Epic
(300 mins) about the lives of two friends, a
landowner's son, Alfredo Berlinghieri (Paolo Pavesi,
later Robert de Niro) and a peasant's, Olmo Dalcò
(Roberto Maccanti, later Gerard Depardieu), both
born on January 1, 1900 in Emilio, Italy
In an early scene in a silkworm
farm, Olmo (Maccanti) has taken his wet clothes off
and retracts his foreeskin.
Alfredo (Pavesi): That must hurt a lot.
Olmo: Why should it hurt?
Alfredo: The skin's all back.
Olmo: Let's see if yours is any different. (Alfredo
pulls out his.) Looks just like a cocoon. Pull
the skin back and look just like mine.
Alfredo: It won't go.
Olmo: Well pull harder.
Alfredo: Oh, it burns!
Olmo: Ah, it burns because you're not
courageous, and you're not a socialist!
Years later Alfredo (de Niro) hires a woman for them
both. As they undress, Olmo (Depardieu) pulls on his foreskin, and again as they both become
uncomfortable at the prospect of sexual activity
together. In bed hey are both naked with the woman
between them, and both men have exposed glandes. De Niro is
visibly cut.
In
his voice-over, Bertolucci says an overarching theme
was the two men as two sides of the same coin. He
wanted a Russian and an America to play the leads,
but the USSR would not cooperate, so he made do with
the French Depardieu. He saw the first scene as
adolescent exploration, and the second as being
about the unbridgable gap between the two men. The
second scene may have no connection with the first,
and the men's circumcision status may have been
unimportant to him.
3 Needles
Canada, 2006
Grim
dramas about the intersection between HIV/AIDS,
greed, poverty, money and blood. In a prologue and
three unconnected parts set in China, Canada and
Africa; the prologue is a flashforward to the middle
of the third part. (There is a version in which the
three parts are intercut together.)
In the prologue, Bongile (Siv Mbelu) is one of a
group of Xhosa initiates in coastal South Africa (near
a spectacular waterfall) who are ritually circumcised
as part of their rite of passage to manhood. The
actual circumcisions are heard but not shown. We see
the youths coat each other's bodies in mud, and lined
up, the circumcisor (Mbutuma Gubo) raises the knife,
chops, and says "Now you are a man" to which they
respond "Now I am a man" as a blanket is put over
them. There are quick shots of the bloody knife and
the pile of foreskins. The voice-over (Olympia
Dukakis) says how washing the mud off afterward makes
them feel as if they have grown a new skin.
In the third part, a novice nun (Choloe Sevigny) says
of a man who has raped a small child in the belief
that having sex with a virgin will cure him of AIDS,
"I think he should be circumcised below the belly
button." There is a suggestion that poverty caused one
of the intitiates, Bongile's brother Huku (Anele
Solwandle), to delay his initiation until after he was
old enough to have had sex, and so his blood infected
the others.
Circumcision
is shown as the cause, not a prevention of HIV
infection.
28 Days
US, 2000
A
comedy with a theme about the jargon and uplifting
twaddle of rehabilitation.
A young woman (Sandra Bullock) is spending 28 days in
a rehabilitation centre. While eating, a woman finds
an eyelash she lost and says everyone must make a
wish.
Roshanda (Marianne Jean-Baptiste): Custody
of my children. Gerhardt (Alan Tudyk): Sobriety. Roshanda: Oh come on, baby, we all want that. Gerhardt: My foreskin back. No one asked before
they took it; they just took it. They had no right to
take it.
The others snicker.
Oliver (Mike O'Malley): Way to share, Gerhardt,
way to share.
The others laugh.
Gerhardt
is a figure of fun. He is gay, self-absorbed and
confused. Earlier, at a therapy session he launched
into a monologue about a fork in the road and
trailed off into talking about ladles. Later, told
he can look for a partner when he can keep a plant
alive, he talks to the plant, sketches it -
everything except water it - then blames the seller
when it dies. The underlying message is that only
such a hopeless person could mind being circumcised.
Coming right after "We all want that" the line's
message is that Gerhard has picked something nobody
(in his right mind) could possibly want.
Above the Rim US, 1994
Crime/drama
about a promising high scchool basketball star and his
relationship with two brothers.
Kyle (Duane Martin) and Bugaloo (Marlon Wayans) are
walking when Kyle stops in an alley to urinate.
Bugaloo sneaks a peak at Kyle's penis.
Bugaloo: Damn, gee, I didn't know you was
uncircumcised. Yo' dick like a anteater! (Laughs.
Kyle turns away) But it's so big.
What, you been liftin' weights wit yo' dang dang?
That big ol' dick.
Kyle: No, I been liftin' yo' moms with my
dick. Shut the fuck up, man.
Kyle
has probably heard the old "anteater" gibe many
times.
Alex and Eve
Australia, 2015
Comedy
about a multi-cultural romance between a young Greek
teacher (Richard Brancatisano) and a Lebanese Muslim
woman lawyer (Andrea Demetriades).
The Greek parents, George (Tony Nikolakopoulos) and
Chloe (Zoe Carides) are discussing the
possibility of their son's marraige and how the
religious question would play out:
Chloe: She's the Muslim, he's the
Orthodox.
George: It doesn't work that way, love.
And the grandchildren? Would they be Muslim?
Chloe: Not if it's a boy!
George: What about his little willy?
They circumcise! (The mother looks pained)
There is no further discussion and the topic isn't
raised again.
The
romantic couple seem secular so it may be a
non-issue.
American History X
US, 1998
Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton) and his kid brother,
Danny (Edward Furlong), racist skinheads of Venice
Beach, vandalise a grocery story that has been taken
over by Latinos and Koreans. They terrorize the Latino
employees, calling one "You fucking doggy
dick!"
American Pie 5/Presents: The
Naked Mile
US, 2006
Just before the characters run the mile
of the title (a college tradition after exams), Dwight
Stifler (Steve Talley) gives a speech to three other
characters to encourage them. In the background, this
exchange:
Jackson (uncredited): Stifler! You
uncircumcised twat! Stifler: Jackson, you little-dicked
motherfucker.
Clearly "uncircumcised" is meant as an insult. Since the
literal meaning of "twat"
is vulva, the expression is doubly insulting,
but literally meaningless.
An American Werewolf in
London
UK, 1981
Horror-comedy
Two American students backpacking across Europe,
David Kessler (David Naughton) and Jack
Goodman (Griffin Dunne), are attacked by a werewolf on
the Welsh moors. Jack is killed (but since this is
about werewolves, that's not the end of
him) while David is wounded and taken to a
hospital in London. Nurse Alex Price (Jenny Agutter)
is looking in on David when fellow nurse Susan
Gallagher (Anne-Marie Davies) enters.
Susan: Is he all right?
Alex: Yes, I should think. He called out
just now.
Susan: He's American, you know. Doctor
Hirsch is gonna fetch one of them embassy fellas to
see him.
Alex: His chart says he's from New York.
Susan: Oh, I think he's a Jew.
Alex: What makes you say that?
Susan: I've had a look.
Alex (chuckling): Really, Susan, that
wasn't very proper. Besides, it's common practice
now.
Dr. Hirsch (John Woodvine) (entering):
Nurse
Gallagher, Nurse Price is quite right.
Nurse
Price is not quite right. Her "now" and Hirsch's
agreement implicitly endorse circumcision by
implying it is "modern" - when in fact it became
common more than 75 years earlier, and had been
largely abandoned in the UK, as any real doctor in
London would know.
Antwone Fisher
US, 2002
(based on Fisher's autobiography,
"Finding Fish")
As a boy, Antwone lived with foster parents (called
Tate in the film) and was abused physically,
emotionally and sexually. As an adult, Antwone (Derek
Luke) and his girlfriend Cheryl (Joy Bryant) look at
his birth and adoption records in an unsuccessful
attempt to find his real parents. The scene lasts just
a few seconds but by freeze-framing, it is possible to
read:
... 1984 Mrs. Tate [states?] that child and brother like to urinate in wash baskets, [?] and bottles during the day. She added that bedwetting was no longer a problem.
I had Antwone take a physical and it was recommended circumcision on elective admission basis. He was admitted to University Hospital on [8/6/84?] and operated on [8/8/84?] and discharged on [8/9/84?].
He was well-prepared for this surgery, ...
This
appears to be an instance of punitive circumcision.
Antwone reads this poem in the film:
Who will cry for the little boy,
lost and all alone?
Who will cry for the little boy,
abandoned without his own?
Who will cry for the little boy?
He cried himself to sleep.
Who will cry for the little boy?
He never had for keeps.
Who will cry for the little boy?
He walked the burning sand.
Who will cry for the little boy?
The boy inside the man.
Who will cry for the little boy?
Who knows well hurt and
pain.
Who will cry for the little boy?
He died and died again.
Who will cry for the little boy?
A good boy he tried to be.
Who will cry for the little boy,
who cries inside of me?
In
the film, Antwone was born in 1976, making him about
eight years old in 1984. (In real life, he was born
in 1959.)
Attack of the Devil
US, 2014
YouTube
video (14'30")
Synopsis: A Catholic priest (Ray Mcanally [pseud.?])
is led to a giant intact penis in a cave in Iraq.
Removing it awakens the gigantic Devil (Arden
Banks), but it is also the last part needed to
(re?)assemble a giant Robot Jesus under the Vatican.
The last step, ordered (4:40) by the Pope (Roger
Conley), is His circumcision (by a remote controlled
giant Lego/drill-rig laser "circumtron"/Gomco clamp). The cut edge
activates Robot Jesus (Mike Stegall) with electrical
discharges, and he speaks in a heavy menacing voice.
The Pope launches him like a missile from Vatican
Square and he flies to New York.
At a heavy metal concert, the crowd run from the
Devil. Robot Jesus and the Devil fight, and the
crowd, including the priest, applaud Jesus, but
electricity from Jesus' penis (10:30) makes him kill
some of the crowd and start to destroy New York. The
Devil sees the lightning coming from Robot Jesus'
penis (11:40) and restores his foreskin with a
touch. The priest says "It is He who
performs miracles," and the two giants part as
friends, Robot Jesus flying into a disturbance in
space, the Devil wading into the sea. The priest,
now heavily pierced, waves goodbye to Satan.
Revolutionarily,
circumcision makes Robot Jesus evil, and the Devil
cures him.
Bad Faith
(Mauvaise foi)
Belgium/France, 2006
Comedy
about
the problematic relationship between a Muslim and his
pregnant Jewish girlfriend
There are several references to circumcision, all
meant to be funny.
A male-bonding episode between Ismaël (Roschdy Zem,
who co-authored and directed), his Jewish partner
Milou (Pascal Elbé, another co-author), and their
non-denominational French friend has some banter about
doing it when he was 3½ ("It was fun; I had a party")
compared to eight days ("How cruel, you can't even
remember it"). The inconsequential milquetoast
pipes in "We don't do it!" but he is ignored.
The
idea that any boy finds his circumcision "fun" is
grotesque.
Bad Moms
USA, 2016
Women's comedy, released July 29, 2016
Going by this clip, it is heavy on "the
foreskin is disgusting."
Kiki (Kristen Bell) says she is "just happy [the man
she is with] is circumcised". This prompts Amy (Mila
Kunis) to ask with a gasp "What if I get someone who
is not circumcised?" She is told:
Kiki: Run out of the room screaming. It's
like finding a gun in the street. Just scream and get
out of there!
But Carla (Kathryn Hahn) damns intact men with faint
praise:
Carla: No way, you guys. Uncut guys are
great!! Kiki: Really? Carla: Oh they're just so nice to you
because they know their dicks are gross. Amy: How do I handle it? Carla: Just imagine that this [pulling Kiki's
hoodie over her head] is the hood of the uncut cock
and this [Kiki's face] is the penis-face. So what you
would to is just very gently [demonstrating with the
hood] peeel it back, like that, to expose the head of
the cock ... and then you [pulling the jacket off
Kiki's shoulders] work it off, and then you just go to
town, you jerk if off until you want to sit on it. [This
is all bad advice.] Amy: What do I do with this (the hood of the
hoodie)? do I put it in a hairclip or do I -" Carla: Nonononono, nonono this, this, you can
flick it, fuck it, rub your face on it. Amy: I don't wanna put my face on it. Carla: OK, well take care of this, though, This
is like a big, giant man-clit. If you work this, it's
gonna be like - [rising and spreading her arms in the
air] Whoosh!"
But Kiki says
Kiki: I'm not gonna wear this sweatshirt
ever again"
- the foreskin is THAT disgusting. No intact men were
consulted in the making of this film.
It also has a line directed at a woman wearing a
chest-flattening bra:
"It looks like you've got a 'Boys
Don't Cry' thing happening right now."
a reference to the film about Brandon Teena, a FTM
transperson (possibly intersexed) who was raped and
murdered.
Comedy
about
Daphne (Diane Keaton) trying to find a boyfriend for
the youngest of her three daughters, Milly (Mandy
Moore).
Milly is at her new boyfriend's house. While he is in
bed in the next room, she surruptitiously telephones
her mother and sisters Mae (Piper Perabo) and Maggie
(Lauren Graham). Daphne puts her on speaker phone.
Daphne: So, how's it going?
Milly: It's good, it's good... the only
thing is, I think he may have a hotdog with a bun.
Daphne: Are you having a picnic?
Mae: No! Uncircumcised is back IN.
Maggie: You know, that guy I dated before
Derrick, he had a - hmm - and I preferred it,
because it was so much more dramatic when it finally
made its appearance. You were like, WOW! (runs
her hands down the sides of her head, like a
foreskin sliding back to reveal the glans)
Daphne: Honey, just remember, he's
accomplished, he's considerate, and don't forget,
you have one breast smaller than the other.
The family is portrayed as not mincing words and
speaking frankly about sexuality (Milly, in one
scene, describing an orgasm to her mother) yet
Milly is not certain about his status.
Maggie doesn't know, or won't use, the word
"foreskin".
Daphne (ignoring Maggie's preference) implies
she thinks a foreskin
needs to be compensated for, and
is a disfigurement
The film has had sharply mixed reviews.
Beyond Honor
USA, 2003
Mohammed Abdel-Karim (Wadie Andrawis) is
an Islamic patriarch in Southern California, Sahira
(Ruth Osuna) his medical student daugher. "Variety" (Jan
18, 2004) describes the climax, involving female genital
mutilation, as "blood-curdling".
Black KKKlansman (USA) 2018
Historical drama: In Colorado Springs in 1972
(actually 1979), a black police officer, Ron
Stallworth (John David Washington) infiltrates the Ku
Klux Klan, using a Jewish surrogate, Flip Zimmerman
(Adam Driver) for face-to-face meetings.
Klansman Felix Kendrikson (Jasper
Pääkkönen) suspects Zimmerman of being Jewish
and takes him to his basement for a "Jew lie detector
test". They disagree about the reality of the Holocaust,
Kendrikson saying it was faked, Zimmerman that it was
"beautiful". Kendrikson (pointing down with his
pistol): Let me see yer dick.
[Cut to an unmarked police car outside where
Stallworth is listening to Zimmerman's wire.)
Voice of Zimmerman: Are ya gonna shoot me? Put
that gun away. [Stallworth rips of his headphones
and races out of the car.] Kendrikson: I hear you Jews do something funny
wit' yer dicks, some weird Jew shit. Is yer dick
circumstanced? Zimmerman: Oh, is that what this is is about?
Yer tryin' to see my big Jew dick, yer fuckin' faggot. Kendrikson: Who're yer callin' a fuckin'
faggot? Jew faggot! Zimmerman: (points his index finger at
Kendrikson as if pushing a button, and clicks with his
tongue.)
The
ultimate faith in the fallacy that "Only Jews cut."
In reality, Kendikson would very likely have been
"circumstanced" himself.
Blades of Glory
USA, 2007
Comedy-drama
Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder) is an orphan adopted by a
famous figure-skating coach who is raising him to be a
champion, while Katie Von Waldenburg (Jenna Fischer)
is the untalented younger sister of a brother-sister
figure skating team. They set her up to spy on Jimmy
and his skating partner but Jimmy and Katie become
romantically involved, so Katie admits she's been
spying, and they are soon telling each other the
horrors of growing up in such a competitive sport.
Jimmy says his foster-father insisted he be
circumcised "to reduce wind resistence."
This
might, and should, elicit horror, but also might be
taken as light relief, circumcision being "trivial"
and the reason given so ludicrous.
Blind Fury
USA, 1989
Nick
Parker (Rutger Hauer), a blinded Vietnam vet, uses
his samurai fighting skills and concealed sword to
rescue his old Army buddy, Frank Devereaux.
Nick: Where is Frank Devereaux?
Cobb (Charles Cooper): F.O. Errol Flynn! You
know what that means? Fuck off!
(Nick swings his sword and shaves off Cobb's
bushy eyebrows. Cobb looks shocked.)
Nick: I also do circumcision.
Makes
circumcision trivial (with an underlying castration
threat: "Next time it won't just be your eyebrows"),
but also implies it is a delicate task.
Brokeback Mountain
USA, 2005
Story of love between two sheep-herders
in Wyoming, starring Heath Ledger as Ennis Del Mar and
Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack Twist (with Peter McRobbie as
John Twist), Directed by Ang Lee ("Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon").
The
short story by Annie Proulx includes a
scene where Ennis remembers Jack telling him
how his father punished him for uninating on the
toilet seat by urinating on him, and how
Jack learnt at that moment that he was circumcised,
because his father was not, shattering any
possibility of a relationship. The scene is not in
the film.
But I'm a Cheerleader
USA, 1999
Comedy about a schoolgirl (Natasha
Lyonne) sent to a "cure" camp after she is suspected of
being a lesbian. In one class, Mary J. Brown (Cathy
Moriarty) requires the inmates to say what is the "root"
of their homosexuality:
Dolph (Dante Basco): Too many locker-room
showers with the ? team.
Since
the other reasons are absurd and trivial, the
implication is that circumcision is trivial too.
The Cable Guy
USA, 1996
Comedy
directed
by Ben Stiller.
The Cable Guy (Jim Carey), Stephen Kovaks (Matthew
Broderick), Stephen's ex-wife (Leslie Mann) and his
parents (George Segal and Diane Baker) are playing a
party game called "Password Porn".
Each writes a (sexual) word on a scrap of paper to be
placed into a container. A scrap of paper with the
word "foreskin" on it is among those placed.
A word is drawn and whispered to one person who then
gives one-word clues to the word. The first three
words are "nipple", "vagina" and "foreskin".
When Stephen is told his word is "foreskin", he says
something like "I cannot play this any more" and
starts to leave the room.
The
foreskin is apparently too disgusting to be even
mentioned in a risqué game.
Jimmy Bosely (Bernie Mac) must get past
an Irish guard. He asserts that he too is Irish, despite
being black. To prove it, he argues that his family is
Irish because they too have gone through "terrible shit"
- potato famine, unemployment...and ... circumcision.
The guard, puzzled, and with guarded sympathy asks:
"Circumcision?"
Bernie later tells of twin boys in his family being
born and how they were to be circumcised.
(More
detail needed. Circumcision is very rare in
Ireland.)
Choke
US, 2008
Black
comedy.
The mentally-ill mother (Angelica Huston) of Victor
(Sam Rockwell), a sex-addicted historical village
employee, stole him as a baby, but her seeming nurse
Paige (Kelly Macdonald) convinces him that his mother
fled Italy because she had stolen the foreskin of Christ and used
cells from it to impregnate herself, so that he is the
Second Coming.
Foreskin
cells have no power to impregnate after 2000 years,
but with holy relics, all bets are off.
"The story of a Hasidic comedian who has converted
three times."
What's
striking is that the words of the title are almost
never uttered, compared to "Circumcise him".
Circumcision / La
Circoncision / Tiyabu Biru
Senegal, 1978
Directed
by
Moussa Bathily, in the Sarakhole language
As an agrarian village prepares for their traditional
circumcision ceremony, the village elders realize that
they can no longer afford the sacrificial cattle, an
integral part of the festivities. Eavesdropping, a
group of young boys find out about the dire situation
and decide to steal the cattle so the ritual can
continue. "Visually poetic, with an inspired
documentary ambience, Moussa Bathily’s lone feature
film is nostalgic and penetrating."
Tyrone Wilson as Walter Little
"I want a cision..." (based on actual events):
Refreshingly
different: man is not
circumcised, and resisting it is a token
for thinking for oneself.
Circumcision! A Slice
of Life
USA, 2012
Comedy
in 10 minute episodes.
Gleb Kaminer migrates from Azerbijan to Israel, where
the army requires him to be circumcised. Pain is
emphasised and the usual jokes
trotted out. The details of the operation are not
shown, but his (large) foreskin is seen flying through
the air and landing in a basket with others:
The
point of this movie seems to be to show off Gleb
Kaminer's technical skill (he plays every role). He
clearly has no experience of a foreskin and the
movie says nothing useful about circumcision.
Coffee, Desserts, Light Fare
15 mins
US, 2002
Two white South Beach, Florida, gay men
find they are involved with the same man. One complains
of "too many uncuts", describing them as "disgusting".
The other agrees.
In
a film made almost entirely by people with Spanish
names, this may be to illustrate the men's
shallowness.
Comedy
(sequel to "Coming to America" [1988]): Prince Akeem,
ruler of the African country of Zamunda (Eddie
Murphy) learns he has a son, Lavelle Junson (Jermain
Fowler). In order for Lavelle to succeed to the throne
he must undergo "majutu", which he learns too late is
genital cutting. He protests that "we already did this"
but the ceremony goes ahead.
(link
to YouTube video)
It proves to be a sham, a test of his courage, and
the pretext for jokes about the size of his and his
father's penises.
The Commissar
USSR, 1967
(US release 1987)
In a scene filmed through the wheels of a
moving cannon carriage, three naked Jewish boys take an
outdoor bath in a Ukranian shtetl sometime in the early
1920s. The two older boys appear to be circumcised,
while the youngest one, born after the Revolution, is
not.
There
is no suggestion that the third boy is any less
Jewish for being intact.
The Core
US, 2003
No direct reference, but two reviewers
independently comment:
A vessel in the shape of an uncircumcised phallus
penetrates Mother Earth and inseminates her core with
nuclear-tipped casings which explode in coordinated
waves, thus returning equilibrium to the planet.
The team jumps into their cigar-shaped ship,
appropriately titled the U.S.S. Massive
Uncircumcised Cock, and so begin their journey to
the center of Mother Earth, where they will
penetrate her egg-like core to deposit a payload of
nuclear-warhead sperm, which will rock her body with
coordinated waves of post-coital delight and get her
molten juices flowing again, thus saving the planet
from a particularly bad case of sexual frustration.
(Both
reviewers pan the movie, Ramsey calling it
"astonishingly disastrous" and Batz "so bad it
hurts".)
Cours Toujours
Dad on the Run
France, 2000
Jonas's father-in-law tells him that in their North
African tradition, Jonas (Clément Sibony) must bury
his son's foreskin after the bris.
Jonas loses the handkerchief containing the foreskin,
and in the rest of the movie he and his best friend
search for it around Paris. In the last scene, after
the foreskin has been found and buried, Jonas asks his
friend where his father buried his
foreskin.
The friend replies, "C'mon, not all Jewish families
circumcise. My family, for example, doesn't bother."
Crash
Canada/UK, 1996
Dir:
David Cronenberg from the novel by J G Ballard (not
the 2004 film of the same title, dir: Paul Haggis)
About people who are sexually turned on by car
crashes and the dangers involving them. In an early
scene, James Ballard (James Spader) and his wife
Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger) are having normal sex
and talking about Vaughan (Elias Koteas) who has been
disfigured in a car accident. Both are attracted to
him and talking about him while having sex arouses
them. Catherine casually asks "Is he circumcised?"
along with other sexual questions about Vaughan.
Ballard
is English, Cronenberg Canadian, and he set the film
in Canada, so the question need not imply a
preference on her part, and the answer is not
open-and-shut. One implication is that James has
seen Vaughan naked, suggesting a degree of intimacy
between them.
Deconstructing Harry
US, 1997
Writer Harry Block (Woody Allen) confuses
his life with his writing. On one of his rare visits to
his son Hilly (Eric Lloyd), at a parents-at-school day,
Hilly asks him, "Dad, why doesn't my penis look like
yours?" (It is not clear when he might have seen it to
notice.) Harry explains, "because your mother and I
never had you circumcised," but then embarasses an
overhearing mother (Mariel Hemingway) by expanding the
topic to the naming of penises. Hilly says he's going to
name his penis "Dillinger", which Harry says is
"perfect".
In one of his stories, a psychotherapist (Demi Moore)
who has had a son by Epstein, a former patient
(Stanley Tucci),
Harry (voice over): "as if she had
experienced a divine revelation, suddenly became what
Epstein referred to, angrily, as 'Jewish with a
vengeance'." Helen: I just rue the day that I listened to
you and didn't have him circumcised. Epstein: What are you, nuts? Helen: We could still do it. Epstein: No, no! He's too old. Helen: Now he's too old. Epstein: My God, you're like a born-again
Christian, except you're a Jew.
She becomes so devout, she says a blessing before
giving him oral sex. Soon after, she has an affair
with an Orthodox patient.
On the basis of his stories, Harry's sister and
brother-in-law accuse him (with some truth) of being
self-hating and anti-Semitic.
Circumcision
is only a springboard off which characters' attitude
to Judaism is bounced -
implicitly reinforcing the myth that only Jews
circumcise.
Desert Flower
US, 1997
Docu-drama
about the life of anti-FGC advocate Waris Diri,
played by Ethiopian model Liya Kebede.
"... German writer-director Sherry Hormann includes
a horrifying, graphic re-enactment of Dirie's genital
mutilation as a child, seen in a flashback.
... A love interest (Anthony Mackie) appears briefly,
but potential complications, given Dirie's traumatic
history, are alluded to but not explored
... rather than examine what might have become of her
if she hadn't been so beautiful, the film opts for
uplift ..."
It's not a smooth ride to the top of the modeling
world, however. One of the most poignant moments
occurs when Dirie, not yet comfortable with English,
goes to the hospital for an infection arising from
her long-ago operation. A British doctor asks a
Somali male nurse to translate his instructions to
her, but by subtitles we see that the nurse berates
her instead "for bringing shame on our people."
Desert Flower is an entertaining film which
manages to be more than just a tale of empowerment.
It's the story of one woman's triumph over
adversity, yes; but it's also a learning experience.
One incredible fact: Although the barbaric practice
of female genital mutilation has been condemned by
the World Health Organzation and the United Nations,
it's still commonly performed on as many as 6,000
girls per day.
The Devil's Advocate
US, 1997
A lawyer, Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves), defends a man
who has slaughtenered a goat in his apartment. He says
other blood sacrifices are acceptable, such as
circumcision.
Cross-examining a woman who claims to have had a
relationship with a man:
Lomax: Is he circumcised? Witness: (pause) Uhh.. Lomax: Is he cut or not? Witness: (silence) Lomax (forcefully): Do you understand the
question? Witness: (silence) Lomax: So which is it? Witness: (silence. Cries)
Her
hesitation convinces Lomax that she is lying about
having slept with the man. The questioning assumes
she is familiar enough with both kinds to be able to
tell the difference - by no means likely in the US.
Deuce Bigelow: European
Gigolo
USA, 2005
(Raunchy
comedy, widely panned)
Deuce (Rob Schneider) and his love interest, Eva,
(Hanna Verboom) are at an aquarium, Deuce leaves her
alone and a man who was taunting Deuce earlier makes
lewd remarks to Eva to gross her out, telling her
kinky things he wants to do to her. After some sharp
retorts and glares from Eva, he says "My penis is
uncircumcised."
This
makes no sense in England and Europe where the film
is set and where almost every man is intact: it
would be like saying "I have ten toes." To US
audiences, however, it is intended as another gross
remark. Message: "Intact penises are inherently
disgusting."
Dirty Rotten
Scoundrels
US, 1988
A
comedy set in Southern France.
In a museum, Freddy Benson (Steve Martin) takes a
quick peek at a nude male statue. He goes "Eeew!"
presumably because the statue's penis is intact.
He
would go "Eeew!" a great deal in Italy,
Greece or Scandinavia.
Drift
Germany/
Canada, 2000
Written and directed by Quentin Lee, not
to be confused with Drift (Netherlands, 2001) directed
by Michiel van Jaarsveld.
Ryan (Reggie T. Lee) is on the phone with his
recent ex, Joel (Greyson Dayne). when he is paged by
Leo (Jonathon Roessler), a 20-year-old they'd
recently met at a party. He ends the call with Joel
and phones Leo.
Leo: Hey. What's up? Ryan: What are you doing? Leo: Oh, I was just masturbating. Ryan: Do you want me to call you back? Leo: No, I just came. Ryan: Cool. Leo: I don't know. I was just incredibly horny
today. Ryan: So, how do you masturbate? Leo: Nothing kinky. You know- Just my hand. Ryan: Do you use lubricant? Leo: No, I'm not circumcised. How 'bout you? Ryan: Yeah.... Leo (laughing): Umm ... This is an
incredibly weird conversation. Ryan: You started it. Leo: I was just telling you what I was doing. Ryan (laughing): I was just curious.
A boy called "Smut" carries out little
rituals with road kills, indicating his troubled state
of mind. He is told by a neighbourhood girl that
circumcision is desirable. He asks his father Madgett
what it looks like. Madgett, in bed, pulls back the
bedclothes and says "see, nothing special" (or words to
that effect). (In a generation, circumcision has gone
from commonplace to rare.) Smut circumcises himself,
further indicating his morbid state of mind.
(Director
Peter Greenaway has a particular interest in morbid
states of mind.)
East is East
UK, 1999
George Khan, a strict Muslim Pakistani
(Om Puri) is married to an Englishwoman, Ella (Linda
Bassett), in Salford, Manchester. It is 1971. Their six
sons and daughter, taking part in a Catholic procession,
take a detour to prevent him from seeing them. His
eldest son - who proves to be gay - flees from an
arranged wedding. His youngest son, Sajid (Jordan
Routledge), who always wears a parka with a concealing
hood (like Kenny in South
Park), easily wins a pissing contest behind the
mosque, but his competitors see his intact penis and
call a Mullah, who inspects him and complains to his
father. George takes him home in shame:
Ella: What the bloody 'ell's 'e done now? George: Done? I tell you what he bloody done,
missus. 'E makes a bloody show of me. All the bloody
family always makes a bloody show of me. I go to that
mosque long time. Now how I looking Mullah in the
bloody face? 'Cause your son got bloody tickle-tackle. Ella: What y' goin' on about, y' big daft git,
what bleedin' tickle-tackle? George: Mullah sees. All the bloody children in
the mosque seeing. Ella: Well they must be seein' things, George,
because they were all done, all six of them.
Auntie Annie (Leslie Nicol): She's right,
George. George: You're not believe me? You're bloody
looking! Ella: Sajid, come 'ere. Sajid (backing away): Get stoofed! Ella: Ay ay, language! I'll stuff you in a
minute, you cheeky little bleeder, now get 'ere an get
'em off!
(Sajid whimpers.) Annie: Come on Saj, let me 'ave a look. I've
wiped your shitty arse before now. (She looks). Oo,
'e's right, y'know Ella, it's still there!
[An English mother mistaken
about her nine-year-old son strains credulity.] George: You sees, is all you bloody fault! Annie: 's nowt to worry about, George, you can
still get 'im done. Ella: I know who I should've got done. (Annie
snickers) George: No bloody funny, you sees. It's got be
fixed! This thing has to be cutting! (Sajid runs
away) Ey! Come 'ere you bastard!
... Saleem: (secretly an art student, drawing an
intact penis to show his brothers and sister) We
draw 'em all the time at college. ... protects the end
of the penis.
... Maneer (the religious one): Foreskins
are dirty. Saleem: They wouldn't be there if they were
dirty. Meenah: Why do they cut it off? Tariq: It lessens the
feeling in y' knob. Maneer: No it doesn't. Tariq: 'Ow would you know? You've 'aven't used
yours yet. Maneer: Yes I 'ave.
.... George (calling through a hole in the
outside toilet door to Sajid): You can't 'ave
this thing, my son. It no belong to you. Not our
religion, see. No worry about it. (Cajoling) I
buy you nice watch. Ella: Oh why bother with all this now at 'is
age, George? George: Your son goin' bloody 'ell with this
thing. But we fixes. Ella: 'E's not goin' to 'ell. George: I tell you, missus, it's my 'ouse, an I
bloody control it. (They argue.)
... Ella (through the hole): Oh, come on
Saj. 'S only a little operation.
It won't hurt ...
(The word "hurt" echos as the black hole expands to
fill the screen. It contracts as we pull back from
Sajid's hood to reveal Sajid in his jacket on a
hospital trolley, being wheeled away screaming. Cut
to a closeup of Sajid's fly being zipped up. Sajid,
now on a hospital bed, groans.)
... George: Is everything all right? Tickle-tackle
all gone? Doctor: The circumcision was absolutely fine. [No question about the medical ethics of performing
unnecessary surgery on a non-consenting patient.] George: You Indian? Doctor: I'm sorry? Ella (whispers): George! George: Bastard Indian! ... Sajid (producing
a watch) This is very special watch. It tells
the time in ... Arabic. (Sajid turns away.)
...
(Sajid has been brought home.) Annie: How's little one doing? Ella: 'S all right. Just a bit sore. Annie: Where's old Bothered-Balls? 'E 'appy
now? Ella: Yeah. 'E bought him a new dressing gown,
and a watch. Annie: Hmph. Not much of a swap, but it's
better than nowt, I suppose. Ella: Annie, do you think I'm a good mother? Annie: No, I think you're a friggin' awful
mother. Ella: Would you've put one of your lads through
all this at 'is age? Annie: Well you 'ad no choice, love. Ella: I did. I could've put me foot down and
said "No." Annie: And given yourself a load of bleedin'
grief. It's 'is religion, Ella. And its theirs, you
know that. You knew that when you got married.
In the climactic fight between George and his family,
Sajid's hood gets torn off. That symbolic circumcision
is more of a coming of age than his literal one.
The
overall impression is that circumcision is an evil,
but only one among many examples of George's
self-centredness and cruelty.
Eating Out 4: Drama Camp
USA, 2011
Romantic gay comedy: lovers Casey (Daniel
Skelton) and Zack (Chris Salvadore) go to a drama camp
where sex is forbidden and their failing relationship is
threatened by another man, Benji (Aaron Milo).
Zack sniffs Benji's underpants, which makes him want
to masturbate and rub himself with them. They have
been contaminated with poison oak, making him itch all
over (50:04). When his friends, though
puzzled about how it happened, commiserate, he says:
Zack: It's like my whole body is a
circumcision wound.
Subtext: "Circumcision
is
very painful" but the scene is played for comedy,
and the reference is more gratuitous.
Europa, Europa
[Hitlerjunge Salomon]
France/
Germany, 1990
"The true story of Solomon Perel."
The film opens with the Bris
of a German baby, shown in some detail. The baby,
Solomon, cries weakly when he
is cut. In voiceover, he (Marco Hoffschneider - intact
in real life, he wore a circumcised prosthesis for the
nude scene) says he can remember his own circumcision.
On the eve of his Bar Mitzvah, his family flee the Nazis
and emigrate to Poland.
Separated from them, he becomes an unwilling Russian
and Polish interpreter for the German army, as Josef
"Jupp" Peters. He has to conceal his circumcision from
the soldiers of his unit. When he sees hanged Jews, he
asks himself, "How could they be so kind to me and
treat the Jews so horribly? What set us apart? A
simple foreskin?" A friend makes a pass at him while
he is off-guard in a bath and discovers his secret,
but tells him not all Germans are the same and is
killed soon after.
He is sent to a Hitler Youth boarding school deep
within the Reich. On the train, a woman has sex with
him, but before she exposes him an officer orders her
to put the lights out. At the school he checks the
locks on the toilet doors and is relieved to learn
they wear trunks when showering.
He falls in love with a German girl and, inspired by
her poloneck sweater, attempts to restore
his
foreskin with string,
but develops a painful infection. Sex with her would
expose him, and she turns to a rival. He has a
nightmare in which his family rejects him and he is
told Hitler is Jewish too: "That's why he covers it
with his hands."
After many close shaves he is saved from the Russians
when he is recognised by a Jewish friend in a
concentration camp they are liberating. They urinate
together in the rain as he embraces his Jewish
identity. He emigrates to Palestine and in voiceover
says when he had sons, he "barely hesitated" to
circumcise them. (The real Solomon Perel appears in
the last scene.)
The
film strongly reinforces the theme that all and only
Jewish males are cicumcised.
Everything Relative
US, 1996
Seven women, six of them lesbian, gather
for a reunion following the bris
of the son of two of them, Victoria (Monica Bell) and
Katie (Stacy Nelkin). The mohel
(Harvey Fierstein) jokes "Shall we take a bit off the
top?" All the women gather round to watch and the scene
fades. (Baby is circumcised.
He seems unaffected afterwards. He also seems well over
eight days old.) Though conventional family structures
are challenged, circumcision is not.
Everything You Always
Wanted to Know About Sex
*But Were Afraid to Ask
US, 1972
Comedy
distantly connected to the popular (and ludicrously erroneous) book by
David Reuben
In the section, "What happens during ejaculation?"
the male body is imagined as a kind of craft with
a large male crew, e.g. erection is produced by burly
men cranking the winches of a crane-like device. As a
timorous sperm, Woody Allen wonders what will happen
to him, and as he leaps off the gangway-like urethra
he calls, "Well, at least he's Jewish!"
Why
this should be a relief is a mystery and it
reinforces the fallacy that "Only Jews cut off
foreskins." Its function in the film seems only to
reference the otherwise unmentioned penis.
Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) leaves her
9-year-old son, Walter, at home. When she returns he
is gone. Months later, the LA Police Department -
riddled with corruption, cronyism and violence - try
to foist off another boy on her as Walter. They make a
big thing of it, with newspaper headlines, pictures of
the returning boy, etc. She spots the switch
immediately, but they insist she take him home on a
trial basis.
(Christine comes into the hall and stops in
front of the bathroom door. Knocks.)
CHRISTINE: I found you a pair of pajamas. I
bought them for Walter but he didn't like the
fabric, so -
"WALTER" (off-scene): Ow!
(She hears him fall and pushes the door open.
Inside the bathroom, she helps "Walter" stand,
discreetly turned away from us. )
CHRISTINE: Are you all right?
"WALTER": I fell. Stupid tub.
CHRISTINE: Did you hurt yourself? Let me see
-
(She looks down, stops suddenly, reacting to
something we don't see. Looks slowly looks up to
his face.)
CHRISTINE: You're circumcised.... Get out. (She
takes his hand and marches him out of the
bathroom.)
...
CHRISTINE (to police officer): He's
four inches shorter than Walter. Boys his age don't
shrink. If anything, he should be taller.
JONES: Maybe your measurements are off.
Look, I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for
-
CHRISTINE: He's circumcised. Walter wasn't.
(Jones glances back, uncomfortable about
discussing circumcision with a woman in public
view. He lowers his voice.)
JONES: Mrs. Collins...your son was missing
for four months. For at least part of that in the
company of an as-yet unidentified drifter. Who knows
what such a disturbed individual might have done? He
could have had him ... circumcised ... might have -
CHRISTINE: Made him smaller? Captain, please
-
They send a doctor over to examine the boy.
CHRISTINE: What about the circumcision?
DR. TARR: Very likely his abductor thought
it appropriate. After all, circumcision is
hygienically sound. Must have been quite traumatic
at the time. No wonder he's submerged the memory.
These two scenes, with their two contradictory
reasons for circumcising, are apparently there to
indicate how desparate the authorities are to
explain away the anomaly; but they are rather like the contradictory reasons
given for circumcising babies today. (As the doctor
indicates, non-religious circumcision was on its way
into fashion in Los Angeles in 1928.)
Fargo
US, 1996
Two hookers in Minnesota are asked to
describe the two wanted men they had sex with.
Detective (Frances McDormand): I want you
tell me what these fellas looked like. Hooker (Larissa Kokernot): Well, the little guy
[Steve Buscemi as "Carl Showalter"], he was
kinda funny-lookin'. Detective: In what way?
[Showalter has buck teeth, slicked-back hair and a
pencil moustache.] Hooker: I dunno. Just funny-lookin'. Detective: Can you be any more specific? Hooker: I can't really say. (inspiration:)
He
wasn't circumcised. Detective: Was he funny-lookin' apart from
that? Hooker: Ya. [Much is made of the Minnesotan
"Ya".] Detective: So. You were havin' sex with the
little fella then? Hooker: Anh-huh. Detective: Is there anything else you can tell
me about 'im? Hooker: Nah. Like I say, he was funny-looking.
More than most people even.
This sets up a later scene:
Officer Olsen (Cliff Rakerd): Well, what'd
this guy look like, anyways? Mr Mohra (Bain Boehlke): Ohh, he's a little
guy, kinda funny-lookin'. Olsen: Aha. In what way? Mohra: Ohh, just a general kinda way.
...where the joke is on us for expecting Mohra to know
or say anything about Showalter's circumcision status.
On
the positive side, we are invited to consider the
hookers ignorant for thinking intactness is
"funny-lookin'". The underlying message is that
circumcision is too trivial for intelligent people
to consider.
Chip (Jason Bateman) is paraplegic - or in some
versions, pretending to be. Tom (Zach Braff) married
Chip's former girlfriend, but thinks Chip is trying to
steal her back. When Chip wheels into a locker room
naked, Tom stares and looks shocked. Chip says it's
okay to stare - "He likes it."
Later, a woman who works with both tells Tom that
Chip is great in bed. Chip and Tom argue and Tom
accuses Chip of wanting to "bang my wife with that
giant uncircumcised anteater!"
Clearly
for Tom, "uncircumcised" is a term of abuse (and a
grudge he has been holding against Chip). This
undefined "wrongness" of intactness is part of the
way the circumcision meme
is transmitted.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
US, 1998
Dramatisation
of part of the life of writer Hunter Thompson.
"Raoul Duke" (Thompson, played by Johnny Depp) and
his Samoan lawyer Dr Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) go to
Las Vegas. Dr Gonzo picks up a young girl, but Duke
convinces him to get rid of her before they get in
trouble and end up in court with Gonzo accused of
violating the virgin girl with his "uncircumcised
member".
Almost all Samoans are in fact circumcised. The
implication is that illegal sex is worse if the penis
is not circumcised, and perhaps that to be intact is
to be morally suspect. The reference is somewhat
tongue in cheek, because Thompson/Duke is not bothered
by the "uncircumcised" member, but having a jibe at
the American way of viewing it.
Flirting with Disaster
US, 1996
Comedy
about Mel Coplin (Ben Stiller), his wife Nancy
(Patricia Arquette) and their incompetent caseworker
(Téa Leoni) searching for Mel's birth-parents so
they can name their four-month-old son. Along the
way they meet Paul (Josh Brolin) who is trying to
convince his partner to adopt a child.
Paul (to Nancy): So, where did you
folks come down on the big circumcision controversy?
'Cause there's a movement afoot these days to keep the
foreskin. Personally, I think a
boy's penis should look just like his father's.
You know?"
Nancy (nods): "Yeah, uh-huh".
Since
Paul is gay, the question could arise, "Which
father?" The film touches on many issues, apparently
to seem trendy, but doesn't engage with any of them.
The Golden Compass
US/UK, 2007
Fantasy
drama
based on "Northern Lights", the first of Philip
Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy.
In a parallel universe, everyone has a daemon (soul,
in the form of an animal). To separate a human from
their daemon causes acute pain. Lyra Belacqua (Dakota
Blue Richards) is taken to Bolvangar in the Arctic,
where the evil and powerful Magisterium performs
"intercision" on children, cutting them apart from
their daemons and devastating their personalities. In
the ultimate operating theatre, cold and sterile, the
child and their daemon are put in a cage, a mesh wall
is lowered between them, then a sheet of white light
slowly comes down the wall. The Magisterium is still
perfecting the process of intercision, but the evil
Marisa Coulter (Nicole Kidman) says "It's just a
little cut". Lyra is saved at the last second from
being intercised.
From the screenwriter/director's commentary:
As
in the book, there's something quite off
about the way that people act at
Bolvangar. They're not quite aware of the
fact that they're doing something
terrible. In fact they're quite proud of
themselves and proud of their station, and
they're also condescending towards
chldren. ... And here comes a hateful lie
from the male nurse: "But this is the way
that you grow up" and the idea here is
that this intercision process that they're
inflicting on children is something that
they see as good for them, and if only
they could perfect the process they would
be saving the children from something
terrible, which is the infection of Dust
[Original Sin].
Austin Powers (Mike Myers) laments that
his father (Michael Caine) has never been present at key
moments of his life, such as his ordination as Man of
Mystery in front of his school.
Song:
When I was first baptized,
When I was criticized,
When I was ostracized,
When I was Jazzercised -
Steak 'n' kidney pies -
When I was modernized,
When I was circumcised,
Daddy wasn't there.
This
makes little more sense sense in context, but the
impression is of a list of unpleasant experiences.
Gozu Japan, 2003
Horror. A young yazuka, Minami (Hideki Sone) is
ordered to take his beloved colleague Ozaki (Shô Aikawa)
to be assassinated. Ozaki disappears and reappears later
as a young woman (Kimika Yoshino). Minami has been
genitally cut meanwhile, and she demands to see it. Ozaki: Did the circumcision go well? Minami: Yes... Somehow. Ozaki: Well show me. Minami: Huh? There's not much to show really. Ozaki: I said show me. Minami:Really? Ozaki: If you don't, I'll kill you! Minami:Okay then... [Ozaki grabs it with a
hand emerging from her groin.] ***...
wait a moment. Ozaki: Wow, so that's what a circumcision
does.Your wiener looks just like Frankenstein's. But
damn if it ain't as giant as ever. Enchanting. Minami: Uh... Brother, can I zip up my pants? Ozaki: Now, you can finally get laid. Am I
right? Minami:Yeah.
Even
in non-cutting Japan, the idea that intact men won't
get sex is abroad, but also that cut penises look
horrifying.
Halfaouine: Boy of the Terraces
[Asfour Stah]
Tunisia/France/
Italy, 1990
A
coming-of-age film set in Tunisia.
Noura (Selim Boughedir), 12 years old, is lying on
his bed while his little brother, aged about three, is
being circumcised. The sequence jumps from one boy to
the other. The little boy is crying as he is put on a
table and circumcised. His older brother lies
clutching his crotch in agony as he hears his
brother's screams.
In Lithuania, in 1944, a Nazi soldier, Vladis Grutas
(Rhys Ifans) and his
men have captured a peasant.
Vladis: Are you a gypsy?
Peasant : No, sir.
Vladis (Sniffing him as a dog would):
Are you a Jew?
Peasant: No, sir.
Vladis: Why don't you show us your dick? (Vladis
and his men laugh loudly, but they are distracted
by a loud explosion)
In
Lithuania in 1944, none but a Jew would be
circumcised, but the point of the scene is to show
Vladis' contempt.
Harry and Kumar Escape
from Guantanamo
US, 2008
Comedy
The girlfriend of one of the boys is off in Amsterdam
and the other taunts him that she is "probably having
it off with some European guys" and that "she probably
has a couple of uncircumcised dicks in front of her
face right now".
Though
of Korean and Indian origin, their thought-patterns
are thoroughly U.S. They do not, however, suggest
that the girlfriend finds foreskins disgusting.
Harry and Max
US, 2004
OFFICIAL
SYNOPSIS:
Harry (BRYCE JOHNSON of WB’s "Popular" & MTV’s
"Undressed"), aged 23, is a former boy band idol who
is watching his younger brother Max (COLE WILLIAMS of
ABC’s "8 Simple Rules…For Dating My Teenage
Daughter"), aged 16, follow in his footsteps. Harry
escorts Max on a long-promised camping adventure to
the San Gabriel mountains above Los Angeles but things
quickly turn serious as the boys discuss Harry’s
contradictory relationship with their family. Max’s
longing to connect with Harry both physically and
emotionally grows even more, wanting to bring
stability to Harry’s life. In an effort to create a
type of alternative family for his brother, Max goads
Harry to rekindle his affections for his former
girlfriend, Nikki (RAIN PHOENIX of "O" and "Even
Cowgirls Get the Blues"). Back from the weekend, Max
realizes that he must redefine his relationship with
his brother, and that only by setting boundaries can
the boys grow into adulthood together.
On the camping trip, Harry complains bitterly of
having been circumcised at birth. Max sympathizes
completely, but the way the issue is brought up ("I
don't know why Mom and Dad had this done to me")
suggests that at some time in the seven years between
the sons' births, the parents saw the light, and Max
is intact. Max also seems to conduct his life with
more ease and honesty, and this is written into the
film as consistent with his being more comfortable
with his whole body.
A
remarkable departure from the usual US pattern.
Hello Goodbye
France/Italy/Israel, 2008
Comedy
Gisèle (Fanny Ardant) converted to Judaism when she
married Alain (Gerard Depardieu), a secular Jew.
"She decides that only a trip to Israel will inject
meaning and renewal into their bourgeois lives. After
a holiday there, ... they pack up their apartment and
move. ... Gisele takes to their new home ... and falls
for a young rabbi ... But by the time Alain submits
himself, at his wife's behest, to the mohel's knife --
yes, that would be for a circumcision -- all one can
say is "oy."
...As he was never circumcised, the first step is
to be circumcised. He is horrified but eventually
acquiesces. The doctor pronounces that in 35 years he
is the first adult on whom he has removed the
foreskin. [In Israel, with
many immigrants from communist regines, that is
very unlikely.]
This
is mildly anti-circumcision, if his willingness to
undergo it is an indication of his weakness.
Horrible Bosses
US, 2011
Comedy
about
three friends who conspire to murder their awful
bosses
Dale Arbus, a dental assistant (Charlie Day) is
sexuallly harassed by his boss Dr. Julia Harris
(Jennifer Aniston). While they're working on an
unconscious patient, she purposely
sprays the crotch of Dale's scrubs with
a dental water squirter. Dale jumps up from his
stool in shock and dismay.
Dr. Harris: Oooh, I think we can make
out the outline of our little friend
there. Shabbat shalom, somebody's circumcised.
This
implies "Circumcision is Jewish", and "Shabbat
shalom" is a Sabbath greeting, not for working hours
- but such a person may be careless with facts.
Hostel
US, 2005
Comedy/Horror
Two American students, Paxton (Jay
Hernandez) and Josh (Derek Richardson), and an
Icelandic friend, Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson), are
backpacking across Europe in search of women. Soon
after they arrive at a hostel, the three go to a
sauna, where there are two topless women. They whisper
hellos, then there is a lull. Oli breaks the silence:
Oli (jumps up): I'm so happy I shaved
my balls. (laughter) What? I have the smoothest
balls in Iceland. (takes off his towel, stands up
and shakes his genitals in Josh's face) Do you
want to see?
Josh: No, no,... You're not... no... I'm
good, I'm good. Put your anteater
away. It's totally creepy.
Natalya (Barbara Nedeljakova, to Josh):
You're not from Iceland, no?
Josh: No, f no, American.
Yeah, unlike him I had my foreskin removed at birth.
Hygiene and - am I talking?
Ummhuh, I'm Josh.... (Natalya looks at him in
disbelief throughout.)
Apparently
just another gratuitous swipe at intactness, though
Natalya's line makes it clear she is familiar with
Icelandic foreskins, and has no problem with Oli's.
Calling a foreskin an "anteater/elephant's
trunk/Shar-pei" is just a way of trying to make
one's own discomfort seem objective. And that
discomfort ultimately derives from fear of facing
one's own loss. If a body part looks (a little) like
some other natural object, what of it?
House Calls
US, 1978
Comedy
about
a romance between a doctor in a run-down hospital and
his patient.
Ann Atkinson (Glenda Jackson) lists the operations
from which Dr. Charley Nichols (Walter Mattahu) makes
money. One is circumcison. Charley says, "Only for
boys."
In
1978, it could be considered funny to refer to
female genital cutting because it was so obscure as
to be unthinkable.
The Infidel
UK, 2010
Comedy:
Mahmud
Nasir (Omid Djalili), a relaxed Muslim, plans to marry
the daughter of a "hate cleric" when he learns that he
is actually Jewish.
As he becomes reconciled to his identity, he says
something like, "We're not so different. We eat
similar foods, we're both...." He gestures at his and
his friend's crotches, and shrugs his shoulders in a
stereotypically Jewish way.
The
scene implies that to be circumcised is a negative
thing.
Jennifer's Body
US, 2009
High
school horror comedy: an ambitious band sell
their soul to the devil by sacrificing a virgin, but
their plans go awry because Jennifer (Megan Fox) is
not a virgin and she comes back as a demon-possessed
killer.
Best friends Jennifer and Needy (Amanda Seyfried), a
nerdy virgin, go to a local bar. There Ahmet (Aman
Johal), is sitting alone.
Needy: Hey, there's Ahmet, the exchange
student from India.
Jennifer: I wonder if he's circumcised. I've
always wanted to try a sea cucumber.
Needy: Eww. (giggles)
A
sea-cucumber
Perhaps the left end looks something like an intact
penis (covered with warts),
but equally the right end looks like a circumcised
penis.
Ambivalent. Even though she's "always wanted to try"
one, "sea cucumber" suggests the rarity of, and the
disdain usually reserved for, the intact penis in
the USA. Since Jennifer is the sophisticated
character, it may be her point of view we are
expected to support. From his turban, Ahmet is a Sikh,
so he is almost certainly intact, but Jennifer may
not know this.
Jojo Rabbit Czech Republic/NZ/US, 2019
Comedy-drama: Near the end of WW2 in
Germany, a 10-year-old would-be Nazi (Roman Griffin
Davis) finds a Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) hiding
within his solo mother's house.
He has fantastic ideas about Jews, which she does little
to discourage. He asks her if they "still steal the ends
of penises. ... Rabbis use them as earplugs."
Jungle2Jungle
US, 1997
There is mention of circumcision of the native people
of the Amazon. (They do not practise it.)
Just Married
US, 2000
[deleted
scene]
Tom Leezak (Ashton Kutcher) is in the bath when
Father Robert (George Gaynes) walks in. The priest
sits on the edge of the bath, looks at Tom and asks
"You're not Catholic, are you?" Tom explains later
that he's half Jewish, the reason he is circumcised.
This
reinforces the myth that "Only Jews circumcise." In
fact many boys have been circumcised "because he's Catholic".
Keeping The Faith
US, 2000
In the opening sequence, narrated by
priest Brian Finn (Edward Norton), he and his friend
Rabbi Jacob Schram (Ben Stiller) have parallel problems
"coming to grips with the practical aspects of our
jobs".
His robe catches fire and he strikes a parishioner in
the head with his incense burner, and has to put
himself out by sitting in the font, while Jake faints
during a Bris. The
two scenes are intercut, but after the establishing
longshot we see Jake's reaction, the baby's trusting
face and the mohel's
hands reaching for glittering instruments. We see Jake
start to fall and hear a single "snip"
sound and the baby crying. The following long shots
show all but the mohel run to attend Jake.
The
focus is entirely on the man - though his reaction
speaks volumes about the reality of the unseen
circumcision. That the scene is played for laughs is
somewhat sick. Imagine if the baby were a girl....
The Killer Who Never Kills
Taiwan, 2011
Comedy/thriller
about a compassionate trainee assassin who fakes his
victims' deaths for them.
"Wan & Lee only rarely gets their
audience to laugh. For example, one of
Ouyang's targets is a creepy surgeon who
specializes in circumcision. Not only does
Ouyang discover that the guy keeps all the
removed foreskins in a gallery of test
tubes, but our hero actually concedes to
part company with his own in the name of
undercover surveillance. This sequence has
the potential for comedy gold, especially
considering how events play out, but in Wan
& Lee's hands it barely raises more than
a smile."
It's
progress that the surgeon is "creepy", but as usual,
the loss is trivialised.
Kinsey
US 2004
Biopic
about
the famous mid-20th century sex researcher, played by
Liam Neeson.
Early in his career, Kinsey gives a talk about sex to
married and senior students at the University of
Indiana, illustrated with pictures of an erect penis
that is clearly circumcised, even though Kinsey
himself was, and most of his students would have been,
intact at the time, before 1940.
Late in the film, his wife Mac (née Clara Macmillan,
played by Laura Linney) finds him sitting on the edge
of the bath reading letters from people with unhappy
sexual histories. Drops of blood are on the floor
between his feet.
Mac: What's that blood? Kinsey: I punctured my foreskin. Mac: Why? Kinsey: People do all sorts of things to
themselves and I wanted to see what they were
experiencing. I did not find it particularly
pleasurable.
This
apparently follows "Sex, the Measure of All Things: A
Life of Alfred C. Kinsey" (1998) by Jonathan
Gathorne-Hardy. But in "Alfred C. Kinsey: A
Public/Private Life" (1997), James H. Jones puts it
differently: "On one occasion when his inner demons
plunged him to new depths of despair, Kinsey climbed
into a bathtub, unfolded the blade of his pocketknife,
and circumcised himself without the benefit of
anesthesia."
Knocked Up
US 2007
Romantic
comedy about chalk-and-cheese Ben Stone (Seth Rogan)
and Allison Scott (Katherine Heigl) falling in love
during Alison's pregnancy after a one-night stand.
While awaiting the birth, Allison's sister Debbie
(Leslie Mann) asks her husband about Ben's
long-bearded friend, Martin (Martin Starr).
Debbie: "Is he Ben's rabbi? Is he the one
that cuts the penis?"
Implying
she
mistakenly believes
If Ben is Jewish, the baby is Jewish;
the rabbi does it
soon after birth; and
(implicitly) only Jews circumcise
- all common enough mistakes.
Krippendorf's Tribe
US 1998
Anthropologist James Krippendorf (Richard Dreyfuss)
has misused grant money, so he needs to fake some
anthropology. He uses his three kids, Shelley, Mickey,
and Edmund, to help him mock up a documentary on the
"Shelmickedmu" tribe. They slap together several
tapes, by splicing actual footage of a tribe with
images of the four of them mucking about their
backyard with makeup and tribal-type clothing. In one
scene the eldest son "circumcises" the younger son
with an axe. (One reviewer on the
Internet
Movie Data Base calls this "the only thing worth
seeing in the movie." Another loved "all the social
commentary allusions to our own tribal way of
living.")
Critic Daniel Barnes slammed the scene in detail in
The Barnesyard blog on November 14, 2005 (reprinted in
The E Street review).
KRIPPENDORF ON…CIRCUMCISION
Krippendorf’s first order of business
involves faking a circumcision ritual by
using his 4 year-old son as bait, pretending
to remove the foreskin with a stone machete.
This “comedic” sequence is extremely
prolonged, atonal and disturbing, to the
point that I lamented my lack of a time
machine, or any other technology that would
have allowed me to travel back and
assassinate D.W. Griffith for allowing this
madness to happen. When Krippendorf shows
his grisly circumcision footage to the
public, it causes a huge sensation that has
television network execs clamoring at his
door for more . It makes sense, because we
all know how popular genital mutilation is
with the general public these days.
The
moral seems to be that circumcision is primitive and
funny when other people do it.
The Lamb Kuzu
Turkey, 2014
"The Lamb" takes place in an eastern Anatolian
village. According to tradition, 27-year-old Medine
(Nesrin Cavadzade) has to serve oven-roast lamb at the
circumcision feast of her little son Mert (Mert
Ta?tan). Medine does her best to earn enough money to
buy a sheep. Ismail, Medine's unemployed husband
(Cahit Gök), is under a lot of stress. Meanwhile
Mert's elder sister Vicdan (S?ra Lara Cantürk) tells
him that he will be slaughtered if they cannot find a
sheep before the ceremony. "My mom always calls you
'my little lamb,' does she not?" she tells him.
Director
Kutlu? Ataman has apprently not thought much about
consent as an issue in genital cutting:
"I
think the idea of circumcision must be more scary
than it actually is. I was circumcised as soon as I
was born so I don't remember it. Personally, I like
being a circumcised man. I would not want to be
uncircumcised. Some people may have problems with
rituals, but I am completely taken by rituals. I
think rituals are part of our culture, they are part
of what makes us and make us belong to one another.
I am always curious about new rituals of my own
culture and I like to follow them. There is a
certain comfort to be had in following rituals. One
feels more secure and the sense of belonging is
comforting. But having said this, I guess everyone
should be allowed to make their own choices in the
end. These are individual choices."
A group of TV comedy writers is joking
about Catholicism, the Pope, communion.
A Catholic Writer: Take communion. It beats
circumcision. A Jewish Writer: What would you know about
circumcision? [To the others:] Have you ever seen this
guy in the bathroom? He pees straight up.
Since
he has the last laugh, he - and circumcision - wins
the exchange, but cutting a boy's genitals in case he
"pees straight up" comes close to being the silliest circumstition yet.
Let It Be Io Sono Con Te
Italy, 2010
Story of Jesus from a woman's perspective, filmed in
Tunisia.
Includes close-up of a (probably simulated)
circumcision (omitting the tearing of the foreskin
from the glans), at 2:47 in this clip. (NSFW)
The Life of David Gale
US, 2003
David Gale (Kevin Spacey) is a philosophy professor
at the University of Texas, Austin, who knows a lot of
trivia. Berlin (Rhona Mitra) a failing graduate
student, propositions him, saying she'll "do anything
for the grade." He leads her on a little, then says,
"The one thing you can do for the grade is - study."
Later, at a party, Berlin, who has been expelled,
accosts David:
Berlin: "Has anyone ever told you that after
you were circumcised they threw away the wrong part? David: Shmuck. Berlin: Excuse me? David: Schmuck. That's what they call what is
left over from circumcision, schmuck.
David
shows off his knowledge of minutiae - wrongly: schmuck
is Yiddish for penis (from the German for ornament).
If Berlin were British like the actress who plays
her, she would not assume that Gale was circumcised.
[This dialogue is slightly different in Wikiquote]
The Lost Embrace El Abrazo Partido
Argentina / France / Italy / Spain, 2004
Drama about Ariel Makaroff (Daniel
Hendler), a young Jewish man in Argentina whose father
left him and his mother to fight in Israel.
He views a video, transferred from film, showing his
own circumcision in some detail, and comments "I look
like I'm smiling, but I'm really crying." [Audience
members are inclined to laugh nervously at this.]
In the synagogue, his rabbi shows him his parents' get
(bill of divorcement) and he sees it has been slashed.
Ariel: Is that intentional?
Rabbi: It's a symbol of the marriage. It
means no one can ever use it again.
Ariel: Ah! Like circumcision.
The rabbi does not reply.
The date of the divorce was earlier than Ariel's
birth, and when his father returns (with an arm
missing), Ariel exclaims, "You cut the wee-wee of a
newborn knowing that you cannot stay?!"
Luckiest Girl Alive
USA, 2022
Netflix drama about Ani Fanelli (Mila
Kunis) who seems to have it all, but a secret from her
past threatens her security.
Discussing the issue at a fitting for her wedding
dress, she boasts, somewhat desperately, to her friend
(26 minutes in) :that
"Dean's making viral speeches at Congress and I
have a story [for the New York Times] due Monday about
how to pleasure an uncircumcised penis: they're more
sensitive than the ones without their turtlenecks.
According to the experts."
The amount of detail is merely to indicate her agitated
state of mind, but it's an unusual defence of intactness
in a US movie, and indicates the growing acceptance of
intactness.
(Production details about most of these films are obtainable
offsite from the Internet Movie
Database.)
