Terry Gilliam and the Difficulty of Separating the Artist from the Asshole

The last half decade or so has been difficult for Monty Python fans. The surviving members of the legendary troupe reunited for Terry Jones’ Absolutely Anything, a dire, barely released flop best ignored by fans who want to hold onto fond memories of Monty Python’s golden age. 

Jones’ dementia is reportedly so severe that he can no longer speak while his formerly beloved colleagues John Cleese and Terry Gilliam seem locked in an unfortunate competition to see who can be the bigger caricature of a tone-deaf, out of touch old white man. 

Gilliam has streaked into the lead recently with a flurry of unfortunate declarations, including his curious assertion that Black Panther, a black movie made by black people, somehow wasn’t authentically black enough for him, a white man, and his “joke” that he is a "black lesbian in transition.”

The 12 Monkeys director made the even more unfortunate decision to elaborate on a quip literally every transphobic asshole has already made, just as badly and insufferably as he did, whining like the privileged little bitch he is in a notorious interview with The Independent, “I’m talking about being a man accused of all the wrong in the world because I’m white-skinned. So I better not be a man. I better not be white. OK, since I don’t find men sexually attractive, I’ve got to be a lesbian. What else can I be? I like girls. These are just logical steps. I’m just trying to make you start thinking. You see, this is the world I grew up in, and with Python, we could do this stuff, and we weren’t offending people. We were giving people a lot of laughter.”

Gilliam’s reactionary idiocy is even more disappointing because of his status not just as a core member of a legendary comedy troupe and the maker of such beloved cult films as Time Bandits, Brazil, 12 Monkeys, The Fisher King and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas but as an inspirational and aspirational figure who famously kept pursuing his bold, idiosyncratic vision in the face of corporate cowardice and endless obstacles. People don’t just like Gilliam; they believe in him. They root for him. They want him to succeed against long odds. 

Or at least they did. The cult of Gilliam as a pure-hearted dreamer hopelessly fucked over by studios and money men is a core component of his outsized persona not just as an unusually creative storyteller but as something closer to creativity personified. 

People didn’t just revere Gilliam as an artist: they revered him as a man.

For the last fifty years Gilliam has been told that he was a genius, visionary and true artist who  has been unforgivably mistreated by the philistines in suits who determine who gets to make movies and what stories get to be told. 

Is it really surprising that such deification over an extended period of time might lead someone to think that white men as a group are getting shafted?

Gilliam seems to belong to the unfortunately vast category of white heterosexual men convinced that if they’ve struggled professionally or had to overcome obstacles then obviously the idea that institutionalized racism is a pervasive evil with effects spanning generations makes no sense and is self-evidently false. After all, if Gilliam, as a white, heterosexual man, has struggled to get films made then how can being white possibly be an advantage to anyone?  

As someone who has loved Gilliam’s films and what he has stood for at various points in his life I am disappointed but not surprised by his comments. They are very much the sentiments of a 79 year old man bitter that the world has evolved and changed and he hasn’t.

With Gilliam, the question once again must be raised: can we separate the art from the asshole? In the case of Gilliam, I think you can. Let’s not allow Terry Gilliam, cranky jerk with predictably wrong, backwards ideas on a wide variety of important subjects, ruin Terry Gilliam the great artist and filmmaker. 

Let’s not give a creep like Gilliam that awesome power. Let’s continue to enjoy Gilliam’s creations while acknowledging, if never quite excusing, that they come from someone who, as a human being is problematic at the very least.

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