John Cleese condemns ‘woke jokes’ and claims ‘political correctness’ is stifling creativity
‘Monty Python’ star challenged comedians to tell him a funny ‘woke joke’
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John Cleese has challenged comedians to tell him a “woke joke” and called “political correctness” the fastest way to stifle creativity.
The Fawlty Towers star told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he is concerned about “cancel culture” in its relation to creativity.
“PC stuff started out as a good idea, which is, ‘Let’s not be mean to people’, and I’m in favour of that despite my age,” he said. “The main thing is to try to be kind. But that then becomes a sort of indulgence of the most over-sensitive people in your culture, the people who are most easily upset.”
He continued: “I don’t think we should organise a society around the sensibilities of the most easily upset people because then you have a very neurotic society.
“From the point of creativity, if you have to keep thinking which words you can use and which you can’t, then that will stifle creativity. The main thing is to realise that words depend on their context. Very literal-minded people think a word is a word but it isn’t.”
Cleese then argued that people needed to separate between “nasty, mean and unkind” teasing designed to “put people down”, and “rude remarks” made in “an atmosphere of affection”.
“PC people simply don’t understand this business about context because they tend to be very literal-minded,” Cleese continued. “I would love to debate this with a ‘woke’. The first question I would say is, ‘Can you tell me a woke joke?’ I don’t know what a woke joke would be like other than very, very nice people being kind to each other. It might be heart-warming but it’s not going to be very funny.”
Cleese’s comments come amid a series of rows about the continued broadcasting of offensive comedy, which saw episodes of Little Britain pulled from streaming services in June over its use of blackface.
The 80-year-old actor has previously condemned a decision to remove an episode of Fawlty Towers from broadcaster UKTV, after concerns about its use of a racist slur.
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