A Satirical Witch Hunt?
Compare the "She's a Witch!" (Transcript) 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? Complete your response by
2:30p.m. on Fri., Nov. 14th.
posted by Greg T at Wednesday, November 12, 2014
31 Comments:
Monty Python's scene of the witch is supposed to be satirical, and yet it describes the doings of the Salem Witch Trials fairly well. The Trials were extraordinarily biased and rather arbitrary. Logic and rationality was hardly used in the process. This is similar to the knight saying that the woman would be a witch if she weighed as much as a duck and was therefore made of wood, and would burn. This is ridiculous, and yet the hysteria and fear make it acceptable to do so.
In the scene "She's a witch!' from Monty Python's Holy Grail, they make irrational suggestions about what characteristics make someone a witch, and they decide that the woman accused of being a witch is a witch if she weighs the same as a duck. She, for some reason, weighed the same as a duck so they decide to burn her because she is a witch. Their logic is skewed, just like in the crucible. There is no actual proof that the woman is actually a witch in Monty Python, just like in the Crucible when there is no actual proof but people are still prosecuted as witches and actually hanged/suffocated. They literally dressed the woman up as a "witch," and in the Crucible the people accused in Salem are figuratively dressed up as witched by saying that there are spirits around them and framing Mrs. Proctor with the poppet.
This clip from Monty Python's Holy Grail relates to The Crucible in many ways. It shows the mass hysteria of and around witches.The clip makes fun of the faulty logic that they used to persecute witches. This relates to The Crucible because, while their logic was not a blatantly bad, it was still bad. They had no real proof that the people that they accused were actual witches. In the clip, it was obvious that they wanted to burn her, regardless of whether they were correct. In The Crucible, many townspeople did the same thing. They wanted certain people to hang, regardless if they truly were a witch. They simply wanted to hang people that they did not like, and they used witchcraft in order to put blame on them.
The scene depicted in ¨Monty Pythons The Holy Grail,¨shows how biased and unscientific the witch trials actually were and also how with one accusation you could be tried as witch and be killed with no real evidence. The Satirical way in which Monty Python makes fun of the witch trials shows how stupid the trials actually were and how they were nothing more than a gimmick to help the public feel safe from the Devil and Lucifer.
Monty Python scene connects to the cruicible by showing just how unreasonable they were and that they had blamed people for the stupidest little thing they have done. The things they made up to prove that a person does witch craft are stupid but if you really think about it it really does make sense because back then they did not have very good education so it all made sense in their heads.
Monty Python scene connects to the cruicible by showing just how unreasonable they were and that they had blamed people for the stupidest little thing they have done. The things they made up to prove that a person does witch craft are stupid but if you really think about it it really does make sense because back then they did not have very good education so it all made sense in their heads.
The scene from Monty Python makes the characters in the Crucible seem very,very dumb. In Monty Python all the characters involved in the witch scene are absurdly stupid. But upon comparison with the Crucible they are doing almost the exact same thing. Though the characters in the Crucible seem and act more educated and civilized they are still convicting and killing because of witchcraft.
The clip that we watched in class reminds me a lot of the crucible because in the crucible the girls exaggerated significantly what they saw and what they were feeling and also the court used flawed logic to come up with their final ruling. In the clip the crowd dresses the woman up like a which and uses completely flawed scientific methods to come up with their final ruling.
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The scene from Monty Python makes the characters in the Crucible seem very,very dumb. In Monty Python all the characters involved in the witch scene are absurdly stupid. But upon comparison with the Crucible they are doing almost the exact same thing. Though the characters in the Crucible seem and act more educated and civilized they are still convicting and killing because of witchcraft.
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The She's a Witch scene from Monty Python can compare to the Crucible by how they are both very cruel and somewhat humiliating to the victims of each. In Monty Python they out z nose on the witch and a mole, while in The Crucible they hang them in front of their whole town. Also, they are not accepting and both react the same way to the abnormal or unknown in their very structured and closed minded communities.
The satirical witch hunt from Monty Python is similar to The Crucible because they both illustrate how a society feeds upon radical ideas. In Monty Python, a few people believe that a woman is a witch so they get a mob of people to believe them. The group of people is excited and fueled off of the energy, and they fail to analyze the logistics of wether or not she is in fact a witch. This aspect can be seen in The Crucible because the society is so afraid of witchcraft that they fail to realize that there is no hard evidence of witchcraft at all.
Monty Python's scene of the witch trail is highly satirized but has some deep connections to the crucible. In the clip the mob of people trying to condemn The woman as a witch are illogical and irrational. Just like in the Crucible, when the town people are going along with the girls even though they know that the girls are lying. The similarities between the scene in Monty Python and the Crucible are astonishing. The only true difference is that one of these was meant to be funny and the other was not.
The witch hunt scene in Monty Python is satirical in showing how people determined witches in the Salem Witch Trials. This scene shows that people did not really use logic when accusing someone of witchcraft and came up with ridiculous ways to tell if someone was a witch.
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It makes me think about how ridiculous the people in both stories are. In Monty Python they were making a big joke about it. Everyone in it was very unintelligent. Also it shows that the witches did't have very much of a chance to prove their innocence. They had to say they were guilty in the Crucible or else they would die. Most of the people in both stories had no logic in proving that people were guilty of witchcraft. The people that were accused, didn't have a fair trial. After watching the Monty Python clip, I am determined that the people in the Crucible were unintelligent and very unfair.
Both in scene of the witch and the Salem witch trials in The Crucible are paralleled by the crowd in the video and the court officials in the play being unwilling to accept what they don't expect. In the play, the court officials expect all of the accused to be guilty, so they don't even think of innocence as a possibility. We see the same in the Monty Python and the Holy Grail excerpt, although it takes longer to come to a conclusion, they eventually come to the conclusion that was really the only option in their minds to begin with.
Monty Python and the crucible share similar characters and ideas. In the clip of Monty Python, the town wants to accuse a lady as being a witch. The leader and some citizens try to make reason of her being a witch and naming qualities of a witch to determine if she is one. They claim that if she is the weight of a duck than she is a witch, but in fact they are unaware of common science and the principle of density. This is very similar to the crucible because many of the townsman just make accusations that are not true. This leads to chaos and people being killed for something that is false and ridiculous.
Monty Pythons scene of She's a witch shows how both of the communitys are similar. Everyone belived in the same religion and only certain people had power while most of the citizens wanted all the power. It also shows how they both accuse girls of being a witch in both plays. Both the Crucible and the film wanted to put blame on people to execute them in the end.
The scene of the witch in Monty Python strongly compares to the Crucible because of the lack of knowledge used in the situation and the crowd is quite dumb and quick to make assumptions off of observations. This compares to The Crucible because the court and the people of Salem were extremely quick to assume about a person being a witch. The evidence used in Monty python was quite satirical because the declared that the person was a witch if wood would burn which it obviously would. The lack of logic and knowledge effects how people rationalize about things.
The comparisons between the satire and good hearted way of Monty Python, and The Crucible are more present then they appear. In the Crucible, we experience the atrocities of the criminal enterprises of wrongful execution and punishment first hand, where in the satire we are faced with the same issuses but in a way that exposes the ridiculous nature that much of the accusations in The Crucible were placed in. Logic is thrown out of the window in both scenarios and is really the cause for such brutal crime. How can you prove an invisble crime?
The scene, "She's a Witch" from Monty Python's Holy Grail, Satirically portrays a witch hunt, not unlike the Salem Witch Trials or The Crucible. The placing of the fake nose, clothing, and other characteristics of a witch on the woman in "She's a Witch", can be compared to how in The Crucible, the townspeople falsely attribute characteristics of being a witch on other people, when realistically, they are most likely not witches.
The witch scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail is an obvious exaggeration, yet remains truthful to the pure hysteria within the Salem community. In both cases, common sense was abandoned for fear of the unknown. Regardless of what is rational, people are willing to push aside reason to achieve an answer. Whether this answer is correct or not, they do not care, for having false information makes people more secure than having no information at all.
Don't try to make people think hard about Monty Python, it's ruining my favorite movie. Just because there was a witch trial in Monty Python it doesn't mean that they're trying to make people think about the similarities and differences between the Salem Witch trials and the movie, it's just a funny scene because it shows how stupid people were. There even was more logic in the scene from Monty Python than in real life, but it wasn't meant to say anything "deep" about the witch trials or relate it to anything else, it was made purely for comedy.
In the Monty Python's scene from Holy Grail said "She's a witch!", the people in village thought she is a witch by the look on the woman but they actually doesn't know what logic is about. The soldier want to test the people of village to see if they have any knowledge about a witch and why they think she is a witch.
The video clip from Monty Python relates to The Crucible in many ways including; the text, characters, themes, relationships, and the court. The overall situation in both stories regarding the fear of witches is similar. Comparisons can be made with the characters because everyone’s innocence is always questioned. The themes of both stories can be seen as a fight for survival, people would do anything to prove their innocence. Relations are shattered, neighbors turn on each other, and the evidence to prove innocence is vital for survival. The courts are supposed to bring justice, but instead bring corruption and chaos. Hysteria is present.
This part of the Movie reminds me of how you didn't really need proof to accuse someone of being a witch. You can find away to blame anyone just like they did in the movie with comparing the woman to a duck and weighing her. Both in the crucible and in this part of the movie I found myself wondering why anyone follow the logic behind these big decisions.
The scene from Monty Python relates to the Crucible because the people of the towns both make false accusations about others in order to protect themselves. They made their decisions about whether someone was a witch or not very quick and they didn't have any actual evidence to prove it. This goes to show how paranoid people can be. The people of the towns are wiling to make up lies about others instead of acknowledging the fact that everyone is different. I also noticed both of the "courts" were very corrupt and refused to listen to everyone's point of views.
In the scene "She's a Witch" from Monty Python's Holy Grail a bunch of townsfolk are gathered around a woman accusing her of witchcraft. Much like Abigail in The Crucible the townsfolk are creating false ideals to frame the woman. There is a parallel between the two about manipulating a crowd. Just like in the court room in The Crucible, Abigail makes the entire court room believe in her stories. In Monty Python's, The man is satirically leading a crowd to understand why the women is a witch.
In the scene "Shes a witch" from Monty Python's Holy Grail, a group decision was made with irrational suggestions about what makes someone a witch. Common sense was as it is not, not so common. They deem it that the woman is a witch because she weighs the same as a duck. Suprisingly, she did weigh the same as the duck. Once this is determined, she was burned. The logic in this is not realistic, and weird. This relates back to the Crucible because there was no way to prove that someone was or wasn't a witch in a rational way. SO random theories were made to "prove" someone was a witch.
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