3. The Life Of Brian
This hilarious addition to the works of the Monty Python crew garnered some miraculous (pun intended) amount of scathing ridicule. Brian Cohen, mistaken to be the messiah, meets the same fate as one Jesus Christ (who is present briefly, early on in the film). There were protests against the film all across the globe, for its jovial take on such sickening and serious stories as the crucifixion of Christ. On its initial release in the UK, the film was banned by several town councils, many of which had never even seen the film. Catholics and Jews worked together to organize pickets, where nuns, and rabbis alike came out in droves to stand their ground at cinemas in New York. Some American states simply banned the film outright. It was also banned for eight years in the Republic of Ireland (heavily Christian country that it is— no matter which side of the Falls Road one sits). It was even banned for a year in Norway and was subsequently marketed in Sweden as “the film so funny that it was banned in Norway”. There is a wonderfully famous talk show segment with some of the Pythons defending the film to a bishop, and the good ol’ BBC bigot, Malcolm Muggeridge.
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