Given the type of people the Pythons were (British Oxbridge men hand-picked by the major producers) and the time period, it has to be, right?
And they’d have a point, if the supposed great development benefits of being a British resource colony had ever materialised.
Sure, they built (limited) railways, but somehow India was never as rich as it was before colonisation. Japan did quite well by contrast. I’ll go ahead and say Roman provinces saw more development, mostly because the iron age default was total stagnation and infighting. Even there, it’s possible living in Rome was worse in some way which is not visible in the archeological record.
Don’t think so. I guess it’s there because they came up with a bit that makes the resistance look like idiots, as they do for everyone in the movie. The Romans and their crucifixion system weren’t shown in a good light either.
Think about the end of the movie. Our protagonist is being crucified. A whole field of people up on crosses with him. And this happens on this scale regularly. There’s a tradition of sparing one and only one person out of these groups by request so as to pacify the citizens by giving them an illusion of power. And the citizens, rather than even trying to save one life, prioritize laughing over and over at a speech impediment.
But against all odds, our protagonist is chosen through that process to be spared. But he isn’t, because Rome cares so little about any of this that they make absolutely zero effort to verify who they’re sparing. Not that the guy they let down deserved to be crucified, either.
And a rebel group shows up to maybe save these people from, and I can’t stress this enough, being crucified. And instead they too die pointlessly. By their own hands. On purpose. And the movie ends on a jaunty musical number about how terrible everything is and frankly maybe it’s better to die than to be a part of this world.
When I look at the scene you’re talking about in the context of the rest of the movie, it looks less like “Rome is good actually” and more like “why are these the freedom fighters we have?” Whether being conquered by the empire also comes with perks isn’t the point and it’s meant to be frustrating that they chose this ineffectual argument.
Probably not on purpose. It was made by Br*ts, it just happens naturally to them.
Most propaganda is like this: you’ve subconsciously absorbed it all your life and it comes out ur mouth. That’s how ideologies get perpetuated usually, rather than by cunning.
In effect yes, but propaganda has a lot to do with intention, and being Monty Python are brits, it was likely not intentional
I don’t think propaganda has a lot to do with intention
Propaganda, even in its original neutrally descriptive sense, is all about intention to persuade or influence people. If you start calling things that weren’t intended to be propaganda, propaganda, then literally all fiction becomes propaganda.
So yeah, if you define everything as propaganda, it sure is
Yeah, kinda one of the assumptions of my pet comm [email protected]
No, it’s a comedy film.
i mean, it is also textually pro-colonialism, while being mainly about pedantry. it’s a “yet you participate in society” sort of sketch. life of brian is like 80% symbolism, 20% biggus dickus.
Ok
Yeah a bit
oh no!
