The 2011 Summer Re-watch: Monty Python's Flying Circus "Sex and Violence"

I wrote about the first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus a few months ago because I love the series. I thoroughly enjoyed writing about "Whither Canada?" and assumed I'd write about the series more but I wrote about medicore network television series instead. As I brainstormed content for the summer months, I somehow forgot about Monty Python's Flying Circus. So, now, Flying Circus joins the summer re-watch rotation. I plan on writing about the first series (or season) because it's only seven episodes (and I've only six more to write about). You can read my post on "Whither Canada?" by clicking this very sentence you just finished reading.

Monty Python's Flying Circus is deceptive in a way. Beneath the absurdity, non-sequitors and stream-of-consciousness is structure and linear meaning. "Whither Canada?" was about artist pretension. "Sex and Violence" is about the reversal of one's identity. Yes, the episode's very silly. There are silly sketches but the episode's about the reversal of one's identity nonetheless. Sheep want to be birds. Men want to be mice. A poet wants his working class son to join him in the arts trade. Arthur Pewty wants to become an active husband rather than the passive one who allowed his wife to fornicate with other men, including the marriage counselor the two went for counseling. Queen Victoria's not the regal figure depicted in the history books. Rather, she's a character from a 1930s slapstick silent film--creating mischief and high jinks in the royal backyard. The Queen enjoyed hose tricks more than ruling the majority of the rest of the world.

Stream-of-consciousness storytelling's bound to fail without structure and purpose. Flying Circus would've been a mess in the hands of other people but Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam were men with television writing experience. Some of the Pythons wrote for The Frost Report. Before TV, some wrote for radio programs in England. Stories and sketches fall apart without structure, and episodes fall apart without structure. I know the Monty Python writing process happened in groups rather than a whole. Whether they collectively discussed themes, I do not know and their DVD and oral history book doesn't delve very deeply into the writing process. Chapman and Cleese wrote together. Jones and Palin wrote together. Idle and Gilliam worked alone--Idle on sketches, Gilliam on his animation. The six Pythons must've communicated with one another about theme because every episode's about something.

The Flying sheep sketch portrays a group of sheep through the eyes of their American farmer, played by Graham Chapman. The sheep operate under the belief that they are, in fact, birds. The belief comes from Harold, the most dangerous and clever of the sheep. Harold aspires to be more than a simple sheep whose life consists of standing around for a few months before being eaten. Such a life's depressing for ambitious sheep so Harold told his sheep that they could fly like the birds. A tourist, whom the farmer's speaking with, wonders why Harold's not removed from the farm. The farmer explains, there are enormous commercial possibilities if Harold succeeds. The sketch transitions into two Frenchmen demonstrating the benefits of ovine aviation and that transitions into an interview with a man who has three buttocks'. The sheep sketch combines spectacle with Animal Farm. The sheep walk on their hind legs, mimicking birds and the farmer counts on the spectacle of flying sheep so he won't re-reverse the sheep's identity. All the while, the sheep experience faster deaths than if they stood around then were eaten months later. Perhaps Harold the sheep's a symbol of megalomania who harms his people (or sheep) instead of helping them.

Arthur Pewty and his wife, Deidre, went to a marriage counselor because of Deidre's infidelity. Pewty's one of the many representations of pathetic, British middle class life that Python satirizes throughout Flying Circus. He commands no respect, has no presence or authoritative figure in English society. Pewty drifts like a plastic bag in the wind because no one notices or cares enough to take the bag from the wind. As Arthur describes he and his wife's marriage, Idle's counselor seduces the woman and soon he and Deidre fool around behind a screen in his office. Pewty leaves only to return after a mysterious southerner urges him to fight for himself, to hold his head up high. Arthur declares that he's been pushed around long enough, that at last he's finally embracing his masculinity. He marches into the office, demands his wife leave with him, the counselor tells him to go away and Pewty immediately returns to his shell.

These two sketches are about man or animal's inability to overcome one's self. In the case of the sheep, it's matter of a nature and biology. Sheep cannot physically overcome their physiology. In the case of Arthur Pewty, he cannot overcome his cowardice because of his cowardice. He's his own worst enemy. The final sketch of the episode is about the mouse problem in England. Some men want to be mice. The premise of the sketch is silly and the social commentary emerges as one watches the sketch progress. The mouse men in England are homosexuals. The sketch is about the repression of their sexual nature; however, the sketch could be interpreted as something silly about bestiality. The characters talk a whole lot about being sexually attracted to mice, and beastiality was and is a taboo in England. It could be both. Near the end, the interviewer interviews working-class English men (portrayed by the Pythons of course) who express hatred and disgust for the men who desire to be mice. Graham Chapman was a homosexual, and I wonder if his own experiences led to the mouse problem sketch. If he and Cleese didn't write it then nevermind--it's probably about bestiality.

"Sex and Violence" has both sex and violence. The sex is only sex appeal, though, courtesy of Carol Cleveland while the violence comes from the sketch in which Terry Jones brutally murders mice using mallets in an attempt to make music with their squeaks. The episode has its bizarre short sketches that are inserted seemingly willy-nilly. "Sex and Violence" is brilliantly written though. The sketches are clever. The humor's great. It really is a pleasure to re-watch the Flying Circus because it's timeless.

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