My wife likes Monty Python in small doses and loved SpamALot.
I think this is obviously how to market it to Woman in the NYC and Chicago areas.
Make more plays based on Monty Python material.
The only reason Monty Python might appeal more to women than men is that it was pretty much an all-male team (with many of the men in drag and an occasional woman playing a woman).
But I just burnt a CD of the Spamalot soundtrack for a coworker. And she likes it a lot more than I do.
I don’t know how to help you. I’m female, and I freaking adore Monty Python humor. The appeal? It’s silly. It doesn’t make a lick of goddamn sense. The visual gags are wonderful, and the dialogue is witty, fast, delivered in all seriousness when it needs to be, and overacted to death if the scene requires it.
Besides all this, John Cleese is, without a doubt, the funniest man alive.
Then again, I’m a girl-geek, so that may have something to do with it. I find that of all my friends, the only ones who “get” Python are invariably the geeky types. Maybe the fact that there are fewer female geeks than male geeks means that no matter what you do, you’ll always have fewer females who laugh at the Spanish Inquisition sketch.
You are obviously hanging around with the wrong women, because in my circle of girlfriends, we all love Monty Python. Maybe the biggest problem is that it’s British humor, which many people – men and women – just don’t get. The same applies to “Black Adder,” I think. Personally, I think “Spamalot” appeals to more people as much because of who’s in it as because it’s a musical.
So, in short, all you need to say to me and/or any of my best friends is “Brad the Wonder Llama” and we’re yours for the night.
I think you nailed it. This board not withstanding, I think there are more male geeks than female geeks and most geeks like Monty Python. Heck everyone at the Hollywood Bowl that was singing along to the Lumberjack song should probably qualify as a geek.
I’m a woman and a huge Python fan. More than anyone I know.
I pondered it a bit. And while I find all the Pythons to be good looking, they’re not traditionally good looking and usually dressed up to be the dolts they’re poking fun at.
On the other hand, when there’s women characters played by women they’re usually hot and sometimes scantily clad. And often stupid or mute
So the ratio of hot chicks to hot guys on the show is way skewed towards the hot chicks side. If you count “The Meaning Of Life” and “The Holy Grail” well…there’s a bunch of running topless ladies in the former and a castle full of randy virgins in the latter. What’s not for a guy to like?
This reminds me of a commercial for BBC America.
It showed a clip of Palin & Cleese as Frenchmen describing their flying sheep airline.
After ~30 sec. text appears:
“If your girlfriend laughed at that, marry her.”
My wife hates Python, but did laugh at the clip, and again at the text.
I think the combination of dry, absurd, and obscure comedy is too much for many women (and men).
My experience is that guys tend to go for the weird, absurd humor more than women do. If I was trying to show a woman what the deal is, I’d play some of the more straightforward stuff. Hollywood Bowl has some of that.
My experience is that guys tend to go for the weird, absurd humor more than women do. If I was trying to show a woman what the deal is, I’d play some of the more straightforward stuff. Hollywood Bowl has some of that.
My experience is that guys tend to go for the weird, absurd humor more than women do. If I was trying to show a woman what the deal is, I’d play some of the more straightforward stuff. Hollywood Bowl has some of that.
I’ve never polled every female friend I have, but I’ve only met one woman who declared, when asked, that she did not like Monty Python at all. She also didn’t like the Simpsons. Anyway most of my good friends love MP as much as I do. Of course, I’m a geek. I spent much of high school watching tapes of Monty Python with my best friend, and could recite large chunks of Holy Grail dialogue. (Does anyone else remember how, in the early days of BBSs and such, practically the first things that was put out there were successively more and more detailed scripts?)
Heh. My second-favourite BBS circa 1983 was The Crunchy Frog. (Sysop: Bicycle Repair Man.)
Most of my women-friends have a deep and abiding appreciation for Monty Python – but then, I have a deep and abiding appreciation for geeky girls. I spent a good few years with a pixie redhead with a broad Irish bum who would occassionally, when feeling randy, chase me around the place shouting “Dinsdale!”* in a passable Spiny Norman voice. Sexy.
*My first name is “Dale,” although nobody ever calls me that except to take the piss.
My daughter, who is the biggest humor fan I’ve ever known, is also a girl geek who got the entire DVD collection of Monty Python and watched right through the whole thing. Then the Monty Python movies. She is right at home in the dry and cerebral.
Now she is introducing me to Dave Chappelle. I’m still trying to get her to watch Margaret Cho.
I’ve heard that it’s successful because it contrasts British notions of class and propriety with the “anything goes” spirit of the early 70s. The thing that drew me in was Terry Gilliam’s animation, though.
I can see how a woman might be a little put off by it (especially the last season, without John Cleese), but if a gal takes the sight of a naked Terry Jones playing piano in the spirit that’s intended, she’s a keeper.
I am female, and took to Monty Python’s Flying Circus from the moment I first saw those guys on TV back in '74 during a visit to the UK.
I couldn’t believe I was seeing this stuff on television!
And yes, the animation especially appealed to me.
I actually like this kind of humor more than my husband does.
