Headscratchers / Monty Python's Life of Brian

Who exactly IS Biggus Dickus?

Not meant to be taken seriously, but can anyone come up with a reasonable headcanon for this guy?

• He's the head of the committee to design a new shaft for the Aqueduct.
• According to Pilate (translated): "This man commands a crack legion! He ranks as high as any in Rome!" So, he's an important legatus.

Where is Jesus?

We know it's 33 AD because of the caption at the beginning. It must be Passover because Pilate is setting a prisoner free. But according to the Gospel, Barabbas was set free that year, not Brian. Furthermore, when Brian arrives at Golgotha, Jesus should be there! We never see Jesus brought before Pilate, he isn't being crucified at Golgotha, and he isn't even offered as one of the prisoners to be freed. This would all be well and good except it's 33 AD, chosen specifically because it was traditionally the year Jesus was crucified. So where is he? Why was he not brought before Pilate, why wasn't he at Golgotha? Passover comes but once a year.

To head off any responses to this effect: We do see him giving the sermon on the mount at the beginning, that's not the headscratcher. The headscratcher is that he isn't present at the time and place he's supposed to have died, and Pilate, who is supposed to have given him 39 lashes, is otherwise occupied during that same very limited timeframe.

• Passover comes but once a year, but its also eight days long. Maybe Pilate was releasing a prisoner every day of Passover that year, or at least the first couple and last couple days, which are considered more holy than the ones in the middle? It wouldn't be historically accurate for any of several dozen reasons you could care to name, but its very, very easy to imagine a Pythonesque scenario in which somebody (probably Mr. Cheeky or someone like him) fast-talked him into it.
• Perhaps the traditional year of Jesus's death is off slightly.
• I was under the impression that the prisoner preceding Mr. Cheeky was Jesus, included to indicate that this was indeed the date of his execution. I imagine that he wasn't included in the later scenes due to respect - can you really imagine Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, who died for our sins, etc. singing Bright Side of Life? Releasing Brian rather than Barabbas was simply so they could make a I Am Spartacus joke.
  • To be honest, yes, actually. There's nothing that says our Lord and Saviour couldn't appreciate a good morale-boosting singalong.
    • The Pythons wanted to avoid specifically mocking Jesus, though I don't think there's anything particularly mocking about showing him singing the song. Also, a little bit of Fridge Brilliance - the Jesus shown on the sermon at the beginning doesn't necessarily resemble Jesus besides his and beard - but there are quite a few people on the crucifixion who DO share his dark long hair and beard. Maybe he is present after all.
  • Jesus is in the line of prisoners carrying crosses through the streets. When a sympathetic bystander (Terry Jones) offers to carry his cross, Jesus drops it and scarpers. This leads to the bystander saying to a soldier later "This isn't my cross!" only to be ignored.
    • Hate to have to point out the obvious, but that can't be Jesus, because Jesus wouldn't do something like that.
      • We are talking about Monty Python here, not a documentary. Expect the unexpected.
    • This is more or less exactly what people who *don't* believe in his divinity assert, though: he was substituted with Simon of Cyrene and everyone *thought* Jesus had been crucified, when in fact he went into hiding for three days.
• This is an alternate universe, differing from ours only by the addition of Brian. The Jewish authorities take no notice of the person who smashed up the temple because they are too occupied with the prophet who is attracting the crowds by denying he is the Messiah and the Romans are, likewise, too occupied trying to capture the cunning guerrilla who dared to write 'Romans Go Home' 100 times to bother about any other potential threat. So no-one bothers to arrest Jesus, which means he avoids crucifixion. Presumably, in this universe instead of Christianity we have 'Cohenity' or 'Brianity' where everyone gathers to chant "We are all individuals".
  • Fridge Brilliance: in that universe, the Moral Guardians had more of a reason to protest Monty Python's Life of Brian, since it was a silly comedy making fun of a major religious founder.
• Well, simple. Brian is Barabbas, the Bible got the name wrong.
• Alternatively to both of the above, the Bible of the universe this movie takes place simply identifies Brian as being the person who was freed rather than being Barabbas.
• Maybe Mr. Cheeky is Barabbus, and the Romans just didn't want to admit their mistake. "I thought you were releasing Brian?" "No, sir, you asked for Barabbus, I remember it clearly."
  • I really like that idea, but there's another possibility as well...recall how Mr. Cheeky is still trying to argue that he's not Brian, even as they're taking him down off the cross? Obviously, at some point, he succeeded in convincing someone, got happily re-crucified, and then (since they still couldn't determine who Brian was) Pilate had to ask the crowd for another person to be freed. Barabbus was lucky his name had an R in it....
• The obvious answer to the original question is that Brian was crucified in a different place than Jesus. The Romans had so many crucifixions that year that they had to use alternate sites for some of them...including Jesus and the two thieves.
• Well, for me, the obvious answer is that the whole point of the movie is that a lot of "Jesus"'s life episodes would have actually happened to BRIAN, and that at one point there would have been confusion in a historian's mind who wrote down Jesus's life actually incorporating pieces of Brian's life without wanting to because 2 prophets at the same time was puzzling. Subsequently, people THINK Jesus was crucified, but that's misinformation that actually happened to Brian; the Jesus of the movie is hoping free somewhere and will live until 99 years old and die peacefully.
  I think he said 'Blessed are the Chessemakers'.
  What's so special about the Cheesemakers?
  It's not meant to be taken literally, it refers to any manufacturer of dairy products.
• I believe Jesus is seen in the crucifixion scene, to Brian's right. He fits the description; he's wearing a long robe, has the full beard and long hair; it's impossible to see if he has a crown of thorns because he's wearing a headband (and probably the Pythons decided to stop at an unambiguous portrayal of Jesus himself, rather than that they included someone who looks quite a bit like Jesus).

Brian's tactics

• So when the crowd says that "only the true Messiah denies his divinity", Brian tries to turn this around by saying he is the Messiah, only for them to just believe that. Wouldn't the best response have been to just ask anyone (or everyone) in the crowd if they were the Messiah? (of course, given the idea of the scene, the crowd would probably have just responded by saying they weren't and not getting what that then implies, or coming up with some stupid reason why asking if someone else is the Messiah means you are the Messiah).

  • Well, not no one, just the Only Sane Man. Although he could simply not have thought about it.

  • The crowd were obviously not thinking about the matter logically. They were just looking for ways to interpret anything that happened as proof that Brian was the Messiah. Had Brian done as you suggest, they would probably just have interpreted it as God testing them or something of that nature.
  • Plus, Brian's pissed off and frustrated at this point, and he's being hounded by a massive crowd of fanatics who've latched onto him and won't leave him alone. He's not in the best frame of mind for logical argument at that point.

Wrong location of resistance

• What is the Campaign for Free Galilee doing in Jerusalem? They should have been trying to kidnap Herodias.
  • Maybe their leader is even less competent than Reg and accidentally brought them to the wrong palace in the wrong country.

Massacre of the Innocents

If Brian was born in the portal next to Jesus, how did he managed to survive the Massacre of the Innocents?

• Because the Massacre of the Innocents didn’t happen until two years later.
• Alternatively, because it never happened historically. Or, maybe his mother took him for a vacation in Egypt just like Mary and Joseph, if you follow that storyline.

---