Former Monty Python members John Cleese and Eric Idle are working on a stage production of "The Life of Brian." Though I don't think anyone is a "former" Python member. Kinda like once a Marine, always a Marine. The story is based on the 1979 film satirizing the life of Jesus Christ. You can still do that in 2023. But the one thing you can't do in 2023 has been cut out of the play.

You can't mock men claiming they can have babies like they do here:

STAN: I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me 'Loretta'.

REG: What?!

LORETTA: It's my right as a man.

JUDITH: Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?

LORETTA: I want to have babies.

REG: You want to have babies?!

LORETTA: It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.

REG: But... you can't have babies.

LORETTA: Don't you oppress me.

REG: I'm not oppressing you, Stan. You haven't got a womb! -- Where's the fetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!

LORETTA: [crying]

In 1979, this was silliness. In 2023, it's a conversation between a woke activist and a normie on Twitter. Right after the woke activist celebrates the normie's daughter having her hopes and dreams crushed by a trans athlete.

John Cleese addressed the upcoming production while on tour and broke the news that the preceding scene has just been sacked. He had a read-through with New York actors. The words "New York" and "actors" give everything away.

At the end, I said to the American actors: 'What do you think?' And they said: 'We love the script, but you can't do that stuff about Loretta nowadays.

No one ever asks why. It's like when the say you can't make The Office today, even though it's still the most popular streamed show. WHY can't you do that stuff? Show your work.

So here you have something there's never been a complaint about in 40 years, that I've heard of, and now all of a sudden we can't do it because it'll offend people. What is one supposed to make of that? But I think there were a lot of things that were actually, in some strange way, predictive of what was actually going to happen later.

It is a shame that a small minority of Cleese-phobic activists have such veto power over what art does and doesn't get made or isn't allowed to be seen. Maybe one day, these people who do the sacking can be sacked themselves.

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Brodigan is Grand Poobah of this here website and when he isn't writing words about things enjoys day drinking, pro-wrestling, and country music. You can find him on the Twitter too.

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