Don't Make a Scene: Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The Story: Happy Father's Day (but this isn't about that).

It's about piling on FOX News (which your Dad or Granddad may watch). So, there have been these protests around the country, right? You might have heard of them. They were sparked by the death of George Floyd at the knee of the Minneapolis police, merely the latest—but, as we've seen, not the last—of people of color being killed under the supervision of authorities. 

I'm in the Northwest corner of the U.S. and some of you may have heard that there is an area of Seattle (specifically, the Capitol Hill neighborhood) that has been, for the time being, occupied by protesters (whether it's more efficient or they just don't like commuting to the same place every day, then going home, and coming back the next day) and designated as CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) or, now, CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupied Protest). The area has been described by various sources around the country as "a lawless state" or paint the picture of a rather tense block party.

FOX News has been coming down on the "lawless state" side of things, assisting the impression by running altered photos on their web-site, painting it as "Crazy Town" even though one image they used was of Minneapolis during its riots and doctored images from different times (and by different photographers). Ultimately, Fox issued a "we regret" slug.

The ultimate came on June 15th, when the FOX program "The Story" (hosted by Martha MacCallum) ran a comment from REDDIT (Really...Reddit?) about "in-fighting" among the protesters over who should be leader/spokesperson for the group, which shows up at 15 seconds into this story: 

Probably something about the words "anarcho-syndicalist commune" must have seemed like "red meat" to the news gathering staff to further the poor reputation they were trying to present, or as a point to mock the somewhat arbitrary "making-it-up-as-we-go" atmosphere of the Protest/Zone.

If it was the latter, it was a little late. That Reddit post was quoting (almost verbatim) a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where King Arthur confronts a couple of his subjects who doubt his sovereignty, claim their own government, and frustrate him to the point of attacking them, leading to the charge of his "repressing" them. If they'd only read a bit farther in that Reddit text, they would have seen the tell-tale line "Raz can't just simply expect to wield supreme power just because someone threw a sword at him" (they left out the "watery tart" bit--#sexist).

John Cleese then took to Twitter with the hashtags #goodjournalism and #factchecking to mock them for never having seen the movie—as if that were something completely different.

Lot of back-story. The situation is fluid and tense—rather like life. But, I thought you might want to see the scene in question.

And if you work for FOX News, please pass this around. #TheMoreYouKnow.

The Set-Up: King Arthur (Graham Chapman) is on a quest for the Holy Grail. However, it does mean that he has to get out of the castle and mix with the rabble his subjects.

Action!

[thud] 

[King Arthur music] 

[thud thud thud] 

[King Arthur music stops] 

ARTHUR: Old woman! 
DENNIS: Man! 
ARTHUR: Man. Sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there? 

DENNIS: I'm thirty-seven.
ARTHUR: I-- what? 
DENNIS: I'm thirty-seven. I'm not old. 
ARTHUR: Well, I can't just call you 'Man'. 

DENNIS: Well, you could say 'Dennis'. 
ARTHUR: Well, I didn't know you were called 'Dennis'. 
DENNIS: Well, you didn't bother to find out, did you? 
ARTHUR: I did say 'sorry' about the 'old woman', but from the behind you looked-- 

DENNIS: What I object to is that you automatically treat me like an inferior! 
ARTHUR: Well, I am King! 
DENNIS: Oh, King, eh, very nice. 

DENNIS: And how d'you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers! By 'anging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society. If there's ever going to be any progress with the-- 

WOMAN: Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here. 

WOMAN: Oh! How d'you do? 

ARTHUR: How do you do, good lady? I am Arthur, King of the Britons. Who's castle is that? 

WOMAN: King of the who? 

ARTHUR: The Britons. 

WOMAN: Who are the Britons? 

ARTHUR: Well, we all are. We are all Britons, and I am your king. 

WOMAN: I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective. 

DENNIS: You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship: a self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes-- 
WOMAN: Oh, there you go bringing class into it again. 
DENNIS: That's what it's all about. If only people would hear of-- 

ARTHUR: Please! Please, good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle? 

WOMAN: No one lives there. 

ARTHUR: Then who is your lord? 

WOMAN: We don't have a lord. 

ARTHUR: What? 
DENNIS: I told you. 

DENNIS: We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act... 

DENNIS: ...as a sort of executive officer for the week,... 
ARTHUR: Yes. 

DENNIS: ...but all the decisions of that officer have to be... 

DENNIS: ...ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting... 
ARTHUR: Yes, I see. 

DENNIS: ...by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs... 

ARTHUR: Be quiet! 

DENNIS: ...but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major-- 

ARTHUR: Be quiet! 

ARTHUR: I order you to be quiet! 
WOMAN: Order, eh? Who does he think he is? Heh. 

ARTHUR: I am your king! 
WOMAN: Well, I didn't vote for you. 
ARTHUR: You don't vote for kings. 

WOMAN: Well, how did you become King, then? 

ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake,... [angels sing] ...her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. [singing stops] 

ARTHUR: That is why I am your king! 

DENNIS: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. 

DENNIS: Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. 

ARTHUR: Be quiet! 

DENNIS: Well, but you can't expect to wield... 

DENNIS: ...supreme executive power... 

DENNIS: ...just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you! 

ARTHUR: Shut up! 

DENNIS: I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor... 

DENNIS: ...just because some moistened bint... 

DENNIS: ...had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away! 

ARTHUR: Shut up, will you? Shut up! 

DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system. 

ARTHUR: Shut up! 

DENNIS: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed! 

ARTHUR: Bloody peasant! 

DENNIS: Oh, what a give-away. Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? 

DENNIS: That's what I'm on about. Did you see him repressing me? You saw it, didn't you?

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Words by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin

Pictures by Terry Bedford and Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Columbia/Tri-Star.

2024 Update: I notice that Fox News has taken down their goofy articles on the Capitol Hill situation. I've left the links just to let you know they were there. (Perhaps they couldn't afford to keep them up after paying the Dominion voting machines damages.