Terry Gilliam, part of the legendary Monty Python comedy troupe, is accusing President Donald Trump of having “considerably” changed the state of humor.
“I think Trump has destroyed satire. I mean, how can you be satirical about what’s going on in the way he’s doing the world?” said Gilliam, who once renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2006 partly in protest against George W. Bush, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
Gilliam — who once called Trump an “idiot” and claimed the Pythons couldn’t match the absurd nature of his first term — declared that the president has “turned the world upside down.”
“I don’t know if people are going to be laughing more, but they’re probably less frightened to laugh,” said the filmmaker and comedian.
Gilliam — who has criticized “cancel culture” and shared several controversial comments over the years — argued that some “woke activists with a very narrow, self-righteous point of view” have since frightened people over telling jokes as they claim that those who do are “punching down at somebody” as a result.
“No, you’re finding humor in humanity!” he asserted.
“So, irony, satire were basically dead. And humor, to me, is probably one of the most essential things in life. You’ve got six senses, and the seventh sense is humor, and if you don’t have that, life is going to be miserable.”
Gilliam — who is working on a new film, “The Carnival at the End of Days,” which looks to star Jeff Bridges as the voice of God and Johnny Depp as Satan — said he planned for the movie to be a satire about the “last several years when things were going as they were.”
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He noted that Trump’s return to the Oval Office “fucked up” and “killed” the film, adding that he thinks he’ll have to rewrite “a lot of it” now.
He teased that his initial approach was present in the film’s subtitle — “Great fun for all of those who enjoy taking offense” — and he’s considering putting a preamble on the film noting that it takes place in what “historians refer to as the Trump lost years from 2020 to 2024.”
