Monty Python Legend Warns ‘Hate Speech’ Laws ‘Disastrous to the Creative Process’.
Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images for the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival2:30
British comedy titan John Cleese has warned that even more restrictive hate speech laws, such as those proposed by the SNP administration in Scotland, will be “disastrous to the creative process”.
Appearing in an online debate hosted by Dr Simon Knight of the Academy of Ideas, the Monty Python legend was asked about such iconic moments in his career as the (in)famous “don’t mention the war” episode of Fawlty Towers — temporarily memory holed by the BBC-controlled UKTV streaming service earlier this year for “outdated language” — and whether they could be recreated today in a culture in which some judges have ruled that “context is irrelevant” in determining whether or not something constitutes “hate speech”.
“What kind of fetter would that place on the creative juices, the creative process if you had to start thinking everything through three or four times before you say them?” he was asked.
“Well, it’s disastrous to the creative process because the creative process above anything else is a matter of spontaneity,” Cleese said.
“I mean, if you’re going to come out with something really interesting artistically it’s going to come out of your unconscious, and if you’re having to edit everything you say before you say it then nothing it going to happen creatively — and also things that are rather lovely and funny in ordinary conversation, they’re not going to happen either, because everybody’s thinking ‘Ooh, somebody might [be offended]’,” he explained. Breitbart.
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