In a new interview with The Independent, filmmaker Terry Gilliam continued a conversation he made headlines for back in July 2018, whining that “there’s no room for modern masculinity.”
Departing into a rant rather than discuss his new film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, Gilliam repeated an assertion about his race and gender: “I understand that men have had more power longer, but I’m tired, as a white male, of being blamed for everything that is wrong with the world. [holds up hands] I didn’t do it!”“It’s been so simplified is what I don’t like. When I announce that I’m a black lesbian in transition, people take offence at that. Why?”
“I don’t like the term black or white.” Gilliam added. “I’m now referring to myself as a melanin-light male. I can’t stand the simplistic, tribalistic behaviour that we’re going through at the moment. … I’m talking about being a man accused of all the wrong in the world because I’m white-skinned. So I better not be a man. I better not be white. OK, since I don’t find men sexually attractive, I’ve got to be a lesbian. What else can I be? I like girls. These are just logical steps.”
Gilliam lamented losing the old days, when white men could be sexist and racist without repercussion, because, you know, it was funny: “I’m just trying to make you start thinking. You see, this is the world I grew up in, and with Python, we could do this stuff, and we weren’t offending people. We were giving people a lot of laughter.”
Finally he got to his movie, discussing a character named Angelica: “Whatever happened in this character’s life, she’s not accusing anybody. We’re living in a time where there’s always somebody responsible for your failures, and I don’t like this. I want people to take responsibility and not just constantly point a finger at somebody else, saying, ‘You’ve ruined my life.’”
He went on to call the #MeToo movement a “witch hunt” spurred on by “mob mentality” and prompted by women he calls “ambitious adults.”
“But the idea that this is such an important subject you cannot find anything humorous about it? Wrong!” Gilliam argued. “The point is, you make choices. I can tell you about a very well-known actress coming up to me and saying, ‘What do I have to do to get in your film, Terry?’ I don’t understand why people behave as if this hasn’t been going on as long as there’ve been powerful people.”
