Fifty years ago, Monty Python and the Holy Grail galloped onto the screen — sans horses but with plenty of coconuts — and gave the world a comedic masterpiece about absurd quests, imaginary enemies and rulers who mistake ego for authority.
In 2025 Alabama, the parody lives on — only now it’s sponsored by a PAC and filed as legislation.
Half a century later, we continue to live out our own medieval farce, starring knights of the far-right table, on a never-ending quest to solve imaginary problems with real consequences. Like the knights who say “Ni,” our lawmakers shriek in terror at words like “equity,” “public health,” and “science” — and then demand symbolic shrubberies in the form of useless resolutions and grievance-fueled press conferences. Try uttering “Medicaid expansion” in the State House and see if you’re not immediately cursed and banished to the Forest of No Fiscal Note.
Instead of searching for the Holy Grail, our state’s political class spends most of its time hunting down heretics — librarians, drag queens, public school teachers, and, occasionally, the First Amendment. Their sacred texts are YouTube conspiracy videos and budget projections written in crayon. Their guiding principle? If it makes people feel safe, healthy or informed, it must be stopped.
Consider the recent legislative session, which devolved into something of a Renaissance fair for reactionaries. Bills were introduced to micromanage school libraries, to define who is a woman, and what’s next? A commission to investigate public education for traces of liberalism — as if the greatest threat to Alabama’s future isn’t poverty, hospital closures or crumbling infrastructure, but some teenager in eyeliner quoting James Baldwin.
We’ve reached the point where teachers assigning To Kill a Mockingbird are treated like suspects in a Salem trial. “She turned me into a liberal!” a parent might cry. “…I got better,” they’ll mutter when test scores don’t fall. But the damage to trust — and the curriculum — is already done.
Then there’s the gambling debate, which now feels like a recurring sketch written by someone who only half-watched the original episode. Every session, our “brave” lawmakers march in circles, declaring they have found a plan — only to be chased away by lobbyists, rival factions or their own hypocrisy. This year’s version collapsed under its own weight like a Trojan rabbit launched prematurely into the moat of public distrust.
Each time a bill collapses or a plan fails to pass, someone rushes to the nearest camera to declare, “It’s only a flesh wound!” Never mind that whole sections of policy are lying limbless on the legislative floor — what matters is the illusion of momentum.
Of course, no parody of Alabama politics would be complete without revisiting that classic scene where King Arthur confronts a group of peasants mucking about in the mud. When he proudly announces, “I am your king!” One of them scoffs back, “I didn’t vote for you.” Another explains their self-governance system — a sort of anarcho-syndicalist commune — prompting Arthur to shout, “Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!” and to claim his divine right to rule because some watery tart threw a sword at him.
Swap the mud for broadband deserts and the sword for a campaign check, and you’ve got half the folks in Montgomery. Too many of our legislators act like they’ve been divinely appointed rather than democratically elected. When everyday Alabamians voice concerns — about low wages, shuttered hospitals or underfunded schools — they’re often treated like the peasants in the film: dismissed, patronized or told to shut up while the “serious” business of fighting imaginary dragons goes on uninterrupted.
And of course, every time a business declines to sponsor a book-burning bill or a parent questions a law banning inclusive education, a chorus erupts from Montgomery: “Help! Help! I’m being repressed!” It’s the loudest cries of tyranny you’ll ever hear from people in the majority, holding every lever of power, with microphones in both hands.
When it comes to healthcare, the farce is even darker. Whenever the subject of Medicaid expansion comes up, someone drags out the same tired cart, shouting, “Bring out your dead!” — only for the working poor to respond, “I’m not dead yet!” But rather than offering care, our elected officials club the issue over the head with budget excuses and leave it for next session.
Meanwhile, Alabama families are just trying to cross the Bridge of Reason. But to do so, they must answer three questions: What is your name? What is your quest? And what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen bill that actually helps working people?
Trick question. In Alabama, those bills rarely make it past committee.
What does make it through are laws written to impress the base, not to improve the lives of Alabamians. We’re governed by people who treat the State House like it’s Castle Anthrax — full of temptations to posture, grift and campaign, but utterly lacking substance. And when things go wrong, as they inevitably do, the response is always the same: “Bring out the wedge issues!”
The genius of Monty Python and the Holy Grail is that it knew it was ridiculous. It leaned into the madness to expose the absurdity of power, pride and blind obedience to bad ideas. Alabama legislators, on the other hand, often lack that self-awareness. They are dead serious about unserious ideas — and the joke, as always, is on us.
But perhaps there’s hope. Maybe, like the ending of the film, someone will finally call a halt to the madness. Maybe the people will storm the set, demand a better script, and remind their lawmakers that governance isn’t meant to be a performance piece for the easily outraged.
Until then, we march on, coconuts clapping, toward whatever “noble” cause next year’s session dreams up — likely involving banning another book, blessing another loophole, or fighting whatever mythical menace they’ve conjured for the next campaign cycle.
And somewhere in the distance, a voice bellows: “GET ON WITH IT!”
At which point the Legislature counts to three — never two, and certainly not four — and hurls the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch at a pride display.
Because nothing says public service like medieval theatrics and manufactured outrage.
