Overall, I enjoyed Monty Python. I definitely think it critiques the chivalric code and how the characters in Arthurian literature take themselves so seriously. One example that comes to mind is when Arthur is walking through the village telling people that he is their king, and they all respond that they were unaware that they even had a king and had been completely self-sufficient living as an “autonomous commune”. Even though Arthur had put himself on the high pedestal of being king, that did not matter at all to the villagers. Monty Python also provides an interesting critique of the gender roles in Arthurian literature. One example of this is when Lancelot gets the letter attached to the arrow from the boy in the tower who is being forced to marry for his father’s economic gain. However, when he gets to the boy after killing many of the wedding guests on the way up, Lancelot is disappointed to find a boy, not a damsel in distress. This entire scene satirizes the trope that many of the women in fairytales and Arthurian works are damsels that need to be saved by a brave knight or prince. I think the writers chose to satirize Arthurian literature in this movie because it gave them a chance to provide commentary on other Arthurian works and 1970s events while being distanced from the events they are commenting on because the work is set in a different time period.
I totally agree about how the movie uses humor to critique how serious all of these medieval stories take themselves. In the world of the 1970s when the idea of trickle-down economics was about to be introduced and right after Amerca had just lost a war where the rich made poor teenagers fight for them, the scene where Dennis tries to explain to them how a monarchy is stupid and out of touch would've hit home back then. It still does now, really. This movie uses both highly constructed humor and humor like making a knight find a shrub to critique how ridiculous this whole charade is, thereby showing us that breaking away from these romantic ideas like monarchies and oppressing women is the smart thing to do.
Great points about trickle down economics and the Vietnam war! I think it's also important to think, too, about the way the British Empire is nominally dissolving during this period too, following in the wake of multiple uprising against the Empire so why not knock King Arthur, the original empirical figure, down a peg or too?
I love the scene where it's revealed the peasants don't know that they are Britains or that Arthur is their king. It makes me think of this week's episode of Game of Thrones when Robert talks about five being a more powerful number than one. He knows that the kingdom will fall apart if they're not united by one thing because at the end of the day people are not going to be loyal to a king for the sake of being loyal. Arthur, however, is expecting his people to respect him and his cause because he was chosen, but he doesn't take care of his people, so they don't care about him. However, as peasants, they have found common ground and have managed to live quite successfully that way.
Agreed with Catherine and Isabella here about your point on (my favorite scene!) with Dennis and his autonomous commune. I like that you've drawn attention to the self-sufficiency here; it's an essential point that could get easily lost in the comedy. It's funny not just because they don't know Arthur's king, but because they truly DON'T need a king. It undercuts the entire governing system! And it's interesting too here that you link that with the marriage scene; I typically forget that the marriage is for economic gain, but when you put the two together as you did, you can really see the connection between wealth and power in these two scene (as well as the violence inherent in the system!)