Nonsense

         The major feature of Python humour is without any doubt nonsense. The group quickly became strongly associated with this form of humour to the point that many people might believe that nonsense is something specifically Python. However it would be completely erroneous to think that the Pythons were the precursors of this form of comedy.

         In fact, nonsense belongs to an old British tradition of humour and some people have traced its origins back to Shakespeare. If this can seem somewhat far-fetched, there are on the other hand obvious manifestations of nonsense in nineteenth century literature in England, particularly with authors such as Edward Lear or Lewis Carroll. The British Film Institute wrote :

      "When Monty Python's Flying Circus emptied onto the small screen in 1969 it was indeed something completely different - at least as far as television was concerned. But the forms of humour and grotesque which the Pythons introduced to television have a long and varied history in literature and art and have posed many fascinating problems for writers on aesthetics."[1]

          Thus nonsense is closely associated with art and literature and, more generally, with language. But more than just a play on words, nonsense is a voluntarily absurd way of thinking which sometimes renders it difficult to understand for some people. This raises the question - which could seem nonsensical but which is definitely not - of the "sense of nonsense".

                  a) The origins

         Thus and even if not exclusively British, nonsense belongs to a British tradition in literature and arts in general. Robert Benayoun believes that the origins of nonsense can be attributed to William Shakespeare. According to him, his use of farcical confidants holding a contradictory speech to themselves reveals a fundamental paradox : "If Shakespeare was actually one and only one person, he was certainly a great schizophrenic"[2]. It is true that certain scenes in Hamlet show a propensity for nonsense. Hamlet is, to some extent, a monologue in which the hero crystalizes the ideas of the author and plays all the characters on his own.

         It is the nineteenth century which represented the Golden Age of nonsense, best illustrated in literature by Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll.

         Edward Lear contributed to the awareness of nonsense. His graphic works initiated a new form of humour but maybe more important, he instituted the art of the limerick. This humorous or whimsical type of verse differed from other comic verses in its resistance to any rational or allegorical interpretation. Here is a limerick, taken from the Book of Nonsense, which is well representative of Lear's art. These comic verses were illustrated by his drawings :

"There was an Old Man who supposed

That the street door was partially closed;

But some very large rats

Ate his coats and his hats,

While that futile Old Gentleman dozed."[3]

         Absolute and pure nonsense became his essential objective. He soon had a strong influence on modern poetry and represented an absurd form of romanticism. His Book of Nonsense, published in 1846 provoked many reactions in England and Queen Victoria herself asked Lear for drawing lessons.

         Charles Lutwidge Dodgson - Lewis Carroll - also contributed to the expansion of nonsense. His famous Alice in Wonderland shows a world somewhat distant from the one we can observe in our everyday lives. Lewis Carroll also expressed a sense of utopian anarchy and social criticism which became later almost inevitably associated  with nonsense. This is more clearly present in Sylvie and Bruno than in Alice in Wonderland : the book begins with the bitter claim : "Less bread, more taxes!". Gilliam's film Jabberwocky is an indication of the influence that Lewis Carroll had on him and probably on Monty Python as a whole.

                  b) The sense of nonsense

         It is hardly possible to give a simple and complete definition of nonsense. The concept of nonsense is often illustrated by a man, standing upside down on his head, who keeps laughing. This is probably the best allegorical definition of nonsense ; the art of voluntarily observing the world upside down.

         It has long been considered as a childish attitude and, in fact, Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll aimed primarily at an increasing young readership. However, the art of nonsense also attracted more "serious" people in the 18th and 19th century such as Tennyson, Peacock, Longfellow, Thackeray, Coleridge, Keats, Burns, etc.

         Probably the most important thing to note about nonsense is that, contrary to what one might be tempted to believe, nonsense does not mean absence of meaning. If indeed nonsense can at first sight seem devoid of meaning, it has almost always a hidden significance. On the other hand, what nonsense does not possess is 'reason' or 'commonsense'. Thus, we must understand "sense" in "nonsense" as "direction" and not "significance". Nonsense doesn't have a clear direction - or has several at a time- which accounts for the fact that nonsense seldom reaches a conclusion. Nonsense is characterized by a kind of underlying anarchy. Anarchy in its form, but also often anarchy in its intention. It is sometimes said that nonsense manifests itself more frequently in times of economic recession and social crisis. It operates as a mean of escaping the gravity of the situation. Yet, as we mentioned earlier, the Pythons were all from the middle classes with nothing really serious to complain of. In Monty Python, it can be considered as an attempt to control and exorcise the terrifying elements of the world by answering existentialist questions by humour rather than vain philosophical reflections. This is best illustrated by the song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" sung by the crucified victims at the end of The Life of Brian. [4]Of course, this existentialism was extended to a criticism of Man and of all the rules, institutions or codes of behaviour he has himself established. Reviewing The Life of Brian, David Robinson made an assertion which, in my opinion, sums up perfectly the Python aproach to conventions :

     "The British Board of Film Censors presumably acknowledges that the Monty Python lot were put upon this earth to challenge conventional notions of good and bad taste, and all those other presumptions and institutions of our society - from sexual habits and polite patterns of speech to party politics - that we all take ordinarily too much for granted."[5]

         It is doubtful however any Python fans are aware of the mind-liberating effect that such an approach to life provides to the spectator. Yet, it is, in my opinion, the main reason which allows one either to enjoy Monty Python a lot or not at all. The acceptance of the fact that all the conventions we usually accept as they are should be systematically put into question, is absolutely determining in the understanding of Python humour. Monty Python used nonsense as a means of presenting the world in a new light, yet without falsifying it. This was rendered more efficient by their conventional and respectable Strand Banker-like appearance and their acting, half loony, half dismayed by the abdsurdities of life.

          However, all the material in Monty Python does not deal with existential questions of prime importance. As a way of envisaging Man's futility as a whole, Python humour is likely to turn into absurd every little aspect of our everyday lives. One good example of this is the "Cheese Shop" sketch which simply consists of a man entering a cheese shop and enumerating the names of various cheeses and finally shooting the shopkeeper because he has no cheese, declaring : "What a senseless waste of human life".

         Thus Monty Python did not invent nonsense and this form of humour has a long tradition in art and literature. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that Monty Python played an important role in the reviving of this form of humour by bringing to the television medium, thus reaching a much larger audience than the readership of nonsense literature.

                  c) A tool of satire and provocation

         As we said, nonsense is often associated with anarchy and satire. But some people consider nonsense as a useful and necessary component of democracy :

      "The ambition to create nonsense is powerfully good for society. Nonsense is sometimes seen as a permanent process of putting-in-question the hierarchies, rigidities and illusions from which no society is exempt."[6]

         It soon became clear for the Pythons that one of the ways to get a laugh is to surprise or to shock. The Pythons were quick to exploit the possibilities of bad language, sex and comic violence. When working on their scripts, their first audience was themselves and it was certainly a very hard-to-shock audience. The rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge coupled with jealousy lead to wounding comments on the work of each other especially from Cleese and Chapman, who, educated in Cambridge, celebrated their verbal skills.

         The consequence of this was that, since a tough audience demands strong material, there was always a drive towards producing something that went further, something that made fewer and fewer concessions to the rules of behaviour. However, the Pythons always denied any conscious decision to challenge systematically every convention one after another. Still, it is not surprising that the Pythons should be accused of being anarchic since it is clear that they always rejected every kind of authority, hierarchy, or establishment. Penelope Gilliatt, reviewing And Now For Something Completely Different wrote :

      "The World of And Now for Something Completely Different is all on the side of liberty, and notes with a basilisk eye any incursions of English authoritarianism […]. Nothing is sacrosanct in And Now For Something Completely Different…least of all patriotism and any sort of bigotry"[7]

         John Cleese has sometimes been considered as having an "anti-system", "anti-values" reaction to society, paralleling Gilliam's scorn for beauty and health.

         That's what William Davis noted in the Daily Telegraph :

         "He went to public school, and thinks that a good deal of the Monty Python comedy comes from a reaction against the system. "Looking back I see a whole set of values being imposed on me which I must have absorbed and not questioned, for at least another three of four years." He certainly questions them now - though he maintains that, far from being a self-confident rebel, he is ridden with self-doubt and is very vulnerable."[8]

                All the other members of the group, except for Terry Gilliam, came from the same sort of strata and their feelings are probably best expressed by the "Twit of the Year Contest" sketch. In this sketch, "an excellent twit beats a boy to death at Eton for being middle class". The sketch is certainly more than just comedy for the sake of entertaining the audience ; it is pure satire. Still, this sketch is one of the very few in the Flying Circus to bear a clear social criticism.

         Unlike shows that imitated Monty Python in the 70's and the 80's, the Flying Circus almost never referred to precise social events but always criticised more generally the absurdities of civilized societies. As we have already pointed out, this accounts for the fact that Monty Python can hardly go out of fashion. For example, if we consider Not the Nine O'Clock News, shown on French television starting on Saturday 6th, 1996, although it was inspired by the Flying Circus and created ten years after it, in 1979, it does not benefit from the same modernity. The reason is that, unlike Monty Python's Flying Circus, Not the Nine O'Clock News often referred to current events in Britain or to personalities of the moment. As a consequence, in 1996, some of the sketches have lost their impact, in spite of the efforts that have been made to rearrange and bring the subtitles up to date for French television.   

         On the contrary, most of the material by the Pythons has a more universal target ; not so much the defects of a particular society than the absurdities of mankind as a whole. Thus Monty Python always attacked the most elementary beliefs and values of men such as religious beliefs, education, politics…or anything which is usually accepted as established, even notions of good and bad taste. Thus, the Pythons often took aim at religion with the use of caricature and parody. They often dealt with crackpot religions and their leaders such as "The Lunatic Religion" which believes in the power of prayer to turn the head purple or Archbishop Gumby who believes in peace and bashing two bricks together. The most obvious example is certainly the film The Life of Brian. This film was, by far, the most controversial of the Python productions, but what is interesting to note is that almost every religion felt offended by the film. The reason is probably that the film is not a critique of any religion in particular but that it points out the futility  of trying to find a rational answer to our existential questions. This is also what comes out of The Meaning of Life.[9]

         As for putting into question notions of good taste, the Pythons certainly demonstrated that one could have been educated in Oxford and Cambridge and behave in the most vulgar manner. This is well exemplified by the sketch entitled "The Most Awful Family in Britain". In addition to this, none of the Pythons had any qualms about taking their clothes off, as long as it was likely to engender indignation. Graham Chapman appears in full frontal nudity in The Life of Brian. More provocative is Terry Jones's performances as the organist in the nude for there is no apparent purpose for this nudity other than just shocking people. Possibly even more provocative is John Cleese's practical sex lesson in The Meaning of Life.

         This also raises the question of the recurrence of drag performances in Monty Python's Flying Circus but also in the Python films. The Pythons themselves often joked about their penchant for dressing-up like women[10]. Drag humour has long been a staple of British comedy. As we mentioned before, the tradition of revues in Oxford and Cambridge seldom included women in the cast. The other reason why the Pythons played many of the women's roles themselves is because most of them were far from glamorous. They considered they could play such comic and grotesque roles better than women could themselves do. On the other hand they took Carol Cleveland and other women for more feminine roles. Thus, if the image of women depicted by Monty Python is not really glamorous, it is probably not worse than the image of men and there does not seem to be any sexist explanation to the fact that few real women acted in the show.