Monty Python star John Cleese called out the media for alleging that he would remove a controversial scene from an upcoming stage adaptation of his movie, "Life of Brian," to avoid causing offense among the trans community.
In remarks posted on Twitter, the British comedian stated that a media outlet had "misreported" him after stating that Cleese intended to cut out the famous "Loretta" scene from the upcoming production.
The scene from the 1979 British comedy features a male character declaring that he wants to be a woman named "Loretta."
"I want to be a woman. ... It's my right as a man," the character says. "I want to have babies. ... It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them," he adds before snapping at his flabbergasted associates who protest the notion, saying, "Don't you oppress me!"
Reports emerged that Cleese had asked during a read-through with actors whether the "Loretta" scene should be dropped, according to Deadline. According to the reports, he was told the joke was no longer appropriate.
"At the end, I said to the American actors: 'What do you think?' And they said: 'We love the script, but you can't do that stuff about Loretta nowadays,'" Cleese said, according to the New York Post.
"So here you have something there's never been a complaint about in 40 years, that I've heard of, and now all of a sudden we can't do it because it'll offend people. What is one supposed to make of that?" he said.
In a series of tweets, Cleese wrote that his comments were an illustration of what others had advised him to do with the scene and said he had no intention of removing it.
"A few days ago I spoke to an audience outside London. I told them I was adapting the Life of Brian so that we could do it as a stage show ( NOT a musical ). I said that we'd had a table-reading of the latest draft in NYC a year ago," he wrote.
"And that all the actors – several of them Tony winners – had advised me strongly to cut the Loretta scene," he continued. "I have, of course, no intention of doing so. So someone in the audience had called a journalist and misreported me. Amazingly none of the British media called to check."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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