I'm sorry, you can't tell jokes here, this is the Comedy Room!
/
humor is dead
Comedy legend John Cleese had his microphone confiscated at the South by Southwest festival during a comedic discussion in which he suggested Italy and France owed historic reparations for enslaving Brits.
The Monty Python icon, 82, was riffing with other comics in front of the crowd in Texas when he talked about the 'competition' between cultures over who has been more oppressed by colonisations throughout history.
Cleese rebutted claims that the British Empire was the first to colonise communities from other states throughout his 90-minute performance entitled 'John Cleese in Conversation.'
Pointing to world history being 'a history of crime', he added: 'It's a history of people who were stronger beating up people who were weaker and it's always been that. It's deeply, deeply distasteful.
'But to pretend that one lot were worse than another – you do know the British have been slaves twice, right?
[P]eople “forget the British Empire was the basic political unit of organization for 6,000 years – the British didn’t start [colonizing].”
“We know, but ya’ll did it so well!” Sloan shot back, drawing laughs. “It’s the reason I’m here! I’m not supposed to be here!”
“We gave you free passage, too,” Cleese replied.
That line drew shocked groans from the crowd, but since Cleese was clearly joking, everybody was still, seemingly, on board.
But The Woke Erupts
Cleese explained: '[People] get competitive about this business of being oppressed. We were oppressed, the English, by the Romans from about 0 to 400.'
Despite the event being labelled a 'comedy panel', his remarks sparked horrified reactions and an awkward environment for those in attendance.
The British comic insisted England was owed 'reparations' from both Italy and France, referring to the historic invasions of the Romans, and 1000 years later by the Normans under William the Conqueror.
'I want reparations from Italy', he told the stunned crowd (and drawing “shocked gasps”). 'And then the Normans came over in 1066... they were horrible people from France and they colonised us for 30 years and we need reparations there too, I'm afraid'.
At one stage Cleese even had his microphone confiscated by American comic Dulcé Sloan, who said she did it to 'save a comic whose career I respect', per The Hollywood Reporter.
What’s striking about both The Daily Mail’s and the Hollywood Reporter’s coverage is that the young scribes are clearly shocked that anyone could say things such as Cleese did. It’s no wonder so many adult comedians have stopping performing before kindergartners.
