After Knocked Up and Apocalypto I thought a more absurd movie birth scene was in order. But the birth scene parody in Monty Python’s Meaning Of Life is more accurate than anyone dare imagine. If you’ve had an obstetric hospital birth that you’d rather forget, prepare for some nasty flash backs.
The Meaning Of Life = 42
The Meaning Of Life is really a series of disjointed sketches with a linked theme. We start with life, end with death and fill the middle with lots of life events like education and marriage. It isn’t a proper story like their other movies: The Holy Grail and The Life Of Brian, but more comparable to their earlier TV series, Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Similarly some of the sketches are hysterical while others are, well… not. Fortunately the opening birth scene is hilarious.
So What About The Birth Scene?
The birth scene is set in a UK hospital (more on that later) and shows two pompous, dispassionate obstetricians who really consider the entire procedure a bit of a chore. They have no interest in the mother, instead they divert their attentions to their high tech equipment and to appeasing the hospital administrator. There is so much absurdity in this birth scene that it’s hard to take any of it seriously, but at the same time anyone who has been at a hospital birth knows that it is alarmingly close to the truth.
The director’s commentary on the scene is also very revealing. The sketch was written by python members Graham Chapman and John Cleese. Graham Chapman was a qualified M.D and the knowledge behind much of the scene. Perhaps Cleese was responsible for “The machine that goes PING!”?
When the director Terry Gilliam read the script he was astonished at how similar it was to his wife’s birth experience just a few weeks earlier. She had been subject to an unwanted induction at a US hospital and they left feeling very dissatisfied.
It felt like this. The mother was the last thing they though of. The emphasis seemed to be on the technology and machines. I was amazed when John and Graham wrote this sketch. I though they must have been at Sally’s birth as well. It mirrored so accurately what I remembered.
Finally, back to the hospital. The Meaning Of Life was filmed in 1983 and the birth scene is set in a UK NHS hospital. This was a few years before I started my midwifery training and the birth scene really isn’t representative of a hospital birth of that time. Births then were almost exclusively midwife lead, with obstetricians only present during genuine complications. Of course, these days a woman turning up at a hospital with a vagina is considered a complication, so the birth scene is quite ahead of its time.
Enjoy the video clip and let me know what you think.
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The most realistic hospital birth portrayal I’ve ever seen. It makes me wonder what experiences the writers had that they perceived it in this way. Worshipping the machines that go ping is the most important part of hospital birth. Women are viewed as irritating side effects of the birth process, babies do get taken away and frightened. Yup, 10 out of 10 for realism.
I do love monty python.
“nothing dear, you’re not qualified.” I said that even before I hit play. I will probably always remember this line because of how much it irritates me. So close to reality! Also, was this baby pulled out as a footling breech? lol
Off topic: Speaking of absurdity and truth (while nothing about birth and babies) you’d be surprised how close to reality Down Periscope is when it comes to submarines and navy life.
I’ve never heard of down periscope. My knowledge of submarines is what I remember from “journey to the bottom of the sea” and “hunt for red October”.
AFAIK all submarines have a large, swivelling periscope on the captains deck, a captain’s seat that hangs from the ceiling, many vertical metal ladders that run through small holes in the floors (thus nobody in the crew was fat or in a wheel chair), absolutely no carpet or soft furnishings (just grey decor) and most essentially a green screen sonar radar that sounds like an old pong arcade game in an echo chamber. Oh and lot and lots of torpedoes!
Do the movies lie or is it just in birth scenes?
I’d never seen the whole scene, its amazing how spot on it is??? The stuff about Postnatal depression and finding out about the birth later is chilling..
You do realise, of course, that the Meaning of Life short is one of our most seriously inportant education aids. Can’t you see women eagerly cueing up for hospital births after seeing that?
Thank you for commenting Leigh. It is truly one of the best sketches ever written about birth.
Good one, Lisa & J. There’s a whole new generation of young women who are preg right now who’ve never seen this. Good to have it “preserved” on this site. I thought that all the Monty Python guys were medical students at some point. I think that’s how they met.
No, The monty python team all studied different things. They didn’t even go to the same universities. As a group they met up later after they got into television independently, although some of them had already formed writing partnerships with each other.
Being a stickler I just checked the details on wikipedia
Graham Chapman – Medicine @Cambridge
John Cleese – Law @Cambridge
Terry Jones – English @Oxford
Michael Palin – History @Oxford
Eric Idle – English @Cambridge
Terry Gilliam – Various subjects in the US
Not surprisingly I think Graham Chapman comes across very well as a Doctor. He has that air of superiority and pomposity. None of the others (except Cleese) could pull it off. Perhaps it’s taught at med school or more likely medicine just attracts people with superiority complexes!
Ahhh. . . very good to know, J. Are you going to post the next birth on the film, too “Birth in the Third World”? That’s a good one, too. “Get it will you, Deirdre?”
Saw on Twitter that Lisa’s hobknobbing about with Sarah. I’m green with jealousy.
Birth in the Third World? I don’t remember seeing that. Are you sure it’s in the same film. We’ve actually got a birth scene back log occurring, but always on the look out for new ones. They pop up in the most unlikeliest of places. Ironically, the movies that are not about birth have the most realistic scenes. Typically they are not based in hospitals either. e.g. Perfume and Children Of Men (both in the queue).
Yes, it’s the very next bit on the video. Shows a woman with a huge family washing dishes with her teen daughter, baby falls out on the floor and she says to her daughter “Get it will you, Deirdre?”. . . completely the opposite of the techno machine that goes ping one.
I’ve redone the video clip and included the third world bit. Well remembered.
Aye, some women have babies and just have to get on with life. None of this holidaying in hospitals.
I’m an NHS midwife – I once was trying to support a woman who was having twins – the room was full of people all shouting and bustling about – I remember her saying “s’cuse me, is there anything I can do to help?!” – absolutely true! I haven’t seen this clip in years – it’s uncanny how well it predicted where birth is headed!
Love it! Count on MP to show the absurdity of …anything!
So true! I had to laugh though. Thanks for sharing
Oh wonderful. I haven’t seen a bit of Python in years (not since before my daughter was born anyway!) and I’d forgotten just how funny they really are!
Utter geniuses the lot of them and I loved the two scenes. Who needs a patient when you have the most expensive machine in the hospital eh?
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Great clip! I use it at every one of my classes. When I ask the moms and dads if they find anything wrong with the clip they are quite reluctant to answer, not knowing what to say. It is only once they are given the information over our 2 day workshop that the lights go on. It is very sad, as we have a 70% + caesar rate in South African private hospitals. Yet, the poor moms start out wanting normal births, or so they think …….
Funny you should mention the c section rate Elsabe…. When I was pregnant (I live in the UK) one of my South African friends asked me when I am having my section!? I had no idea what she was on about…. Further investigation showed me that the labout and delivery system in SA is going the same way as in the US unfortunately. I was very fortunate to have a easy natural hospital birth in the UK and will have my next baby at home as it is offered to woman over here (actively encouraged in our area) for their second birth.
I loved this post, I found it interesting that this is the birthing scene that people call the most accurate. Can I ask where you got the quote from Terry Gilliam?
It is in the commentary of the dvd I think