Re: MT VOID, 10/11/24 -- Vol. 43, No. 15, Whole Number 2349

On 10/13/2024 11:03 AM, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:

THE MT VOID
10/11/24 -- Vol. 43, No. 15, Whole Number 2349

 MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN (1979):
 Professor Aldrete goes through the movie, noting how the film
parodies every cliche of previous Roman epics: the birth of Jesus,
the outdoor oration, the gladiators in the arena, the exotic Roman
food, ...  But here the birth is undercut by showing a reverential
scene with the Three Wise Men, only to have them suddenly realize
they are in the wrong manger.  The crowd at the Sermon of the
Mount is not awed; they are baffled, because they cannot hear the
speech,  And so on.  Even the film poster uses enormous stone
block letters in the same style as that of BEN-HUR, but here the
stones are cracking and crumbling.
 There is the classic scene where someone painting "Romans, go
home!" on a wall is not arrested by a centurion, but instead
instructed in tedious detail of all the grammatical errors he has
made.
 As a summary of Roman accomplishments, one could do worse than the
question one character asks: "All right, but apart from the
sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order,
irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what
have the Romans ever done for us?"
 And one timeless trope is the rival religious/political groups:
the Judean People's Front, the People's Front of Judea, and the
Judean Popular People's Front.  (One is reminded of the old joke
that if you ask two Jews, you get three opinions.)  Just last
summer, David Horovitz wrote an article in the Times of Israel
comparing the various groups then protesting actions by the
government and how they end up fighting (either verbally or
physically) with each other.
 [-ecl]

Two bits of background.
I attended an English boarding "public school" (ie, private and
expensive) in the 60s and 70s. Latin was mandatory.
John Cleese's torturing the correct grammar out of Brian matches
my Latin teacher's approach (barring  the sword to the throat),
and instantly recognizable as such.
Similarly, the litany of resistance groups was a
clearly a play on the alphabet soup of Palestinian resistance
groups opposing the Israeli government at the time the film
was made.
Here's just the P's:
Palestine Liberation Army
Palestine Liberation Organization
Palestinian Freedom Movement
Palestinian Joint Operations Room
Palestinian Liberation Front
Palestinian Liberation Front (Abu Nidal Ashqar wing)
Palestinian National and Islamic Forces
Palestinian Popular Struggle Front
Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (1991)
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command
Popular Resistance Committees
Plenty more at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Palestinian_militant_groups
pt