offend someone... That is a very bad premise right there. And yes, that is censorship. Ppl are always going to say something that could offend someone else. This is life and honestly ppl have to learn to live with it. You don't have to listen to that person if it bothers you, that is ultimately your choice. But no, this does lead to authoritarianism when we police what people can say, regardless of the reason or for "morality". John was quite wise in his assessment which comes from many years of experience.
Someone show Mr Cleese a minstrel comedy, on stage in front of an audience. Then ask him if he thinks it is funny to call people racist names and mock black people. Hopefully he will say no, and then he can join the rest of us on the right side of history and embrace being woke.
For the past few years John has been going around constantly saying things like you cant tell jokes any more. Which i find bizzare because the guy could tell jokes to stadiums full of people if he wanted to.. but he preferes to spend his time pretending he's being sensored by "the left" lets just hope he doesnt comment on any female journalists on his show or it'll be GBNews sensoring him...
I think the issue has gone way too far on both sides, and tbh I find myself in the personally uncommon position of disagreeing with you here. I agreed with the original point of 'woke' when it comes to treating people with respect, something that I do as a default position and was taught to do so by my parents. I've never had an issue with race, gender, sexuality or even political view, and have no problem engaging with people who have a different point of view from my own. In fact, I find it endlessly interesting and enganging. However, it seems to be that this is not recipricated by the outspoken 'woke' community, who leap at the chance to label somebody x, y, z or dispicable just because they don't think the same way as they do on a particular issue. An example that comes to mind was that of a trans waiter who lost their shit because the person they were serving addressed them with the wrong pronoun, as if they were supposed to know without being told or the Canadian law being changed to force people to use specific pronouns. To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, I don't care what toys you play with in your house, but don't come round to mine and force me to play with them. The speed at which people become offended at something has fuelled this situation to the point were nobody has the chance to discuss the issue before they are labelled, cancelled and villified. I think this is the problem at the moment and both sides need to take a breath and look at THEIR position - woke, right, left upside down - and see how they can rectify the hostilities without falling back on the tired troupe of just being offended all the time. Quite frankly it's boring and untimately childish.
He's just bitter his popularity and work has reduced considerably, that's just life and people have moved on or not subscribed to him. It's so easy to explain it away with people being "woke".
Just about money. Saw him 10+ years ago on his so-called "Alimony Tour" where the central gag was that he toured because his ex shafted him. GBN now helping him out in the same way.
John Cleese needs to be treated with respect when he disagrees with you. Tolerance is about tolerating the people you fundamentally disagree with. Only tolerating the people you already agree with isn't tolerance. None of this really matters until you start putting people in prison or firing them from their jobs. Then it is not about common decency it is about control.
John Cleese had a role in the movie 'The Palace', the latest movie directed by Roman Polanski. I watched clips of this movie and it is very sneering and disrespectful to animals and people who care for animals. In 1977 Polanski admitted to drugging and having unlawful sex with a 13 year old girl. He fled the US to escape prosecution. He has in recent times been the target of the Me Too movement and three years ago there was a walk out at he Cesar movie awards when he won best director. It seems that his latest movie was his two fingers to the movie industry and a p*ss take of certain people he is angry with. I am not a huge Monty Python fan but always enjoyed Faulty Towers. I found it disappointing that John Cleese chose to be a part of The Palace.
Cleese suffers from the nearly unavoidable condition of Being an Old Fart. He grew up in a certain era and one can’t always adapt with the times on all fronts.As much as he’s out his foot in his mouth over the past several years, I speculate that he could be convinced to think otherwise by a grandchild or younger relative whom he’d engage with. Or maybe I just want to cut him some slack because of his past performances.
I think John would have been fully onboard with “Woke” (whatever that is) back in his day. But, I think that “Woke” (whatever that is) might have meant something considerably different back in the 60s, 70s and 80s. I also think that if we had been using this term, “Woke” back in the day, (whatever that is) I can easily imagine that the Python team would have been considered “Woke”, except that back in those days there was not the rightwing prevalence to complain about “Woke”, (whatever that is) for it is they who invented the term in order to have something to direct their unmitigated aggression against.
It also worries me that dear old John, (love his work) now 84, (sorry for being ageist) might not quite fully comprehend, what with the political climate being so different now compared to what it was only 13 years ago, what he’s got himself involved with.
Say about having a discussion, and when the conversation doesn't go their way, they shove their fingers in their ears and start shouting louder and claim the victory.
John Cleese, once a respected comedian, now performs mainly as an irrelevant joke.
His attitude is typical of people who refuse to recognise that society has evolved whether they wanted it to or not; the 'anti Woke' hysteria is nothing more than a wish to return to 'the Old Days', when insult and abuse could more easily masquerade as 'edgy comedy'.See Ricky Gervase of late.
John Cleese don't accept rules, whatever the principle behind.
It can be draped in a flag, it can be guided by a cross, it can be embeded in a code for decency, whatever, he doesn't want it. I second that, no rules change people's mind. Yet, I'm surprised to see him on GB news
I get that wokeism is annoying, with its preachy attitude. But I don't see how it's a major problem. Here's the thing: yes, in a normal system there is debate, but what is there to debate with people who constantly insult you? Remember when Braverman mocked the other side as avocado toast eating wokeratti? That means there's nothing to discuss with her for the other side. Debate isn't forced on people, they need to desire it, to be motivated to seek it. Someone's free speech isn't anyone else's obligation to listen or engage with them. If side A says something, side B doesn't have to answer or discuss the matter and vice versa. It's people like Trump trolling his opponents, giving them nicknames who have shut down any normal discussion.
Buzzword diarrhea of the mouth, rendered so meaningless by overuse it has become a verbal tick.
The problem with woke is that it can't be defined and it becomes an imaginary big tent. However, there is undoubtedly an authoritarian element about people advocating particular viewpoints. It comes from labels and goes something like this: you label something as unacceptable and then label everyone with that label if they disagree with you. It isn't wrong to express concern about the unquestioning acceptance of a child's expression of gender confusion but debate is closed off by labelling those doing the questioning as transphobic. Discussion is terminated because it is obviously wrong. This isn't confined just to the left. It's a cancer of people inhabiting bubbles with their hands over their ears calling people names. The tactic covers the gamut of ideas about everything. People have become unable to sit down and talk with people they disagree with. It isn't healthy. I don't know what woke is but I know we shouldn't live in bubbles guarded by insults.
JC's point is a valid one. The problem is his ascribing this intransigence to "the woke". Firstly, as you correctly point out, he seems unclear as to exactly which group he's talking about, and secondly, the intransigence he describes is not a characteristic of just one group, but rather can be found across the political spectrum, and beyond. It is just as much a feature of the hard right, for example.
The real problem is absolute certainty; the notion that I believe something that absolutely must be true, and cannot possibly be wrong. This is an incredibly dangerous notion, as it is then a very short step from seeing those who disagree with me as being wrong, to seeing them as being evil, since only a wilfully evil person could possibly reject a truth that absolutely must be correct.
It is also then another short step to oppressing those who disagree with me, and forcing them to accept my beliefs, since those beliefs are necessarily and absolutely correct.
This has always been the problem with religion; not the beliefs themselves so much as the certainty with which they are held, and the disease of absolute certainty has now migrated to the political sphere.
JC is right in saying that it poses a threat to democracy. He's just wrong in suggesting that it is a feature of one group alone.
Unfortunately the guy's been falling down this rabbit hole for a few years now. Right-Wing news outlets, tabloids etc. really can seep into every part of society to try and turn us all against each other. It requires acknowledgement, then strength, then acceptances to come back from a spiral like that.
People also fall down the left-wing rabbit hole that turns them against other people. Its important we don’t ‘pick a side’ and instead look at everything objectively and rationally
One thing we're all taught from an early age is – simply “Be Kind”.
Well, I don't think it was very kind of the 'American Humanist Association' to withdraw their award for 'Humanist of the year' (of 1996) to the well known Biologist Richard Dawkins.
Their reason...?? Well, he did pose a question in a tweet that he once wrote, which said... “Some men choose to identify as woman, and some woman choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as..... Discuss”.
And he was absolutely proven right about that. You will be.
You will be labelled.
Let's get to the point. If someone disagrees with – lets say, a man - when that man says he's a woman – and you suggest that actually, I have to disagree with you.... that's enough for you to be labelled as transphobic or a bigot, or any other “unkind” words (or accusations) that “they” may feel entitled to throw at you.
So, just the act of questioning their 'belief' is enough to trigger a dramatic response.
But it goes further than that. It's sometimes more than “unkind” words, or anger, or accusations of bigotry. Because, what can and does happen, is that you could be 'cancelled' – you could lose your job. Your career may be severely jeopardised. Then you might lose friends. You could lose your livelihood.
And herein lies the issue. There used to be a time when there were just two genders.
And then, not that long ago there were three... (male, female, transgender). And if you weren't a bigoted Transphobe or a Homophobe, there wasn't any issue with that. Now, however, things have got very complicated. And out of hand.
We now have a situation where people don't know how to define what a woman is... and men saying they're female – when they simply are nothing of the sort. I believe most 'ordinary' (or “kind”) people would have no issue with anyone who called themselves 'Transgender'. But there are now numerous pronouns that we are all expected to remember, and, we are having to accept some men as literally woman, and some boys as girls, or people who are a bit in between. And if one decides not to play the game, you'll be punished – to some degree.
Why should people like John Cleese get so many incredibly bitchy and negative comments for his opinion??
And, is it all really justified?
Is J K Rowling an unkind Bigot?
Does Graham Linehan (comedy writer) deserve to be 'cancelled'?
Did Jordan Peterson deserve to nearly lose his career as a University Professor due to his disagreement with the University's imposed mandatory use of the right pronouns whenever they were required?
And then there are all the non 'famous' people, who's stories we don't get to hear about.
And this is all because they questioned this very new phenomenon....
…. Which is the apparent 'RIGHT' for a person to self identify with whatever they wish to self identify as, and that everyone around them has no say but to wholeheartedly go along with it.
If that cannot now be questioned, or debated - then, that is 'Authoritarianism' – when you account for the repercussions for doing so.
And this, it would seem to me anyway, is what Woke is.
It is no longer a word to describe someone whom subscribes to common decency. The word itself has morphed into this all encompassing meaning to be Politically Correct. But....
… A perfectly reasonable sane person can be politically correct.
But it is now possible to be insanely Politically Correct.
So, to me, (and I'm sure most people would agree), that the word 'Woke' is to be Politically Correct to the extreme.
So, we are, in effect, dealing with extremism.
So, Woke is Dogma.
So, you can't have it both ways.
If the Woke were these ultra compassionate people, how truly compassionate are they if they're responsible for the 'shutting down' and the 'cancellation' of the people who pose questions?
I, personally have nothing against transexuals, (as I'm sure all of these 'cancelled' people don't have either). But we're living in dangerous times if we can't even question this whole idea of self identity - for fear of being cancelled or labelled as 'evil' – or 'not playing the game of 'common decency'.
I just feel sorry for the students these days... especially those studying Biology AND Sociology....who would so-oo need to say (and write) the right things in their Sociology classes (in order to fit in – and have a quiet life) - whilst thinking in completely different terms in their Biology class...... or vice versa.
Respect is earned and shouldn't be demanded. I am of the left and almost all of my friends are left leaning and believe in common decency. On the gender side of things, for the tiny minority that aren't hetero and genuinely so, it's not an issue, we agree on identity and get on with our lives...been like that for decades.. However, there is that one person on the fringes who is now weaponising common decency, not to genuinely fight for trans rights, which most of us already support, but because they always had chip on their shoulder. That one person, more recently, found an ideology that they could hide behind and cause nothing but trouble in the battle for respect, in that it was demanded. We all backed off and now we just don't talk about these important issues anymore, it's just too risky and that's a real shame.John Cleese is a total right wing gammon
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