A Satirical Witch Hunt?
Compare the "She's a Witch!" scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail with The Crucible. What does it make you think about regarding the play's text, characters, theme, relationships, and court?
posted by Greg T at Monday, November 12, 2012
28 Comments:
In the scene "she's a witch" A bunch of rather stupid townspeople want to accuse her of being a witch for no apparent reason. They find random things to accuse her of to make her one, like in the crucible with the poppet.The court is rather biast too, wanting a witch instead of having no opinion. They take certain peoples word against her, but her words count for nothing, as with Jon Proctor. They say Jon is a witch because he doesnt agree with the court, just like those im monty python determine shes a witch by seeing if she weighs more than a duck on a very inaccurate scale. Its all very ridiculous but very dangerous.
Spurgeon
In the scene “She’s a Witch!” from Monty Python’s The Holy Grail it shows a bunch of ignorant village people accusing a women of being a witch but they have no real evidence to back it up. They want to do this just to see this girl burn. Then the knight thinks of some crazy idea that if she weighs the same as a duck then she is a witch. This reminds me of just how crazy and ignorant the citizens of Salem really were. Everyone just jumped to the conclusion of witchcraft and the work of the devil. No one tried to look the other direction or find a better reason to what is going on. Also, when the knight said that if she weighed just as much as a duck then she is a witch, reminded me of all of the crazy trials that they put so called witches through. The people in Salem just jumped to conclusions and wanted answers just like the people in the village; they jumped to conclusions and wanted to kill the women instead of asking her questions.
In the scene "shes a withc!" in Monty Python, towns poeple find a young woman and dress her up as a witch and even put a witch hat on her. Their sole purpose hear was that they wanted to burn her, in order for their own entertainment. One townsperson also claimed that she turned him into a newt, even though he was a normal human at the time. This relates to the crucible in that they try to find every way possible of making someone guilty, even though they may be innocent. Also they can kill just about anyone they want because no one can defy the law because those who do defy it, will be killed as well. Thats how this scene relates to the Crucible.
Lack of evidence and ridiculous accusations are strong themes in the situations presented in The Crucible and in the Monty Python scene. To a person merely observing the events, the accusations are clearly foolish and senseless. However, those whose are involved seem to completely understand. They hardly have any initial reasoning for their suspicions. When the characters are confronted and questioned about their accusations, they are forced to develop reasons. Though “evidence” is required, it is invalid. When a whole community simply agrees with each other and discourages those who oppose their ideas, reason and true evidence are no longer valued. This lack of justice inevitably lead both stories to include the madness of false accusations.
In the scene shes a witch from monte python is shows a lot of stupid townspeople. They all want to burn a girl so they dress her up as a witch and tell the knight that she is one. They dont really have anything to back up that she is a witch accept she weighed the same as the duck. In the Crucible they do the same kind of thing. Everyone in salem starts making accusations that people are working with witchcraft and the devil. They dont take a few steps back and look at it in another point of view. They jumped to conclusion about how they are witches.
In the scene, "She's a witch!" Townspeople dress a woman up to look like a witch because they want to burn her. They take her to a smart knight and ask if they can burn her, so she is measured. Since she weighs as much as a duck, she must be a witch so they go ahead and burn her. This is like the crucible because Abigail and the girls accuse people of witchcraft on weak grounds. They don't have real proof. Also like Monty Python, the court believes the girls any way much like the knight condemns the girl because she weighs the same as a duck. There is no hard proof in either situation.
In the scene "She's a Witch!" from Monty Python, the townspeople are wanting to try to prove an innocent women is a witch so that they can burn her. They don't have any evidence to prove that she is a witch they just want to see her burn. This is like the citizens in the Crucible. They would have no provable evidence to show that the people that they were accusing were actually practicing witchcraft. Everyone was terrified that the devil might be in the town and so instead of trying to explain what was happening, they simply jumped to conclusions and blamed each other. They would even make up stories to try to validate their claims like the townsperson did in Monty Python, claiming that he was turned into a newt by the "witch". Both instances have people jumping to conclusions instead of trying to explain the events.
There are many similarities between the scene from Monty Python and The Crucible. In both the film and the play, the townspeople are accusing people of being witches, even when the people are not witches. There is no evidence that anyone is a witch, except for what the townspeople so obviously make up. The person in charge of determining whether or not the person is a witch chooses to listen to the townspeople instead of the witch. They both live in a society that would band together to fight against a common enemy, even if it means making up accusations to get rid of that common enemy.
Both Monty Python's "She's a Witch!" and The Crucible share some common traits. For example, in "She's a Witch!" the town people are all accusing one girl that she is a witch even though she did nothing wrong. The towns people made her dress up in a witch hat and put on a fake nose. The reason this is related to The Crucible is because the people in The Crucible have no ocular proof that everyone they accused in a real witch. They only called them a witch because they wanted to blame the problems that are happening on someone. In "She's a Witch!" they are doing the same solution. They dressed up a girl as a witch so that they could blame someone, even though she did nothing wrong. There is no ocular proof that she did anything else.
In the scene “She’s a Witch” from Monty Python’s The Holy Grail the group of townspeople are making ridiculous accusations about a woman being a witch when she is clearly not. They have dressed her up in a witch outfit, including a hat and fake nose. Then when they are trying to turn her in, she explains that the townspeople are the ones who have dressed her like this. They continue to think of every reason possible for her being a witch, including one man saying she has transformed him into a newt, when he is standing there as a human. They also have the insane idea that if the woman’s weight is that same of a duck then she is a witch. All these crazy ideas relate to The Crucible because in the story, the characters will do anything to prove someone guilty, when they are clearly not. They have no good reasoning for accusing the people of witchcraft and working with the devil, yet they do. And innocent people are the victims, because they either confess and their reputation is completely ruined or they don’t and die. In both “She’s a Witch” and The Crucible innocent people are being accused of things for ridiculous reasons and it is not fair. It just shows what a lack of a good, quality government system there was in these times.
In the scene, "She's a witch!" Townspeople dress a woman up to look like a witch because they want to burn her. They present her to a knight and ask for his pproval but he keeps on asking questios about her and finds out that they had just dressed her up as one and no legitimate evidence that she was a witch. Then the knight thinks of some crazy idea that if she weighs the same as a duck then she is a witch. This reminds me of just how crazy and ignorant the citizens of Salem really were. Everyone just jumped to the conclusion of witchcraft and the work of the devil. This scene relates to the crucible because everybody was so hysterical and jumped to conclusions imediatley.
The scene "She's a witch" from the movie Monty Python, just proves that people will say anything and believe anything they are told. Even though none of the men had any proof to back up the fact that this woman is a "witch," they continued to accuse her of witchcraft. They all just wanted to watch her burn for their own selfish reasons. They wanted to see if their far-fetched prediction was correct, so they got many people involved to test this theory. The way they determined if this woman was a witch was by comparing her weight to a duck's. Which basically puts her up for failure right then and there. This specific part of the movie relates a lot to The Crucible because both stories show that society will do whatever it takes to take others down, even if they don't deserve it. People seem to jump to conclusions on basically everything, some more drastic accusations than others however. Plus, its a lot easier to point fingers on one or more people when something goes wrong.
6After watching "she's a Witch!" scene, I began to try and picture what the scene in Salem would look like. Comparing the two, the "She's a Witch!" is clearly mocking the real Salem witch trials. The townspeople in this scene did do something that they did not do in the Crucible. In the scene, they atleast try to prove whether or not the woman is a witch. In both, innocent people are accused for no reason. Both of these show how silly everyone was reacting to this situation. This just goes to show how important proof is, and how innocent people lost their lives in both situations. Both situations represent how people need to use on another as scapegoats when something goees wrong.
The "She's a Witch" scene in Monty Python is a fantastic example of the mass hysteria that happens in The Crucible. The scene portrays a bunch of people creating grand characteristics about a person that can't be true, and making them real, wanting to kill her. In both of the two situations, innocent people were or almost were murdered because of a large group of people becoming panicked and frightened about crazy things. It shows that people socialize in a very sheep like fashion, following the lead and not straying the course from the norm.
In the “She’s a Witch!” scene, it shows the people’s ignorance and their willingness to use someone as a scapegoat without any reliable evidence. The people in The Crucible do the exact same thing. They believe the testimony of children, who use this power to hurt people they don’t like. They jump to the work of the Devil and witchcraft instead of finding a reasonable explanation as to why those strange things were happening.
The scene "She's a Witch!" in Monty Pyhton is simply an exaggeration of the events that occurred in The Crucible. In the clip, gross accusations are being thrown at a "witch". She has been dressed up by the townspeople to look like a witch and their claims lack substance. One person in the mob claims the lady turned him into a newt, yet is standing on two feet and is able to make this claim -- there are obviously some falsehoods being told. They made a miserable attempt at making her witch costume believable with a carrot as a nose, which is just a magnification of what was seen in The Crucible. Abigail's claims of witches were not backed up -- she said she saw them, so that was the law. She plants a doll on Elizabeth Proctor that has a needle in it, then stabs herself with a needle to prove Elizabeth is a witch -- no matter how fabricated and ridiculous her claims are, no matter what Elizabeth does to defend herself, Abigail is believed.
In the scene "She's a Witch!" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the town folk accuse an innocent woman of being a witch. This is extremely similar to The Crucible because it is people accusing others of witch craft which is an invisible crime. It cannot be proved like in the crucible and innocent people end up hurt, humiliated, or dead.
“She’s a Witch” shows a group of people trying to prove that a woman is a witch like the court in Salem finding out those that are witches. I think that the court and the warrior have logic that is not completely true about witches. I think they are being deceived about what a witch might be since the witches in the Crucible and “She’s a Witch” seem to be innocent. I think that the court in the Crucible has terrible judgement which creates gaps in relationship between the judges and the townspeople.
In that scene it showed the accusation of woman who was thought to be a witch. It was ridiculous because the peoples accusations were farce, they had no grounds for them and made up stories that were convenient for the prosecution. There were no grounds to believe this woman was a witch other than what the people said. The same is true for The Crucible there was no actual evidence given for any of the so called crimes. All this shows a bunch of ignorant people who needed something to blame. The accusations in the Crucible appear just as ridiculous and outrageous to me as the ones in the scene. That is what happens when you take a lot of misguided and confused people and tell them to make decisions.
In that scene it showed the accusation of woman who was thought to be a witch. It was ridiculous because the peoples accusations were farce, they had no grounds for them and made up stories that were convenient for the prosecution. There were no grounds to believe this woman was a witch other than what the people said. The same is true for The Crucible there was no actual evidence given for any of the so called crimes. All this shows a bunch of ignorant people who needed something to blame. The accusations in the Crucible appear just as ridiculous and outrageous to me as the ones in the scene. That is what happens when you take a lot of misguided and confused people and tell them to make decisions.
314The Youtube video “She’s a witch!”, taken from a scene from the film Monty Python, is a more humorous depiction of the Salem witch hunts than in the Crucible, but both exhibit the truth behind the Salem witch hunts. It’s obviously shown how both the book and the film related. The townspeople are so excited and indulge within themselves that they just need to find someone to execute no matter who or what the cost. What I found interesting in the scene from Monty Python was that the leader even knew the wooden nose placed on the womans face wasn't real. But he still managed to make the woman seem guilty of witchcraft in the end and give the townspeople what they ultimately desire.
The scene "She's a Witch" is very similar to The Crucible. Both show evidence of knowing nothing. They accuse others of witchcraft without evidence. Abigail and the group both "prove" witchcraft by acting. The court never does anything about it, but ignores testimonials. Both The Crucible and the Monty Python sketch a group of people follow one person's beliefs or shenanigans ending in one person always being secluded. Both go out of their way to prove their "theory" even if its wrong.
"She's a witch" Shows what people think while they read the crucible. The false accusations are so extreme and if one person believes it then everyone does. In this case they dress her up to look like witch then accuse her. In the crucible they just bluntly lie leaving the person baffled much like the witch in this Monty Python scene. What people think when they read the crucible is how ridiculous people are. in "shes a witch" it takes this emotion literally making it more humorous.
"She's a witch" shows the townspeople dressing up a woman so that she looks like a witch. The knight that runs the town weighs her and since she weighed the same as the duck she got burned. This scene is just like The Crucible. Abigail accuses people just because she wants to and the court rules the accused as guilty based on almost no evidence. Monty Python does a good job at mocking this by having the witch burned even though there was little to know evidence.
In the scene "She's a which!" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I noticed many similarities between it and The Crucible. One of the things that most stuck out to me, was the invalidity of the accusations made by the townspeople. They dressed her up (being an innocent lady) as a witch and claimed that she committed witchcraft having done nothing wrong. I feel that this is almost the same exact thing that some of the girls did to innocent villagers of Salem. They dressed up the victims with false facts of sightings and dancing and put them up for trial for no reason but to save themselves. Another thing that stuck out to me was that the knight in charge actually went through with what the people in the video clip were saying and falsely tested her. This also happens in The Crucible, the judge (Danforth) actually followed through with the lies from the girls, and proceeded to charge the innocent people with a harsher punishment than the ones who actually confessed!
The scene "She's a Witch!" compares with The Crucible in the sense that everyone just wants to accuse somebody to make the witchcraft go away, so they will dress people up as the suspects. Abigail and the other girls dress many innocent people up to be servants of the Devil just because they can. It is funny because in the scene we saw in class people ask questions, like "did you dress her up with this nose and hat?" In The Crucible no questions were asked, the accused were "obviously" guilty because the girls said so. Also in the scene, we see that the accused are given a chance to prove themselves by being compared to the weight of a duck. The court in the text gives no one a chance to prove their innocence. This is why I loved the scene that was shown in class because it showed how ridiculous the court in the text was for believing such selfish, naive children.
The scene "She's a Witch!" from the movie Monty Python's the Holy Grail relates to the Crucible because of the ridiculous accusations against people. In the scene, the woman was weighed to see if she weighed the same as a duck... Which would mean she was a witch. It doesn't make any sence but its very similar to the Crucible because people are killed solely because they were accused. There is really no evidence behind the convictions. All of the towns people were so concerned with this issue but no one tried to find a better reason for what was going on!
The scene "She's a Witch!" from Monty Python's the Holy Grail relates to The Crucible because it forms accusations about witches. The towns people in both the movie and The Crucible accuse random people of being a witch for no reason at all. In both cases there is no evidence, only ridiculously ignorant village people who are looking for entertainment. They will say anything to get the “witches” killed and burned. The lack of evidence is the main key that ties this scene into The Crucible. In both cases there is no provable evidence, only the motivations of civilians. If someone doesn’t agree with the norm of society they are accused of witchcraft.
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