Judging from their merciless mocking of the destitute, brutal takedowns of Sesame Street, and jaw-dropping feats of racial stereotyping, the folks at Fox News don’t seem to possess anything approximating a sense of humor. At the very least, they certainly don’t seem to recognize when others are just joking around, as was the case a few days back when the state propaganda cable news network showed off their lack of comedy knowledge by mistaking someone’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference on Reddit as an actual dispatch from BLM protests in Seattle.
As noted by numerous people on Twitter, a recent segment airing on Fox News’ The Story referenced a Redditor who spoke of “infighting” and “signs of rebellion” among protestors. “I didn’t vote for Raz [Simone]. I thought we were an autonomous collective?” someone wrote on a now-deleted post in reference to leadership roles undertaken by the activist-musician. “An anarcho-syndicalist commune at the least. We should take turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.”
It’s pretty clear why Fox News anchors would latch onto a quote like this, as phrases like “anarcho-syndicalist commune” are just the kind of red-baiting chum thrown out for their viewers to gobble up on a daily basis. Of course, if anyone read just a little further on the screengrab, they’d notice the author arguing that no one could “simply expect to wield supreme executive power just because someone threw a sword at him.” My God, does antifa have swords now?
Yesterday, John Cleese apparently got wind of the segment, and tweeted what most of us already assumed: No one at Fox News possesses the slightest sense of humor, nor has anyone over there ever seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Watch the scene being referenced below.
We’re not gonna be snobs over here and hold it against them for missing a reference to a cornerstone of film comedy. Everyone has different tastes, and that’s totally cool. That said, we are gonna rag on them for not conducting even the slightest bit of fact-checking before the segment aired. Then again, how often are they doing that, anyway?
In any case, they should still give the film a shot! It holds up remarkably well, and, to be fair, “Help! Help! I’m being repressed!” is kinda Fox News’ whole motto right now.
Just ask Sean Hannity:
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67 Comments
Maybe Faux News relates to slapstick comedy? They seem to have plenty of heavily pancaked clowns on the air.
There’s slapstick in Python, too.
Maybe Faux News relates to slapstick comedy? They seem to have plenty of heavily pancaked clowns on the air.
I can imagine that most of the folks working at Fox News find Benny Hill fucking hilarious.
“We interrupt this program to annoy you and make things generally more irritating.”I mean.. come on FOX News, if you’re going to steal from Monty Python… it’s right in front of your face.
no it isn’t.
Yeah, yeah, Holy Grail is great, but is there anything we can do to trick them into watching Life of Brian?
That would send their base into a crazed frenzy.
Duh-doy.
He’s not the Messiah, he’s just a fucking demented narcissistic cheeto.
I think it was “Blessed are the hydroxychloroquine-makers.”
I don’t think that was meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manufacturers of dangerous COVID-19 misinformation.
No way. They’re all individuals.
Yes, we are all individuals.
Sean Hannity’s not.
Blessed are the easy marks, there is one of them born every minute!
this is now my most favorite gif of all time
I hear the Seattle People’s Front and the People’s Front of Seattle aren’t fond of each other.
Well, they’ve mistaken someone for the Messiah so they’re kinda living it.
What would FOX News do with a story about the Judean People’s Front?
What’s so funny about Biggus Dickus? I have a vewy gweat fwiend in Wome called Biggus Dickus.
what’s the point? these are people who are impressed by the way donald trump talks real good like a fancy big shot tough guy. i think monty python would pop a couple fuses.
Why doesn’t he have notes or a teleprompter? Confident that, in the moment, he could think of two real crimes?
On second thought, let’s not turn on Fox News. ‘Tis a silly place.
if only it were only a model
Trump was just doing the bit from The Ministry of Silly Walks down the ramp. Proof he’s not an geriatric sundowning morbidly obese man afraid of stairs and declining planes.
I’m waiting for him to do the Mr Creosote bit.
And finally, monsieur, a wafer thin mint!
“Fuck off, I’m full”…. something Trump has never said.
My favorite bit from Trump is the Insanely Loud Noise Press Conference:
WHAT WAS YOUR QUESTION?! I CAN’T HEAR YOUR OVER THE SOUND OF THIS HELICOPTER THAT I ALWAYS POSITION HERE SO I CAN PRETEND I DON’T HEAR YOUR QUESTIONS!!!
The Google search algorithim is pretty robust. The literal 10 seconds it would take to copy/paste the subject phrases will bring up the exact source reference in the first 100,000,000 results.Though, this if a much more fun outcome.
Socrates is a real stretch because a) we don’t have any primary knowledge of his own philosophy except that it pointedly did not reflect the mores of his society, and b) at least as related in Plato, Socrates found most-to-all (depending on interpretation) slavery unjust.
Don’t go too far out on that plank. Also according to Plato, Socrates advocated for a dictatorship in which every citizen’s role was determined at birth by their genetic capacity – soldiers are born to be soldiers, philosophers are born to be philosophers, and so on, and they should breed with one another in order to further develop these genetic markers. That school produced Aristotle, who was a plain and open advocate for slavery on grounds of genetic superiority. Even giving him the benefit of the doubt, it’s highly unlikely that Socrates was significantly elevated above that baseline.
That was also in 350BCE instead of 19th century CE. So western civilization had the entire time to go into the dark ages, “discover” humanism, and then apply humanistic principles only to white men of property, and then pretend they changed that and now here we are. Basically I’m giving Plato/Aristotle a bit of a pass due to the time period, whereas if you were a slave-owner in the 1800’s there is no excuse at all especially since it was post- “enlightenment” and all. So I am totally down for removing statues of Confederate generals or slave traders in Britain etc. because at some point every civilization has used slavery but only the US really kept up that level of racially deterministic slavery that deep into the 19th century.
It’s a real stretch if you think recognitions wants to engage you in an actual philosophical and historical discussion of the ancient Greeks.
He’s English, and doesn’t understand the sheer stupidity and racism of the South who wants to keep said statues. He also has a valid point unfortunately: there are statues of people from those times that are very problematic.
If the confederates had won, they could keep the statues.
And they didn’t, so tough crap to them and their participation trophies. Did I mention I really, really dislike the Stars and Bars and Southern statues?
We just need to arc weld LOSER across all of them. And glue a second place trophy in their hands.
YES. That is so perfect.
And, after all, we have so many statues in public parks honoring the ancient greeks? It’s totally apples to oranges. Besides which, the bits we respect those ancient philosophers for is their plays, math, and other intellectual work. The primary thing that those traitorous participation trophies are celebrating is the treason and bigotry itself. I wasn’t sure if you were posting that to point out that Cleese also has a lot of bad ideas (not terribly shocking), or because you agree with it, but his point makes no sense.
Maybe this is why Muslims do not allow statues or paintings of anyone at all. But to the point here, we have such statues and images of (what we imagine is) Satan, for example. As a Christian I have no problem with it, as it represents something evil.
I don’t think Cleese is arguing in favour of 20th century Confederate propaganda statues. The UK has plenty of statues of dead racists (along with plenty of towns and streets and such named after them) to have removed themselves. I know of one for a Scottish politician, Henry Dundas, who was instrumental in obstructing the abolition of slavery, which has had outcry to have removed (on account of living on a street named after him, despite him having bugger all to do with my city’s history, that people also want renamed).It’s still a bad take on Cleese’s behalf, it’s just a microscopically more nuanced one than the US-centric take.
Right, that was silly of me to assume he wasn’t talking about debates closer to home (his I mean). Still, as you say, not a very solid argument on his part. 🙂
The bigger problem is this men were known for other things. The founding fathers had slaves and were had other accomplishments.As far as I can tell, those Confederates were mostly famous for being Confederates. Had one of them cured cancer and believed in slavery you may have an argument.
Trust me, it’s not my argument
Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed
A lovely little thinker
But a bugger when he’s pissed
good question…I have a follow-up…should we leave up the statues of Civil War generals who fought to not only break up the United States but to maintain their right to own slaves, and also serve as another daily reminder to some people of their perpetual second-class status in America? Because one of these is pretty clear to me. It’s disappointing to see someone like John Cleese employing the “slippery slope/where do we draw the line?” argument favored by Fox News because the answer should be, “we need to draw the line somewhere, and it’s definitely before Civil War generals”.
I’m not sure if Cleese is aware that these people are only famous because of the bad stuff they did. If Columbus had actually discovered America, and did so while everyone thought the Earth was flat, he would still deserve to be celebrated today. Leif Erikson probably has some literal skeletons in his closet, considering he used to be a Viking, but no one cares because he did step foot on America first.
It doesn’t even matter to them if it’s true. They got to use it to get their idiots all riled up, their work is done.
Fox News should have shown the Black Knight scene as an example of an Antifa attack.
“Come and see the violence inherent in the system!” would be more apropos, no?
Yeah… the writer’s equivocation of “Help! Help! I’m being repressed!” with the conservative position misreads the entire scene worse than the Fox News staff did.
What does he mean that Fox News has no sense of humor? Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity are the funniest characters out there! I didn’t think anyone could pretend to be an idiotic racist homophobic out-of-touch oblivious conservative better than Stephen Colbert used to, but they are nailing it!
Wait til Fox discovers what has happened to the lumberjack community after the Supreme Court LGBTQ+ ruling yesterday.
Fox thought they were so rugged!
And that’s ok
Fox News exists to sell itself, not to fact-check. Why should a news organisation bother with human decency? A question they could do with asking themselves.
It’s all shits and giggles until you remember Cleese himself is a Brexiter and part-time bigot.https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/may/29/john-cleese-criticised-for-saying-london-is-no-longer-an-english-city
I think we’d all do well to not ask a
How was the story even news to begin with? One person writes a post on Reddit and that’s reported on air??? That’s one of the most ridiculous parts of this affair and there are a lot of ridiculous parts.
Amen.
It would be nice to think the people responsible for reporting that as news had been fired.
I wish someone could pull off one of those TV network hacks you see in the movies and make the Fox News dullards watch Every Sperm is Sacred. Holy shit, it would be like the exploding heads scene at the end of the Kingsman (except not in multicolors because “they’re not into that sort of thing”).
Cleese: Do you do any fact checking at all?Fox: Not around these parts.Cleese: It’s the single most important activity of a news outlet!Fox: Not around these parts.