John Cleese Removes Slurs from Fawlty Towers Stage Play: “The Literal-Minded Don’t Understand Irony”
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The post John Cleese Removes Slurs from Fawlty Towers Stage Play: “The Literal-Minded Don’t Understand Irony” appeared first on Consequence.
Not to be outdone by Jerry Seinfeld, John Cleese has come out (once again) with his own statements against political correctness and “the literal-minded.” Interestingly, the comments arrive as the Monty Python comic seemingly bows to “the literal-minded,” as he’s stated that his upcoming Fawlty Towers stage play will not include any racial slurs, as reported by Variety.
The upcoming London West End adaptation of Fawlty Towers centers around three of the ’70s sitcom’s original episodes: “The Hotel Inspector,” “Communication Problems,” and “The Germans.” In the latter, both the N-word and a derogatory term for Indians was used. Cleese, who was a writer on the show and helmed the adaptation, has said he’s cut the scenes from the play, though he doesn’t seem too pleased about it.
Speaking at the launch of Fawlty Towers — The Play, Cleese said, “Those scenes where the Major used a couple of words you can’t use now, racial slurs they would come under, we took them out.”
“There’s always a problem with comedy that you deal with the literal-minded,” he continued. “Whenever you’re doing comedy, you’re up against the literal-minded, and the literal-minded don’t understand irony. And that means if you take them seriously, you get rid of a lot of comedy. Because literal-minded people don’t understand metaphor, irony or comic exaggeration. People who are not literal-minded can see there’s various different interpretations, depending on different contexts.”
This isn’t the first time “The Germans” has come under fire, nor is it the first time Cleese has defended the episode’s content. In 2020, UKTV removed the episode due to the racially insensitive language, a move Cleese lambasted.
“If you put nonsense words into the mouth of someone you want to make fun of, you’re not broadcasting their views, you’re making fun of them,” he said at the time. “The major was an old fossil left over from decades before. We were not supporting his views, we were making fun of them. If they can’t see that, if people are too stupid to see that, what can one say?”
In the past few years, Cleese has made several statements regarding what he perceives to be a “disastrous” comedy culture. In 2020, he defended J.K. Rowling’s transphobic tirades, adding, “I’m afraid I’m not that interested in trans people.”
The following year, Cleese announced that he was developing a show about cancel culture for UK’s Channel 4, though as Deadline reported last month, John Cleese: Cancel Me seems to have been canceled itself. He then blasted “woke rules” in response to Cambridge University blacklisting Andrew Graham-Dixon after giving a speech in which he impersonated Adolf Hitler
More recently, Cleese was a keynote speaker at the Fox News-backed FreedomFest, where he discussed (you guessed it) cancel culture and wokeness.
Previews for Fawlty Towers — The Play kick off on May 4th at London’s Apollo Theatre. In addition to the stage adaptation, Cleese has announced that he will write and star in a Fawlty Towers revival series in collaboration with his daughter Camilla.
John Cleese Removes Slurs from Fawlty Towers Stage Play: “The Literal-Minded Don’t Understand Irony”
Jonah Krueger
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