Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam: ‘I’m a black transgender lesbian’
Terry Gilliam at the Cannes Film Festival (ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty)
Monty Python star Terry Gilliam has hit out at efforts to increase diversity, renouncing his status as a white man to become “a black lesbian in transition.”
The 77-year-old actor was responding to the BBC’s controller of comedy commissioning, Shane Allen, who last month answered a question about Monty Python’s Flying Circus by saying: “If you’re going to assemble a team now, it’s not going to be six Oxbridge white blokes.
“It’s going to be a diverse range of people who reflect the modern world.”
Gilliam has sparked outrage before, with inflammatory comment about the #MeToo movement (LOIC VENANCE/AFP/Getty)
Gilliam reacted to this statement with comments similar to those of Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan, who last year addressed non-binary and gender-neutral issues by saying: “I now identify as a black non-binary.”
The British actor told an audience at the Karlovy Vary film festival in Czech Republic: “It made me cry: the idea that… no longer six white Oxbridge men can make a comedy show,” The Guardian has reported.
“Now we need one of this, one of that, everybody represented… this is bulls**t,” continued Gilliam.
Gilliam with actor Adam Driver (LAURENT EMMANUEL/AFP/Getty)
“I no longer want to be a white male, I don’t want to be blamed for everything wrong in the world: I tell the world now I’m a black lesbian… My name is Loretta and I’m a BLT, a black lesbian in transition.”
After this sandwich-themed reference, he added that Allen’s remarks “made me so angry, all of us so angry. Comedy is not assembled, it’s not like putting together a boy band where you put together one of this, one of that.”
Gillian, who has directed films including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, previously sparked outrage by comparing the #MeToo movement to “mob rule,” saying that “the mob is out there, they are carrying their torches and they are going to burn down Frankenstein’s castle.”
Gilliam poses with Portuguese actress Joana Ribeiro (MICHAL CIZEK/AFP/Getty)
The extent to which Morgan and Gilliam seemingly share the same opinions was made clear last year when the TV host lashed at genderfluid children by saying: “You can identify as a giraffe as you want.”
He later added: “We’re all going to be giraffes.”
That wasn’t even the first time that Morgan had compared trans people to animals.
Six months before his giraffe remarks, he asked non-binary guests Fox Fisher and Owl if he could identify as an elephant.
Morgan has made numerous disparaging comments about trans people (good morning britain/YouTube)
“My problem with everyone being able to identify as they choose is: where does that end?” he asked the couple.
“If kids can come in and say they’re not a boy or girl anymore, what else can they say they’re not?
“Is anything fine? Can I say I’m an elephant? I don’t think it’s silly,” he added.
