‘Monty Python’ Alum Said Trump Resurrected Comedy, People Are ‘Less Frightened To Laugh’

Longtime filmmaker Terry Gilliam said the reelection of President Donald Trump has changed the landscape of comedy.

The “Monty Python” alum reflected on the change during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that was published earlier this week. Gilliam, 84, said comedy had been hesitant and safe for a long time, but now with the Trump administration, that’s starting to shift.

“I think Trump has changed things considerably. He’s turned the world upside down,” the director said. “I don’t know if people are going to be laughing more, but they’re probably less frightened to laugh.”

He added, “There have been woke activists with a very narrow, self-righteous point of view. That’s frightened so many people, and so many people have been very timid about telling jokes, making fun of things, because if you tell a joke, these people say you’re punching down at somebody. No, you’re finding humor in humanity!”

“So, irony, satire were basically dead,” Gilliam said. “And humor, to me, is probably one of the most essential things in life. You’ve got six senses, and the seventh sense is humor, and if you don’t have that, life is going to be miserable.”

The filmmaker also observed how Trump’s return hasn’t been great for his upcoming comedy, “The Carnival at the End of Days.” The project is a satire about Satan trying to stop God from wiping out humanity and leans heavily on mocking woke leftism, which Gilliam said is very different in the current world.

“[Trump has] f***ed up the latest film I was working on. Because it was a satire about the last several years when things were going as they were. He’s turned it upside down. So he’s killed my movie,” Gilliam said.

“That was how I approached it. I think Trump has destroyed satire. I mean, how can you be satirical about what’s going on in the way he’s doing the world?” he added.

He next joked about adding a “preamble” in the movie to call out the “Trump lost years from 2020 to 2024.”

Gilliam said something similar in an interview with Deadline, also published this week. 

“…The script, in some ways, is out of date because it was a satire of the world two years ago, and Donald Trump has come along, and he is the carnival. He’s turned the world upside down — everything,” he told the outlet. 

“We may have to rework some of the story because parts of it was very specific about the wonderful world of woke before The Donald took over again. That very narrow way of thinking of life. We’ll see where it goes. At the moment, I may be out of a job for another 10 years,” the filmmaker said.