TITLE    : Penises on Parade
STORYID  : penises-on-parade
SUMMARY  : Cumming soon to a theater near you!
AUTHOR   : Cal Y. Pygia@lit
DATE     : 2013-11-05
CATEGORY : reviews-and-essays
FLAGS    : 
TAGS     : |penis|prosthetic penis|phallus|naked|nude|transsexual|transgender|tits|ass|hollywood|


In Hit &amp; Miss, Chloe Sevigny plays a contract killer with a difference: she--or he--is a pre-operative female-to-male transsexual, a role that requires the crybaby actress to wear a prosthetic penis. Crybaby? Yes, perhaps concerned that her femininity might be compromised by her gay apparel, the actress confesses that she "cries" every day that she has to wear the artificial penis. After all, such an accessory is not typically found in a fashionista's wardrobe. Afraid that her penis might mark her as masculine, or at least unfeminine, Sevigny, despite having accepted the role, weeps whenever she must sport the phallus. She said wearing the appendage made her feel like an undesirable, ugly "freak" in whom men would take no interest. How insulting to transsexuals is such an attitude?

Felicity Huffman, who also wears an artificial penis in Transamerica, likewise cried, she says, when she donned the phallus, albeit for a different reason than that cited by Sevigny. Huffman says she had bonded, emotionally, with her character, Sabrina ("Bree") Osbourne (nee, Stanley Schupak), and that she reacted, when she was called upon to exhibit her penis during the film as she imagined Bree would act: distraught. She felt as if, in showing her male member, she was betraying Bree, who, as a male-to-female transsexual, was humiliated by having a penis. Huffman's sentiments may seem too politically corrcet to be regarded as sincere, but, at least she didn't cry because she thought her male member made her feel like an undesirable, ugly freak--or, wait a minite!--maybe she did!

Since the 1970s, there has been a veritable parade of penises on the big screen, with actors strutting their stuff in a plethora of major motion pictures of all genres. Some of the male members are organic; others, prosthetic; and still others, computer-generated. The films in which these appendages not only have, but are, significant parts include Shame (2011), A Very Harold &amp; Kumar 3D Christmas (2011), The Piano (1993), Bad Lieutenant (2009), Ulysses' Gaze (1995), There's Something About Mary (1998), Boogie Nights (1997), Watchmen (2009), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2009), The Crying Game (1992), Trainspotting (1996), The Pillow Book (1996), Velvet Goldmine (1998), Young Adam (2003), Eastern Promises (2007), Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007), Borat (2006), Hollow Men (2008), Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008), Y Tu Mama Tambien (And Your Mother, Too) (2001), Any Given Sunday (1999), Sleepaway Camp (1983), Your Highness (2011), Observe and Report (2009), EuroTrip (2004), Bronson (2004), Quills (2000), The Color of Night (1994), Jackass 2 (2006), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), American Reunion (2012), The Fisher King (1991), The World's Greatest Dad (2009), American Gigolo (1980), Wild Things (1998), Hall Pass (2011), A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Brown Bunny (2003), The Hangover (2009, 2011, and 1013), Bruno (2009), Can't Stop the Music (1980), Hair (1979), Gallipoli (1981), At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991), Lawn Dogs (1993), Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Divine Arbus (2006), Caligula (1979), Sunshine (1999), Schindler's List (1993), Europa Europa (1990), Kinsey (2004), 9 Songs (2004), Lie with Me (2005), Lady Chatterley (2006), The Blue Lagoon (1980), A Night in Heaven (1983), OZ (television series) (1997), Milk (2008), We're the Millers (2013), Wanderlust (2012), Transamerica (2005), and 21 and Over (2013). In addition, Stephanie Germanotta (aka Lady Gaga), as Joe Calderone, wore a prosthetic penis at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards ceremony.

For those who are interested in keeping score, the computer-generated schlongs appear in Watchmen and Your Highness, and the prosthetic phalli exhibit themselves in A Very Harold &amp; Kumar 3D Christmas, Boogie Nights, Milk, We're the Millers, Wanderlust, Hit &amp;Miss, Transamerica, and 21 and Over. It is commonly understood--or, rather, misunderstood--that Felissa Rose (thirteen at the time that she played the part of transsexual killer Angela Baker) also wore a prosthetic penis in Sleepaway Camp. Actually, her character's penis belonged to an eighteen-year-old actor who wore a mask that had been cast of Rose's face. She didn't even know that her character had a penis, she says, until she saw the movie in a hometown theater. Indeed, seeing Angela's male appendage was the first time she had ever seen a penis, real or otherwise.

Unfortunately, whether natural or man-made, the male members are too often obscured or blurry. It seems homophobic Hollywood has a way to go yet, before its filmmakers will be willing to grace the screen with masculinity in all its naked glory--at least, as clearly and unapologetically as it displays feminine charms.

Why the sudden parade of penises? After all to date, audiences seem to have found movies' phallic displays more appalling than appealing. One theory suggests that the relatively sudden focus upon male genitals reflects a loss of political and cultural clout among men. While the patriarchy remained unchallenged and men were firmly in control, this argument affirms, men tended to keep their manhood in their pants, for out of sight meant respect. Familiarity, after all, breeds contempt, and it's hard (pun intended, of course) to take a naked man seriously. With the loss of power, the mighty male appendage can now be shown, just as much as milady's maidenly charms. Whether one buys this explanation or not has as much to do, perhaps, with one's sexual politics as the logic of the argument itself.

One thing seems certain, though: Hollywood sees a market in the exhibition of the male member; otherwise, penises would not be on display any more now than they were before they, like tits and ass, became a marketable commodity. (Producer Judd Apatow has gone so far as to promise his audiences a penis in each and every one of his future films!) Who, then, is interested in ogling the male member in all its naked glory? Women? Gay men? Straight men? The answer seems to be pretty much everyone, at least among the under-thirty crowd, who make up most of the moviegoing audience, for penises are in parade in all manner of movies: animated films, biographies, comedies, dramas, fantasies, mockumentaries, romances, science fiction, and thrillers alike--films that appeal, in other words, to men and women alike.

I am more interested in why actors would wear artificial penises rather than the real deal. In the case of the ladies--Sevigny, in Hit &amp; Miss, Felicity Huffman, in Transamerica, and Felissa Rose, in Sleepaway Camp--the reason that art involves artifice is clear; there is no alternative: technology must equip them with what Mother Nature or God did not see fit to supply them. With regard to male actors, however, the matter is not as clear. Is doing so their own choice, or is it a decision made for them by directors, costume designers, or others? Do the actors find the prosthetic penises to be more masculine than their own equipment? Are fake penises easier to control than their real-life counterparts? (There's no chance, for example, that a prosthetic penis may develop a sudden erection at an inopportune moment.) Does the employment of a glorified dildo allow the pretense that one is not really letting it all hang out, after all? Does the wearing of a prosthetic penis put a bit of emotional distance between an actor and his or her co-star. Making it easier, for example, for James Franco to romp nude with Sean Penn in Milk? There is probably some degree of truth in all these explanations. Sometimes, merely to pose a question is to suggest an answer.

Meanwhile, the penis is out of its pants, and there's no way of putting it back.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a good--indeed, an excellent--thing! 

