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Comparison Of Monty Python, The Princess Bride, And The Lord Of The Rings

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Famed author J.R.R Tolkien once claimed that “fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don 't we consider it his duty to escape? If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we 're partisans of liberty, then it 's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!” Yes, fantasy literature and films often act as a conduit to allow humans to escape the pitfalls of their own existence, if only for a minute. Yet, often fantasies provide audiences with a depiction of the culture they exist in. Fantasies are a lens into the here and now, the human experience. In this essay, I am going to analyze Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Princess Bride, and the Lord of the Rings, how they along with the fantasy genre as a whole have evolved over the past half a century or so. Over time the genre has changed from openly mocking culture, religion, social structure, and fantasy itself to unabashedly clinging to fantasy as a ‘source of hope for the new generation’. Why is this the case? How do these changes align with culture shifts of the same time? Well, let’s see. …show more content…

Monty Python parodies the journey of King Arthur and his quest to find the Holy Grail. One particular theme of Monty Python is its absolute mockery of Britain’s social class structure; an example being the ‘Bring Out Your Dead’ scene. The scene begins with a man pushing a cart full of dead villagers, all of which belong to and are characteristic of the lower class. As King Arthur rides through the village, one man claims he ‘must be a king’. Another villager asks why that must be the case to which the first village replies ‘he hasn’t got shit all over him’, insinuating that royalty can be identified by their cleanliness and orderliness in contrast to the filthiness of the

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