Review

Comedy

Culture

Film & TV

24 January 2025

7 min read

When I watched Life of Brian with my teenage kids…

The universe is still not making sense.

James Cary

James is a writer of sit coms for BBC TV and Radio.

A movie still shows a Roman amphitheatre, covered in body parts, over which a sign reads 'children's matinee'.

Saturday morning at the amphitheatre.

Hand Made Films.

Over the Christmas holidays, I decided it was time to watch Monty Python’s Life of Brian with my teenagers. This was not just because I found it in a charity shop on DVD for a pound, although that may have had something to do with it. And so, what if I did wrap it up and put it under the Christmas tree along with Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

Let’s focus on the real question here: what was it like watching this much-loved but controversial movie from 1979 in early 2025? And what would my church-going, Bible reading, Gen Z teenagers make of it?

This movie was not entirely new to them. I’d already shown them one of the finest sketches you will ever see, in which Brian has to learn to haggle for a beard whilst on the run. I’d also shown them ‘Romani Ire Domus’ sketch as I was teaching them Latin as part of their home education. I told them to expect more brilliant sketches like this, but that the movie is essentially “a bag of bits”. And that the ending is a disaster. More of that later.

Here are some of their reactions:

“Wow! This is soooooo Horrible Histories.”

It was. And it was even more resonant when we watched Monty Python and The Holy Grail. This is not a criticism. After all, who doesn’t love Horrible Histories? Especially the first cast who went off and made a truly brilliantly funny movie you probably haven’t seen about William Shakespeare called Bill. I think we’ve seen it as a family at least eight times. But they could see the legacy of Monty Python fifty years on.

“What’s with that bit with the space craft?”

I don’t know. Maybe they had to find something for Terry Gilliam to do.

“Why are you fast forwarding that bit?”

The movie contains unnecessary and tawdry nudity. As a parent, I reserve the right to censor the movies my children watch.

“Is that it?”

The movie is admirably brief at 93 minutes. My kids were just startled by the fact that the movie ended, without an ending. I’d prepared for them for this. After all, Bill has a proper beginning, middle and end. (Seriously. It’s great. Watch it) My kids have watched a lot of Pixar movies which are normally honed to plot perfection (with the exception of Soul which is a plot hot mess. And, as a jazz fan, I really wanted to love that movie.)

The ending of Life of Brian is poor, by any measure. It’s not just the fact that the crucifixion scene makes light of something savagely sad and sacred. It’s more that the movie ends with Brian abandoned to his fate on a cross while Eric Idle sings the cheerfully stoic Always Look on the Bright Side of Life while they all bake under the hot sun. And that’s it. The movie is over.

It’s slightly better than the non-ending of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which comes clattering to a halt after the allotted time. I read somewhere that there simply wasn’t any money to do anything else. Clearly, Life of Brian, a few years later, had a bigger budget so there was at least an attempt at an ending. But a song, even a good song, doth not an ending make.

The song’s chirpiness belies the brilliance of it. With some neat rhymes and a simple, singable hook, the song achieves exactly what it sets out to achieve: stoic reassurance and an encouragement to put a brave face on things. It’s a funny contrast given they’re all being crucified, albeit in a comical pain-free way without nails and blood.

We shouldn’t be surprised that this is a message coming from relatively young men who’ve had a good education, been lauded as great comedians and made a lot of money. And still have their whole lives ahead of them in 1979 (although Graham Chapman died ten years later aged 49.) The fact the Pythons have nothing to say about life, death, suffering, pain, betrayal, the universe or anything isn’t their fault. Nor should we look to such sketch comedians for profound insights about the human condition.

How I felt

Here's how I felt as I watched Brian grasp the absurd injustice of his fate on a cross in the closing scene: I sensed the spirit of Douglas Adams, writer of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The first series was broadcast on BBC Radio in 1978, the year that Life of Brian was being filmed in Tunisia. Adams writes about a universe that feels like it should make sense. But it doesn’t. It feels like there should be justice. But there isn’t. Which is funny. But also a bit sad.

The protagonist, Arthur Dent, is like Brian: a victim of circumstance, pushed from pillar to post by idiots and monsters. Ford Prefect constantly explaining the plot while Arthur Dent is dragged along, persisting with a middle-class simmering indignation that seems to last into eternity. But then, it’s a sitcom, so it’s not supposed to end.

A movie is a different proposition. We do not need to get bogged down with talk about the ‘hero’s journey’ for long but by the end of Life of Brian, our hero is only halfway through his quest. He has crossed the threshold by joining the People’s Front of Judea. But then what? He becomes disenchanted and realises he is going to have let go of something in order to grow and move on. But he doesn’t. He’s tied to a cross, abandoned and left for dead.

What other ending could there have been? I did have one idea. That Jesus, who is also in the movie, raises him from the dead. Brian says thank you, decides against becoming a disciple and makes a living as a cheesemaker. It’s a funny call-back, but still not satisfying, is it?

The problem is that Brian doesn’t have any true desires deep down. He doesn’t have a quest. That’s because this movie started life as a parody of Jesus, whose story its own natural beginning, middle and surprising but satisfying end. But the Pythons found that the life of Christ is rather compelling and challenging when you take the time to read what he actually said and did, so the focus shifted. What if Brian were mistaken for a messiah? The target became a mistaken identity comedy about organised religion.

Looking Back

46 years later, does Life of Brian still feel like searing satire on organised religion? Not really. Brian is not mistaken for the Messiah until almost 50 minutes in. The movie is more than half over. There are religious themes and sketches before that point, such as the scene in which the blasphemer is to be stoned (by women in beards), the ex-leper beggar healed by Jesus “without so much as a ‘by your leave’!”.

Brian only starts preaching to avoid being noticed by the soldiers. A crowd gathers and we’re into the ‘consider the lilies’ sketch, which I’ve always found funny. (And I never felt this was threatening or undermining the original version spoken by Christ himself, although I think of it every time it’s read aloud in church).

And then, the movie turns. Once the soldiers have gone, Brian stops talking. But this leaves the small crowd on a cliffhanger. They are now hanging on his every word. As he tries to get away, they turn his gourd and sandal into relics. He runs, but is found. We get the “very naughty boy” line, Brian addresses a crowd in the ‘you are all individuals’ sketch. Soon afterwards he’s arrested, and that’s the end of that. The religious themes fall away. It is hardly a coruscating broadside salvo on organised religion, although I understand why it might have felt like that at the time.

Watching it now when religion has declined for a further 45 years since 1979, the blows do not really land as they may have done at the time. This places further pressure on the ending which does not deliver as it was never intended to.

But seeing the chipper, upbeat stoicism at the end through the eyes of my kids was really interesting. They know that Disney and Pixar and now Disney Pixar have been trying to tell kids for decades that you should ‘believe in yourself’. They are rightly sceptical about messages of self-belief. So, it’s quite strange to see a movie with a religious theme end with song and a whistle and the idea that you don’t need to believe in anything at all. But that you should smile anyway.

What a curious conclusion. The fact that it felt so strange in 2025 might suggest that the British optimism in the face of death and injustice isn’t really good enough anymore. Maybe this will encourage us to go back to the original. After all ‘Blessed are the Cheesemakers’ is only funny if you know want what Jesus actually said at the Sermon on the Mount. Maybe a new generation will want to take the time to read what he actually said and did.

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Article

Character

Culture

Digital

23 January 2025

7 min read

Apple’s AI ads show how we can lose our moral skills

Apple Intelligence promises to safeguard us from the worst of ourselves.

Jenny Lander

Jenny is training to be a priest. She holds a PhD in law and writes at the intersection of law, politics and theology.

A worker at a desk sits back contemplating a situation

Dour Dale contemplates AI.

Apple.

“I got through the three stages of the interview process, and they said I had done well, but they aren’t hiring any computer science graduates anymore. AI is cheaper, and faster.”

John*, a bright 24-year-old coder and philosopher, has just completed an MSc in Computer Science from one of the top universities in the UK. And he can’t find a job. AI has outcompeted him. In a couple of years, he says, entry level into computer science as a field will require a PhD. What about in ten years, or twenty? Will the only people able to work in the field have to effectively be geniuses to keep up with a technology that’s metastasizing at the rate of knots? It felt painfully ironic to be discussing over coffee the death of an entire sector of meaningful jobs less than a week after the new Labour government announced its plans to “turbocharge” AI (Artificial Intelligence) as the saviour of the nation’s economy. What are we willing to sacrifice in the name of “national renewal”?

As worrying as John’s story is, there is much more than jobs – and the skills, knowledge and social relations tied up in them – on the line when it comes to AI. The alleged saviour of the nation’s economy is after your soul as well, it turns out.

This came home to me starkly over the Christmas holidays with the new advertisements for Apple Intelligence tools on MacBook Pro. In the first ad, “Lazy Lance” – a procrastinating business professional – sheepishly shifts in his seat. He has been asked to make a presentation on the new business prospectus, and he has been caught out, unprepared. But he is saved at the last moment. The click of the “Key Points” button using the new Apple Intelligence software on his MacBook Pro provides him with the critical breakdown summary needed to avoid becoming the pariah of the team. The sheepish shifting turns to smug smile: his substandard performance has evaded detection with the ready aid of Apple Intelligence.

In the second ad, “Dour Dale” – a disgruntled office worker – writes a scathing email to the “monster” who has devoured his pudding from the communal fridge. Before clicking send on this missive, he raises his eyes from the raging words on his screen to see a pious teddy bear holding a love-heart which says “find your kindness.” This moral cue from a cuddly toy prompts Dave to select the “Friendly” button from the dropdown list on Apple Intelligence writing tools, which immediately converts his childish strop over pudding thievery into a mature response in which he kindly expresses his disappointment along with a polite request for the pudding to be returned. The only moral effort required of Dale is the click of a button; Apple Intelligence sorts out the bile and the blame and re-presents his pudding fury in a professionally palatable manner.

These advertisements for AI tools are designed to provoke an empathetic laugh. Who indeed can honestly say they have never arrived unprepared to a meeting, or at least mentally penned a vindictive response to the tiniest office slight?

AI is poised to strike at the root of our individual virtue, by inserting itself as an emotional regulator.

However, underneath the easy laughs, I felt a profound sense of dis-ease when watching them. They indicate just how far AI has already begun to penetrate our moral economy. By inserting a technological tool to disguise or translate social interactions into new terms, our moral relations with each other are deceptively smoothed to avoid the social and personal costs of shame (e.g. Lance using “Key Points” rather than owning up to his poor work ethic) and anger (e.g. Dale using “Friendly” mode to transform his email from raging diatribe into courteous appeal). As appealing as it sounds to have automatic tech weapons to tranquilise social and emotional bugbears, they also remove daily opportunities to learn how to live and work together.

For example, as excruciating as it is to be the person who came to the meeting woefully under-prepared, embarrassment can be a very useful corrective in learning the art of time management as well as the virtue of pulling our weight. We probably all know from school what it feels like to work on a group project, when only half the group cares about the outcome. If we do not learn moral skills of responsibility and accountability in our formative years, the workplace becomes a vital school for virtue in adulthood where we learn what it means to be trusted and how to be worthy of it. As in the case of Lance, AI now offers us everyday tools which help us to avoid embarrassment and effectively hide our lack of effort, taking the edge off of the very exposure that would help us to grow in both skill and trustworthiness. This is not propaganda for the Protestant work ethic but rather a top survival tip for the human soul in hyper-capitalist economy. Maintaining the moral significance of our labour as a school of formation in self-respect and trustworthiness does not baptise the extractive and exploitative nature of many workplaces. Rather, it offers a means of resistance to the soul-destroying idea that we are all replaceable, that nothing really matters and that our efforts are simply grist for the eternal and insatiable mill of market supply and demand.

In the case of Dale, Apple Intelligence goes beyond protecting users from social shame: it promises to safeguard us from the worst of ourselves. Of the two Apple Intelligence advertisements, I find Dale’s to be even more pernicious because it evidences how AI is poised to strike at the root of our individual virtue, by inserting itself as an emotional regulator. Rather than doing the difficult work of redrafting the email himself, which would require Dale to critically examine his own reactions and put himself into the shoes of the recipient, Apple Intelligence offers to do it automatically. By short-circuiting Dale’s process of recognising the emotions underneath his rage, he misses a critical opportunity to learn for himself what his anger is all about, and even more than that, to practice the art of genuine self-mastery in conflict. The AI tool smooths out the conflict on the surface, while Dale is presumably left with all those rotten feelings built up and unprocessed, because he has not had to do the difficult work of converting his aggressive monologue into a respectful dialogue with another human being.

The insertion of these seemingly innocuous AI tools into the spheres of our everyday, workaday lives introduces new means and modes of (self) deception in our habits, where we are able to hide much more easily from honest moral evaluation of the quality of our work as well as our interpersonal relationships. It also risks new heights of moral “de-skilling” over time as we live in a social and economic world that has become so deeply mediated by technology, to the point where we may very well eventually trust Apple as the gold standard of professional behaviour rather than our own discernment. The soul – our very interiority – is the new frontier of economic expansion, in the name of securing Britain’s place in the ranks of global competitiveness.

To AI enthusiasts, all this may sound like Luddite naysaying. Many people find AI tools helpful in the process of research and preparation. Even some priests, I have recently discovered, use Chat GPT to aid sermon-writing. And what, as a priest friend asked me recently, is the problem with these time-saving tools, as long as we use them critically?

Apart from the obvious answer that AI can’t be trusted to get all the facts right, let alone the word of God, this question presumes that human beings’ critical faculties and moral compasses remain fundamentally unaffected by these new technologies. It may be true for older generations (whose formative years occurred well before the meteoric surge of digital technology in the early 2000s) that technology continues to function as an optional extra to make life that little bit easier. But for Gen Z and below, and even for some younger millennials, intuitive digital technologies have become so fused with the ways that we learn and process information that it is no longer – if it ever was – a neutral tool to improve our lives. We are only learning now about the extent to which social media has thoroughly penetrated the emotional worlds of teenagers, with severe consequences for their wellbeing. What will be the consequences for the generations to come, when AI becomes so integrated into the emotional and social fabric of our lives that we cannot quite tell where we start and it begins? The risk with “turbocharging” AI is not only a huge number of jobs, but the atrophy of our moral muscles as AI encroaches further into the heartlands of what it means to be human. While a few tech elites may always stay one step ahead of AI and keep it safely in the toolbox rather than the driver’s seat, most of us time-poor plebians are being taken for the ride of our lives.