Criticism of "Blind Sheep"

I first expected Monty Python’s Life of Brian to be a not-so-subtle attack on religion, for I knew that it was about a man who was considered to be the messiah. However, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. The Pythons, as the crew calls itself, made this film in an attempt to bring to light the hypocrisy of those that follow authorities without thinking for themselves.

The central theme of this film is the criticism of those that follow blindly. The film starts off with three wise men bearing gifts to a barn where a woman just gave birth. The wise men tell the woman that a star led them to her child, who must be the Lord for a star could never be wrong when it predicts the Savior. However, the three wise men were wrong. There was another savior-predicting star that just so happened to predict Jesus’ birth nearby. The wise men follow a star blindly without thinking about much of anything.

The second incident is when people are listening to Jesus speak on the Mount. The people in the back are so rude and self-absorbed that they completely ruin Jesus’ message of tolerance. Jesus is telling everyone the Beatitudes, which bless the unfortunate. Its moral is to show that people who are less fortunate than others, but the people in the back are too busy making fun of each other to listen. They followed this man, whom they believe to be the Savior, but they don’t care to listen. They also make up what Jesus says.

The main criticism is when the people start to make Brian a messiah. They didn’t care when he was giving advice on how to be kind to others or how to find happiness, but the moment they think he has the secret to eternal life, they all start following him. There is an allusion to the separation of Christianity where the followers start arguing about what the messiah’s message is or what he wants. The followers separate into two separate groups- those that believe his sign is a shoe and those that believe it is a gourd. They never once ask Brian what he wants his sign to be or what his message is. They also make up miracles in order to justify their belief in him. In fact, while running after him, the crowd pushes a blind man on the group. This is ironic because in attempting to follow a man they believe is kind and perfect, they forget about giving kindness to others. The people then create their own image of Brian, despite his protests. They are so obsessed with following him blindly; they sacrifice him to be crucified.

The movie expresses these themes by using humor and satire. The movie has many scenes of situational humor, such as when Brian is writing “Romans go home” and the Roman centurion gets mad at him for using the wrong grammar and spelling. Brian then has to write it 100 times. There are also moments where the names of people are so ridiculous.