Monty Python's Terry Gilliam: Catholicism "more entertaining" than "close minded" cancel culture

Veteran entertainer and comedian Terry Gilliam likened wokeness to a new religion with “only one truth and one way of looking at the world” after he was “canceled” over comments he made about transgenderism and the #MeToo movement.

Gilliam, 81, made the point in an interview with The Times of London – his first since November, when the Old Vic theater canceled his upcoming production of Into the Woods after staff complained about him encouraging his Facebook followers to watch Dave Chappelle’s Netflix special, which some have criticized as transphobic.

“I refer to them as Neo-Calvinists,” he says of the disgruntled staff who lobbied management to drop his show.

“They are totally closed-minded. [To them] there is only one truth and one way of looking at the world. Well, ‘fuck you!’ is my answer to them.”

Gilliam gained fame as the lone American member of British comedy troupe Monty Python, which he initially joined as an animator, before transitioning into solo filmmaking. He is now better known as the director of 13 films including Brazil, 12 Monkeys and Time Bandits, and dabbles in theatre and opera.

Other actions that irked the disgruntled staff included his lampooning of identity politics by claiming he was a black lesbian, and his calling #MeToo a “witch hunt,” according to The Times.

And he doesn’t regret anything he has said.

“When I announced [I was actually a] black lesbian, the anger was not from LGBT people or black people,” he told The Times. “It was from people who felt they had to defend these victims of Gilliam’s joke, the ‘activists’. They love the idea of other people’s victimhood so they can be defenders.”

“I think it’s very sad,” Gilliam adds of the dilemma Old Vic management faced. “They allowed a small group of kids to dictate to them or to intimidate them. We know there’s a feeling of guilt — the [source of that] guilt just arrived back in the country.”

He is referring to actor Kevin Spacey, artistic director of London’s Old Vic theater from 2003 to 2015, who was charged with four counts of sexual assault stemming from incidents during his tenure.

A investigation by the theater in Nov. 2017 uncovered 20 testimonies of “alleged sexual misbehavior” relating to Spacey.

Gilliam rejected his Christian upbringing “when the people in church didn’t find [his] jokes about God funny,” saying he could not believe in any god without a sense of humor.

He told The Times he sees wokeness as another religion, for similar reasons.

But Gilliam has a soft spot for Catholicism from the time he spends at his vacation home in Italy.

“It’s more entertaining. I like saints: each one has a story. And it’s so good, you go into a little booth and say, ‘I committed this sin,’ get a little blessing and you don’t have to pay for Freudian psychologists. It’s much cheaper and it works. The Catholic church is more open-minded towards humanity and its flaws,” he said.

Gilliam’s production of Into the Woods was picked up by the Theatre Royal Bath, where it will open on August 17.