Entertainment M-Z

Mambo Italiano

Canada, 2003 Comedy about a young Italian-Canadian (Luke Kirby) coming out to his parents. They tell the parents of his hunky cop lover, Nino (Peter Miller), ending their affair. To prove his heterosexuality Nino marries, and at the wedding, the priest (Michel Perron) says: "I have known Nino all his life: I baptised him; I gave him his first communion; and when he hit puberty and started to have certain problems caused by his rapidly increasing, um, size, it was I who advised him to be circumcised." (Reviewers disagree over whether the gay and Italian stereotypes are sympathetic or tedious, but the movie was named sixth worst for the year 2003 by David Eliott of the San Diego Union-Tribune : 6. Ethnic humor came canned and clotted in the sitcom revels of "Mambo Italiano." Cute Eye-talians pig on pasta, slap each other on the side of the head, are freaked by gay offspring, then turn PC as if by remote control. It came from Canada (or hell) and has a Catholic priest telling a circumcision joke at a wedding.

Circumcision is just used as an embarassing personal detail to illustrate the priest's crassness. There is of course no problem caused by rapidly increasing, um, size that necessitates circumcision.

Man of Steel

US, 2013 The infant Superman-to-be is again shown circumcised. Other anomalous circumcisions.

Meet the Fockers

USA, 2005 (Farce, sequel to "Meet the Parents", in which the name in the title is milked for far more than it was ever worth) Gaylord Focker (Ben Stiller) and his bride-to-be and uptight inlaws (Robert DeNiro and Blythe Danner) meet Gaylord's sexually liberated parents (Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand) for the first time and stay at their house. (A video was briefly available) Over a very tense first meal Mrs Focker whips out her scrapbook of Gaylord's childhood. She comes (0:36) to a picture of a rabbi holding a baby and starts describing Gaylord's bris. The Fockers gleefully tell how the heater was broken that winter and the mohel couldn't get "the turtle to come out of its shell." As Gaylord protests, they continue that that is why he ended up with a "semi-circ ... a cross between an anteater and a..." "...German army helmet." His mother-in-law to be picks a little ring of something out of the scrapbook and says "Don't say you kept his umbilical cord?" Mrs Focker exclaims, "Of course not, that's Greg's foreskin!" Gaylord tries to wrest the book from them, but accidentally swats the foreskin: it flies up and falls into the simmering fondue that the family was eating. As with Mambo Italiano, circumcision is presented only as something embarassing and personal. The issue is talking about it, not having done it, even badly. A baby's glans is fused to his foreskin and can not be made to come out without force. Incomplete circumcision can result in phimosis (because of the scar tissue) requiring further treatment. Parents do not get to keep the foreskin after a brit milah - nor would they want to. Life imitates art: - Lauren-Ann Spanopoulos on Facebook, July 27, 2013 The mother of a very disguntled Australian gave him this "keepsake", which he calls "vile".

The Mighty Ducks

USA, 1992 Disney feel-good comedy about a lawyer, Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez), haunted by a childhood (ice) hockey failure, is sentenced for drunk driving to coaching a peewee hockey team. (it has two sequels.) Bombay has taped Goldberg (Shaun Weiss) to the goal Goldberg: My mother is not gonna approve of this, Coach! She wants me to live to be Bar Mitzvah'd! Gordon Bombay : This is your Bar Mitzvah, Goldberg. Today, you become a man. Goldberg : No. I think you've got the ceremonies mixed up. This is more like a circumcision. Strapped into position, violence about to be done to him: he's right. But at least it's not pro-cutting.

Moolaadé

Senegal/France, 2004 A strong-willed woman (Fatoumata Coulibaly) from an African village battles against, and takes great pains to prevent, ritual female circumcision. One contributor to the Internet Movie Database summarizes it as: "Six girls from a rural village in Burkina Faso escape from a 'purification' ceremony, the female circumcision ritual that is still practiced in 34 of the 58 nations in the African Union. Two head for the city. The other four know of a woman in the village who, some years earlier, had prevented her own daughter from being cut. They run to her home, where she is the second of three wives of a man whose brother is a figure in the town's power structure. To protect them, she pronounces a moolaadé, an unbreakable spell of sanctuary that can only be dissolved by her word, and which is marked simply by stretching some colored strands of yarn across the enclave's doorway. ... this remarkable motion picture [is] beautifully filmed & amazingly acted, full of agitprop theatrics & yet as tightly & deeply scripted - I mean this literally - as any Shakespearean tragedy. [It] won the Un Certain Regard award [for 2004] at Cannes & was relegated to the Planet Africa series at Turin...." Male genital cutting is not mentioned, though in the Muslim environment of the film it would be virtually universal.

Mortdecai

US, 2015 Comedy In the final scene, Charlie Mortdecai (Johnny Depp) is sharing a bubble bath with his wife Johanna (Gwyneth Paltrow). He is inordinately proud of his moustache but she hates it and has tried to persuade him to shave it off. In the bath she pulls out a straight razor. Seeing this, Mortdecai says, "Oh my dear, you know I'm already circumcised". Her remark is almost pointless (like many remarks in the film). The idea she might use the razor to circumcise him in the bath is beneath preposterous. It is implied that the couple is Jewish, starting with the frenchified version of "Mordechai" for a name. At a banquet, a villain poisons a shellfish buffet causing an outbreak of vomiting. Shortly after, Mortdecai, and his wife are making an escape with their vomiting driver Jock Strapp - yes, the humour is of that level - (Paul Bettany) and Mortdecai says, "At least we didn't eat the shellfish." The film has been panned for its pointlessness, and the circumcision reference is just another example.

Movie 43

US, 2013 Compliation/thriller/horror about a movie (called "Movie 43") that if shown will cause the end of the world. In the segment called "Truth or Dare", Donald (Stephen Merchant) and Emily (Halle Berry) are on a date together at a Mexican restaurant. Tired with typical first dates, Emily challenges Donald to a game of truth or dare. She dares him to grab a man's buttocks, and he follows by daring her to blow out the birthday candles on a blind boy's cake. Donald: Truth Emily: I am going to push the limits here just a little bit. Are you circumcised? Donald (embarassed, whispering): Am I circumcised? That's personal... Circumcision has never taken off where I'm from. It's not, you know, the vogue. Um, I tend to associate it with Jewish people and we don't have many Jewish people in Europe any more because of... the trouble. So, ah, no. But if you would need me to get circumcised, I'm sure I... (trails off as they both chuckle.) The game rapidly escalates to extremes, in which both of them get plastic surgery and tattoos, and humiliate themselves. Circumcision is presented as an example of extreme behaviour - when it's done to a consenting adult.

Mr. and Mrs. Iyer

India, 2002 Drama A young Hindu woman, Meenakshi Iyer (Konkona Sensharma), is travelling on a bus, entrusted to the care of a young supposedly Hindu man, Raja (Rahul Bose). The bus is attacked by Hindu estremists looking for Muslims, who they identify by making them drop their pants (revealing that they are circumcised) and kill. Meenakshi identifies Raja as her husband and he is spared, but it transpires that he is actually a Muslim, creating conflict with her strict Brahmin upbringing. Circumcision is only an identifier.

Mrs Goundo's Daughter

US, 2010 Official summary: Bridging two worlds, MRS GOUNDO'S DAUGHTER tells the moving story of one Malian mother's fight for asylum in the US to protect her two-year-old daughter from female genital cutting. Expertly interweaving scenes from Mali of girls preparing for an excision ceremony and scenes from Philadelphia where those who have survived the ceremony share their stories, the film demonstrates precisely why and how Mrs Goundo fights for her daughter and her future.

Mrs. Henderson Presents

UK, 2005 Recently widowed, well-to-do Laura Henderson (Judi Dench) is at a loose end in Depression-era London. On a whim she buys the derelict Windmill theatre in the West End. Her lawyer friend Leslie Pearkes (Ralph Nossek) suggests impresario Vivian Van Damm (Bob Hoskins) to run it. When she arrives 20 minutes late for her appointment with him, he is on the point of leaving. Mrs Henderson: Who on earth are you?

Pearkes: This is Vivian Van Damm

Mrs Henderson: Don't be silly. That's not a British name.

Van Damm (irritated): In actual fact, my father is a lawyer in Bishopsgate, although some of his ancestors are from Holland.

Mrs Henderson: Oh dear God, you're Jewish.

Van Damm: As it happens, I'm not.

Mrs Henderson: But of course you are, dear; just look at yourself. But the show business is filled with Jewish people, isn't it. One must make do. To encourage the shy showgirls, all the production team including Van Damm have taken their clothes off, when Mrs Henderson bursts in on them. Seeing him, she says: "Why Mr Van Damm! You are Jewish!" Later, she sees a headline he has tossed aside, "NAZIS ROUND UP DUTCH JEWS", and asks after his family, building the positive side of their stormy relationship. Implying that all and only Jews are circumcised, though many upper-class Englishmen of this period were too. The exchanges are intended to illustrate her rudeness and antisemitism, common in England at that time. It is not clear how Mrs Henderson would know what a circumcised penis looks like.

Mukhbir

Informer

India, 2006 Bollywood film about espionage in the Hyderabad underworld. Sammir Dattani plays a mukhbir (informer) who has to assume various disguises - so many that you don’t know his real identity. He poses as a Muslim and there is a suggestion that he has undergone circumcision, because a gang that only allows Muslim members will put him through a lot of tests. In India only Muslims are circumcised. In fact of course it would be very difficult to pass as Muslim without also being fluent in Arabic, knowing a lot of the Qu'ran, etc. Thanks to NORM-UK

Munich

USA, 2005 Two Israeli undercover men are assigned to kill Palestinians responsible for the Munich massacres. They get into an argument; one says, "He's probably a spy - let's take his pants down and have a look." (an insult, not seriously believed). The second man responds furiously. If he had been Muslim, he would have been circumcised too.

My Australia

Moja Australia Israel, 2011 Ten-year-old Tadek (Jakub Wroblewski), a member of a Polish gang that preys on Jews, is floored when his mother admits she's a Holocaust survivor. So when she prepares the family to relocate to Israel, she tells the boy they're going to the exotic country he's always dreamed of: Australia. Tadek['s] ease at assimilating leaves him feeling both guilty and confident. His prowess becomes crucial as the film shifts its focus to Tadek's shame at being intact. ... Using male genitalia as a symbol for the immigrant experience could fill volumes for Freud, but it creates useless, unsettling moments for audiences forced to watch a gaggle of Israeli children trying to catch Tadek with his pants down. It’s an ill-considered plot twist from which Drozd’s slapdash film never recovers. - Michael Gold in City Paper, March 24, 2012 (Perhaps the reviewer's own discomfort with the issue colours his experienc.)

My wife is an Actress

Ma femme est une actrice

France, 2001 Yvan (Yvan Attal, who also wrote and directed) is a sports writer, jealous of his wife Charlotte (Attal's real-life partner Charlotte Gainsbourg)'s on-camera love scenes (with Terence Stamp). His pregnant sister Nathalie (Noémie Lvovsky) "more Jewish than your brother", browbeats her gentile husband Vincent (Laurent Bateau): Vincent (on the phone): Let's ask your brother.

Nathalie: There's no problem. If he's a boy, he's circumcised.

Vincent: Find out if he's a boy.

Nathalie: What's the difference?

Vincent: You'd circumcise a girl? There's only a problem if it's a boy.

... (In a doctor's office: we see an ultrasound image of a baby.)

Doctor: It's a boy.

Vincent: Great! A little boy!

Nathalie: Don't pretend.

Doctor: For a dad, nothing like a girl.

Nathalie: Dr Djaoui. You're Jewish.

Vincent: What? Talk now?

Nathalie: He's a doctor.

Vincent: Let's talk to a goy doctor.

Nathalie: That exists?

... (Back home)

Nathalie: So he'll feel Jewish and inadequate?

Vincent: Right, so let him decide to do it or not.

Nathalie: At a certain age, it's hard.

Vincent: That'll be a measure of how Jewish he feels.

Nathalie: Could you do it now?

Vincent: Why have my dick cut?

Nathalie: To have one like your son.

Vincent: I want him to have one like me.

Nathalie: Your son in your own image? Like you're God?

Vincent: Why shouldn't he?

Nathalie: Get circumcised. (pause) I'm serious.

Vincent: On the way home from the game. (pause) Pass me the phone, I'll make the appointment. (She passes it.) What's it listed under? (He dials.) Hello, yeah. Your sister's nuts! In the main story, parallel tit-for-tattery: Charlotte demands that if she is to be naked in a love scene, all the cast and crew must also. Yvan walks onto the soundstage with flowers, sees them all and faints. He goes to drama classes and other students flirt with him. (At Vincent and Nathalie's. Yvan is talking to Nathalie when Vincent arrives.)

Nathalie: Your son is Jewish because his mother is.

Vincent: For the Jews.

Nathalie: For the goys too! Enough to send him to the camps!

... (Yvan and Nathalie are at dinner with their parents. Nathalie answers the phone and leaves the table.)

Nathalie: In the US lots of non-Jews... So a doctor can do it. (She returns to the table. Yvan has been telling his parents that he and Charlotte are living apart.) So how about me? Since your son married an actress, it's like he's Mr Perfect. I'm going to have a little boy. We argue every day about one of the world's great problems [presumably Jewish-gentile relations in general, not just circumcision] , and it's all him. Fuck the little people!

Mother: The mouth on her!

Yvan: Enough!

Nathalie: When they gas six million actresses, then we'll talk.

... (Vincent and Nathalie are in bed. They begin to make love. Nathalie goes down under the covers. Vincent smiles blissfully.)

Vincent: Pretty good foreskin, huh?

Nathalie: Asshole! (She slaps him.)

... (Vincent and Yvan are at a football game, ogling woman spectators.)

Yvan: Do it for her. It bothers you so much?

Vincent: I'm not Jewish, or religious.

Yvan: So who cares?

Vincent: It's a religious thing. She goes to the Synagogue once a year.

Yvan: It's sentimental. We all have to be white, uncircumcised...?

Vincent: We are all the same.

...

Yvan: Just have your son circumcised. Charlotte and Yvan are reconciled and Nathalie and Vincent's son is born. Charlotte greets him by name, Moses. (In the hospital)

Vincent (to Yvan): We're having him circumcised . ... I've never cut myself so much. [?]

Nathalie: Just cut it off once and for all. (They begin to argue and Yvan and Charlotte leave.) Predictibly, circumcision is only a token for the conflict between a husband and wife to counterpoint the conflict between the main couple. The value of a foreskin to its owner is not touched on.

Naked Boys Singing

USA, 2007 Film of the stage show with these variations: . In the song "Bliss of a Bris" the mohel carries a huge pair of shears and one cast member turns away to vomit as the "baby" is circumcised.

The credits include: No penises were injured during the cutting of this film.

www.nocirc.org

The Nativity Story

USA, 2006 You know the story... A couple of wide-eyed boys witness the circumcision of the baby John the Baptist. A little knife goes beneath the bundled boy. There is a flick of the wrist, the two boys give a startled jump and scurry off. ...typically minimising and trivialising what actually happens. Some reviewers call this "an amusing bit".

Nine Dead Gay Guys

UK, 2002 (A UK "Bob & Ted's Excellent Adventure" meets "Father Ted")

Two down-and-out Irish youths in London batten on gay men to get some money, using sex and/or theft. (The film is perceptive about their own sexualities. Penis-size is a theme, but none are shown.) The film deliberately includes every stereotype - queens, a fat ferocious lesbian, an ill-hung and hence desperate dwarf, four well-hung blacks, a rich Orthodox Jew - and "Dick-cheese Deepak" an Indian taxi-driver with a "foreskin problem". It has not retracted in five years, and he has not had oral sex for the same time. One youth gags, the other solves the problem by filling his mouth with vodka, but Deepak's reaction is so intense that he crashes the taxi, becoming Dead Gay Guy #5. US readers should note that the existence of Deepak's foreskin is not at issue, only its non-retractility.

Nine Months

US, 1995 Comedy about a reluctant father. Has had generally poor reviews.

Rebecca Taylor (Julianne Moore) gives birth to a boy at the same time as Gail Dwyer (Joan Cusak) gives birth to a girl, in spite of the assistance of Dr Kosevich (Robin Williams). Samuel Faulkner (Hugh Grant) and Marty Dwyer (Tom Arnold), the fathers, encounter the doctor outside the nursery. Samuel asks him if he has been drinking. He replies that he has, and they should have a shot together, "but first, I'm just going to circumcise your son," and starts to go into the nursery. Samuel: What?

Marty: Shit!

Samuel: Dr. Kosevich! (Samuel runs to stop him.) The film makers imply the additional risk is the only reason he should be stopped, perhaps not knowing that British fathers now almost never have their sons circumcised.

Nymphomanic Vol 1

Denmark, 2013 A nymphomaniac tells her story Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is recounting all the penises she slept with while she was promiscuous. The camera shows dozens of faceless torsoes with penises of various sizes, races and hair colours - all intact. Joe says, "Then there were the weird circumcised ones", and we see a half dozen of those. From a European point of view, cut penises are "weird".

Omskåret

(Circumcised)

Denmark, 2014 Short film. Two young men are driving on a motorway, one (Jakob Svensmark Møller) urgently needing a comfort-stop. He is obsessive-compulsive, the other (Jonathan Harboe Moreira) the reverse. Complete video (12:30 Themes may disturb) circumcised from Møn Studio on Vimeo. Tellingly, the circumcised man is "dirty", the intact one "clean". (Hitler and John Lennon were not circumcised. Anders Breivik, who knows?)

Onikola

Nigeria, 2014 Onikola is the story of Kumbi (Funmi Fiberesima), who has a firm resolve to not to be circumcised. She sacrifices everything, including her love for Okiki (Sunday Afolabi), and risks be­ing rejected by her people, most of all her mother, Abebi (Bunmi Olatilewa). Meanwhile, on the flip side is Omose­wa (Ronke Ojo), who is circumcised and suffers ridicule at the hands of her hus­band. She however develops the courage to express her feelings about a tradition which challenges her sexuality. The Sun (Nigeria)), October 12, 2014 "Actress, producer and media personality... Funmi Fiberisima's first film as a producer.... Onikola brings to light the harmful side effects of female circumcision without flogging the viewers over the head with the message. It is a very entertaining-romantic movie as well as complete with all the elements that bring it home as a unique and entertaining movie. ...the movie weaves a blend of iconic and traditional scenes with the compelling story of love without losing sight of the issues at stake." The Guardian (Lagos), October 3, 2014

Oy Vey! My Son is Gay!!



US, 2010 Romantic comedy. A Jewish family struggle to come to terms with their son's gaysness, and his Italian Catholic boyfriend. When the gay couple adopts a child and it makes headline news, their families come to defend them and realize how much they love them. In the very last scene, the infant is baptised, surrounded by relatives. The head of the Jewish family (Saul Rubinek) yells "He must be circumcised!". The head of the Catholic family (Vincent Pastore) yells "No, he'll need every inch!". Everyone laughs and walks away. Baby is not circumcised. An excellent reason.

Pecker

US, 1998 Dir. John Waters Tina (Martha Plimpton) is an MC/barmaid at a gay go-go club who describes the dancers' biographies and statistics on a microphone for the patrons in lurid detail. She refers to one of them as "uncut" - clearly meaning it as a positive and desirable attribute.

The Perfumed Nightmare

[Mababangong bangungot]

Philippines, 1977 In this autobiographical fantasy, the narrator (Kidlat Tahimik), a boy growing up in the Philippines, is circumcised with his friends, in accordance with custom.

Includes closeups, not for the squeamish.

The Physician

Germany, 2013 Historical drama about Robert Cole (Adam Wright, then Tom Payne) growing up to be a doctor in 11th century England and Persia. He is apprenticed to a barber/dentist/surgeon (Stellan Skarsgård) who starts going blind and is reluctantly persuaded to seek help from a renowned Jew. As he enters the Jewish quarter, he says to Cole suspiciously, "These people mutilate their children. They cut off their cocks; they'll gouge my eyes out!" They don't, and they do cure his cataracts (presumably by "couching" - pushing the lens to the bottom of the eye). Jewish children ask Cole if he's a Christian, and when he says Yes, they say, "Is it true you're not even circumcised?" He replies, "Our God does not want us to do so." Later, Cole circumcises himself so he can pass as a Jew to avoid getting killed in the Middle East - but then Muslim zealots seize power. They use Cole's anatomical drawings to show how the toleration of Jews has led to religious crimes against Allah, therefore all Jews in the city should be killed. Cole yells "I am no Jew! The Jewish community does not deserve your wrath. I am a Christian." They pull down his robe and say "Looks like a Jew to me". He is about to be killed when the moderate Shah regains power and saves him. He eventually prospers; circumcision is not mentioned again. In the 11th century, only Jews and Muslims practised male genital cutting. The book of the film has completely different circumcision references from these.

Platoon

USA, 1986 Drama set in Vietnam. Dialogue includes: All right, you cheese-dicks, welcome to the Nam.

I ain't getting greased, so you keep this sorry cheese-dick off my ass!

Hey... cheese-dick, you're up. and Come on, get your dick-skin on that thing! Dig! You ain't got all day! Dig! Dig! Clearly "cheese-dick" is an all-purpose insult - implication: "The foreskin is disgusting" - and none of the lines refers to actual circumcision status. I got my request in for a circumcision! I'm gonna get my big ass outta here!

You gonna become a rabbi? Implying only Jews circumcise.

The Player

USA, 1992 Self-referential drama set in Hollywood On the original Criterion DVD release, director Robert Altman and writer Michael Tolkin give a running commentary. In the scene where Griffin Mills (Tim Robbins) is climbing, naked, from a mud bath, Tolkin says, "A lot of people don't know this but when I wrote the character, I wrote it for an uncircumcised man. Unfortunately, Tim Robbins is circumcised, but he wanted the role really badly so we had to get a prosthetic foreskin built for him for this scene. Look how fake it looks."

The prosthetic

seems to have

added nothing. Nothing in the book or film requires the character to be intact. While several other characters in the book with whom Griffin is at odds have Jewish names, there is no direct reference to Judaism, and of course to be gentile in the USA does not guarantee intactness. The unpleasant thought arises that Tolkin wanted Griffin to be intact because he is an unsympathetic chracter.

Porky's II: The Next Day

USA, 1983 Juvenile comedy The boys of Angel High are being harassed by the KKK, among others, for casting Seminole boy John Henry (Joseph Runningfox) as Romeo in their Shakespeare evening. They lure the Klansmen into the gym, surrounded by Indians, where a Jewish teen, Brian (Scott Colomby) "circumcises" them - shaves their heads with a "zimel" (izmel?) and perhaps really circumcises them. An assumption is that only Jews circumcise or are circumcised. An implication is that circumcision cures them of their bigotry ... somehow.

A Price Above Rubies

US, 1998 Sonia Horowitz (Renee Zelweger) is a Jewish mother who is questioning her husband's strict Hasidism and has a baby son. At his bris, she says, "It's like they're sacrificing him."

Her sister-in-law tells her, "Don't watch" and she replies,





As though it was about them or her.

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

Australia, 1994 A comedy road-movie through the Australian outback. Trumpet, younger partner of transsexual Bernadette (Terence Stamp), dies in Sydney. At his funeral, a trumpet is on his coffin. To take Bernadette's mind off her loss, drag-queen Mitzi (Hugo Weaving) invites her to perform in Alice Springs. (Priscilla is their bus.) In the outback, they talk: Mitzi: I never heard Trumpet play

Bernadette: Play? He didn't play, dear. Trumpet didn't have a single musical bone in his body. No, Trumpet had an unusually large foreskin. So large that he could wrap the entire thing around a Monte Carlo biscuit. This whole scene was cut from the US version of the film. The Simply Australia website describes the Monte Carlo biscuit (US: cookie) as "a coconut shortbread style of biscuit sandwiched with a raspberry cream filling". A Monte Carlo biscuit today is 6cm x 4.6cm x 2.3cm (2.4" x 1.8" x 0.9"). This film is remarkable in referring to the foreskin but not circumcision. Circumcision was already declining in Australia when Trumpet would have been born, so the existence of his foreskin is not at issue, only its size. Even so, it would not have to be as large as you might think, because the foreskin is remarkably elastic.

The Producers

US, 1967 Comedy about a Broadway producer (Zero Mostel) and an accountant (Gene Wilder) who conspire to make money by producing a flop, "Springtime for Hitler".

The crossdressing director (Christopher Hewett) is called Roger De Bris. (At a pinch, this could be a play on "debris", but Mel Brooks wrote and directed.)

Quinceaños

US, 2006 In contemporary Latino Los Angeles, an Anglo gay man tells his friends about a recent sexual adventure with a young Hispanic man: "It was great. Eight inches...uncut!" A rare exception, perhaps because of its Latino context, to the theme that "The foreskin is disgusting."

Quiz Show

US, 1994 Based on fact. Herb Stempel (John Turturro) has a successful run as a frequently returning champion of a quiz show. Network men want him off the show, sayng audiences don't like or relate to him, at least in part due to his being Jewish. They pressure him to take a dive, to deliberately get a question wrong to allow his next opponent, charismatic Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes) to beat him (and he does). At about 41:45 Stempel angrily refers to the opponent as "that big uncircumcised putz".

Of Dutch ancestry, Van Doren (1926- ) may well be intact, but the scriptwriter, Paul Attanasio (screenplay) or Richard N. Goodwin (book) intends it to be a term of contempt.

Resurrection

US, 1999 (Interlight Pictures, Baldwin-Cohen Productions) A cop, trying to humor his wounded partner, says:

"Hey Andy - Two boys were sharing a hospital room. So, one boy asked the other why he's there for. So the boy says, 'A circumcision.' And the other boy says, 'Oh man, I had that done right after I was born and I couldn't walk for a year.'"

Andy: "That's the worst fucking joke I ever heard, John."

John: "I know, I know." The joke has an underlying message: "Circumcision isn't that bad."

Riding in Cars with Boys

US, 2001 A couple are expecting a girl, but when the newborn baby is presented to them in the recovery room, he has a penis (shown for two seconds) - already circumcised and healed. The film makers either think all boy babies are circumcised without the parents being consulted, or

weren't able to get hold of an intact baby boy, or

don't know the difference. Other anomalous circumcisions.

Robin Hood: Men in Tights

US, 1993 (Dir: Mel Brooks) Mel Brooks plays a travelling rabbi who enters on a horsedrawn wagon with a sign on the side advertising circumcisions: "10% off". He pitches the idea to the Merry Men, who all say "OK, sure, I'll try it," until Mel demonstrates the procedure using a miniature gilloutine and a carrot. Suddenly they all change their minds, making excuses like, "Oh I forgot, I already had one." The rabbi says to himself, "I gotta start working with a younger crowd." In the legendary time of Robin Hood, it would have been true that only Jews circumcise, but not that they offered it to gentiles, or that rabbis did it. It's encouraging that it is presented as something people would turn down - reflecting Brooks' own ambivalence towards it? The rabbi's reaction implies younger men would be more naïve, and less aware of the value of their foreskins.

Role Models

US, 2008 Comedy: two very different characters have to look after mismatched boys as community service. Near the end, Sweeny (Jane Lynch) picks up a full-size "pig in a blanket" (a hotdog baked into a bun) in a lascivious grip.

A pig in a blanket She pushes on the hotdog slowly with her finger from underneath, making it appear as a big reddish-brown glans growing out from the tan blanket/foreskin, and then pulls the hot dog all the way back in. It's obvious she's referring to an intact erection. Wheeler (Seann William Scott) stares quizzically: he can't quite figure it out. She does it about five more times in the outtakes shown during the credits. Subtext: a foreskin is normal!

Romance and Cigarettes

US, 2006 "A down-and-dirty musical set in the world of working-class New York, tells a story of a husband's journey into infidelity and redemption when he must choose between his seductive mistress and his beleaguered wife." - IMDB Nick (James Gandolfini) is having an affair with Tula (Kate Winslet), a Welsh woman who "gets around". During sex she keeps mentioning his foreskin, so he asks a friend at work if women like circumcised penises better, and he says yes, because they all look circumcised in porno movies. He asks "Are you circumcised?" "Hell no, man, that shit hurts!" Undeterred, Nick gets circumcised. While he's still in the hospital, his mother finds out, and beats him with her purse, saying "We're not even Jewish!" Later, Tula has wild sex with him, excited because he would do that for her. A worldly Welshwomen would not be surprised or put off by a foreskin. Porn movies focus on size and otherwise use what they can get. Implied (and false): Foreskins are universally unusual

Only Jews circumcise

Circumcision makes sex better

The Rugrats Movie

US, 2000 A young (presumably female) baby says to another in the hospital nursery "They cut my cord", looking at her bellybutton. The boy in the next bassinet looks down his diaper and says, "you should see what they cut on me".



- inviting adults to laugh at the innocence of children and an early start to gender rivalry, but not to consider the actual issues.

Samurai Cop

US, 1991

Action adventure

Joe Marshall (Mathew Karedas, billed as Matt Hannon) and Frank Washington (Mark Frazer) are police detectives fighting a drug-gang in Los Angeles. Leaving a hospital room, a nurse (Holland) flirts with them:

Nurse: Do you like what you see?

Joe: I love what I see.

Nurse (moving closer):Would you like to touch what you see?

Joe (looks down, thinks): Yes. Yes, I would.

Nurse: Would you like to go out with me?

Joe (looks into the room): Unh. Yes I would.

Nurse: Would you like to fuck me? (reaction shot of Frank in the patient's room, listening)

Joe (reaches for her stethoscope and speaks into it): Bingo.

Nurse (moving closer): Well then let's see what you've got. (she apparently grasps his crotch) Doesn't interest me. Nothing there.

Joe: Nothing there? (Frank snickers) Just exactly what would interest you, something the size of a jumbo jet? (Frank purses his lips)

Nurse: Have you been circumcised?

Joe: Yeah I have, why?

Nurse: Well your doctor must have cut a big portion of it off. (Frank smiles broadly.)

Joe: No, he was a good doctor.

Nurse: Good doctors make mistakes too. That's why they buy insurance. (She makes to leave.)

Joe: Hey (pulling her back), I got enough. It's big.

Nurse: I want bigger.

Frank (bursting out of room): Hey! I got unhh... (Nurse walks off. Frank turns back to Joe, mocking:) Have you been circumcised?

Joe: Shuddup.

The nurse seems to be using genital cutting only as a way to further humiliate Joe (though she is right about mistakes). Frank might have been about to boast that he is intact. The movie is highly regarded among afficionadi of bad movies.

Scary Movie 4

US, 2006 Leslie Nielsen plays the U.S. President at a time of an alien invasion spoof of "The War of the Worlds." In a parody of how President Bush was informed of the World Trade Center attacks, Nielsen is visiting an elementary school class and listening to a teacher reading about a pet duck. Upon being informed of the alien attacks, Nielsen first seems to care more about the fate of the duck, then panics the children, then suggests they move on to the book he's holding, calling it: "Rumple Foreskin." He is corrected by an aide, who says it's Rumplestiltskin. Later, Nielsen addresses the UN General Assembly about the alien threat. He begins with a mélange of parts of old off-color jokes (a la "A priest, a Mexican and a Texan are on an airplane. The pilot announces ....") There are two circumcision references in the disordered speech that follows, one about separating the uncircumcised from the circumcised in the group, and another that made less sense. While the sequences play foreskins and circumcision for uncomfortable laughs, it was not clearly tilted. The speech was such a mess it will require transcription once home copies are available.

Sepet

[Chinese Eye]

Malaysia, 2004 Two Chinese youths, Jason/Ah Loong (Choo Seong Ng) and Keong (Linus Chung), are sitting in a restaurant waiting for Jason's girlfriend, a Malaysian Muslim. Keong: Chinese boy should not go out with a Malay girl. They'll only be troubles later. It'll only break your parents' heart. You have to change your name, your religion, no more roast pork for you. Jason: I know Keong: They'll snip off the tip of your little brother. (He reaches for Jason's crotch. Jason tries to avoid him) Though shaky on the details, Keong is in no doubt that circumcision is harmful.

Sex and Breakfast

US, 2008 (Comedy) Includes a scene of a sex education class including a chart on which a circumcised penis is shown as normal. To other such absences

Shadowboxer

US, 2005 (Thriller) Rose (Helen Mirren) and stepson Mikey (Cuba Gooding Jr.) are contract killers. They spare Vickie (Vanessa Ferlito) because she is pregnant and deliver the baby themselves, then call seedy Dr. Don (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who brings along his girlfriend Precious (Mo'Nique). Later, at Dr Don's office: Dr Don: Do you want me to circumcise him? Precious (taking the baby): Hell no. They don't want you going anywhere near his damn dick. This is apparently more a swing at the character than anything contrary to circumcision.

Shadows and Fog

US, 1991 Kafkaesque black comedy by Woody Allen In response to a series of mysterious murders, the police are rounding up a local Jewish family. Kleinman (Woody Allen): What is this? What's going on? Man on Street: Social undesirables. The police say they may be involved in the killings. Kleinman: That's the Mintz family. I know them. They're very lovely people. He does quality circumcisions. I've seen his work. The ostensible joke is that Kleinsmen has somehow seen men's penises. Underlying is the idea that infant male genital cutting is a handcraft.

She Hate Me (sic)

US, 2004 (Comedy directed by Spike Lee) Biotech executive John Henry "Jack" Armstrong (Anthony Mackie) is fired when he informs on his corrupt bosses. When his former girlfriend offers him cash to impregnate her and her new girlfriend, he is persuaded and soon in the baby-making business at $10,000 a try. Most reviews are unfavourable. A potential client: Is he circumcised? If not, (looks disgusted) then I won't even get close to him. Reinforces the tedious theme that intact penises are "dirty".

Short Skin

UK/Italy/Iran, 2014 Billed as a comedy, reportedly actually crude propaganda for male genital cutting. Synopsis

Ever since he was a child, the seventeen-yearold Edoardo has suffered from a malformation of the foreskin that stops him from masturbating and makes him insecure and ill at ease with girls. Shut up in his sexless microcosm, Edoardo reacts with irritation to the pressures of the outside world, which do nothing but exacerbate his insecurity. No one around him seems to be capable of talking about anything but sex: his friend Arturo, obsessed with the idea of losing his virginity; his parents who urge Edoardo to make overtures to Bianca, the girl next door who has arrived from Milan as she does every year to spend the vacation with her grandmother; even his little sister Olivia, frantically in search of a bitch with which to mate her dog. It will not be the pressures of others that will release Edoardo from his shyness but the close encounter with a girl he meets by chance and an unexpected receptiveness toward him on Bianca’s part. Forced against his will to emerge from the shadows in which he has hidden for years, Edoardo will initially try to solve his problem by clumsy stratagems before finding, at last, the courage to face his own fears. - Venice Film Festival A doctor first gives him a cortisone cream and tells him to masturbate with it. He takes a big heap of it and slathers it on his penis, rather than just put a little on the very end of the foreskin and apply tension. Unsurprisingly it doesn't work. He sees an Internet video of a man getting cut and says, "Lucky him, it makes it better and you can last longer." Paradoxically, once he is cut, the doctor says, "I gave you a racing pole". He is then "happy as a dog hangin' out a car window with the wind in his face" according to one viewer. Reportedly filled with other misinformation.

Shriek if you know what I did last Friday the 13th

US, 2000 (Splatter comedy) Teacher asks teenage pupils if they knew Frankenstein was circumcised.



More details needed (but the movie is so uniformly panned that it would be inadvisable to watch it all just to find out).

Sixty six

UK, 2006 Comedy/drama about Bernie Reubens (Gregg Sulkin), about to have his Bar Mitzvah. It clashes with the World Cup final and has to be radically scaled down. Friend: Will you have your tonker cut off?

Bernie: What?

Friend: My mum said when you have your bar mitzvah you have your tonker cut off by a rabbi with a cake knife.

Bernie: It's not called a tonker, it's called a cock and I've already had a bit cut off. (Friend's dad looks up in astonishment.) Gentiles commonly confuse Bar Mitzvah and Brit Milah, but the cake knife and penectomy are added touches. Cake knives are especially blunt. The lines are presumably to illustrate Bernie's knowledge and urbanity, but the scriptwriters' own knowledge of Judaism is shaky: a rabbi tells Bernie there's nothing in "the Old Testament" about hoping your home side loses. ("Old Testament" is a Christian expression; Jews acknowledge no other.)

Skin Deep

India, 2015



(Several other films have the same name) A short film, shown together with Bawdi, Blouse and Manila Running as Chaar Cutting ... Hardik Mehta’s Skin Deep is a little more involving [than Bawdi] largely because of the performances by Aditi Vasudev and Navin Kasturia and Hardik’s ability to steer clear of sleazy innuendos in a story that hangs on circumcision.

The boy feels pain in making love with [his] girl friend who is being forced to get married by her parents to a boy not of her choice.

The boy decides to go for circumcision before eloping but things go awry in the operation theatre. It is a strange story that fails to evolve into something more ambitious. - review in The Hindu , June 5, 2015 Such a young man would probably have phimosis or frenulum breve, both of which can be treated by other surgery or non-surgically. The influence of both Islam and the British Raj may prejudice Indian doctors towards cutting.

Sling Blade

US, 1996 Drama about a mentally disturbed man, Karl (Billy Bob Thornton, who also directs) In the opening scene, in a mental hospital, a very disturbed patient, Charles (J.T.Walsh) says to Karl:

"I [finally got to look at] her bush... and there before me, lay this thin, crooked, uncircumcised penis! You can imagine how bad I wanted my $25 back, huh?" (Implying Charles killed the prostitute over it.)



The intonation suggests that being intact was the worst thing about the unwanted penis.

The South Park Movie: Bigger, Longer & Uncut

US, 1999 In the TV trailer, after the word "Uncut", the cartoon boys can be heard in the background shouting "Eeeewwwww!"



This casual bigotry against intactness is one of the most insidious ways circumcision is promoted.

For South Park, the TV series, see the TV Sitcoms pages, S-Z.

The Spy Who Dumped Me

US, 2018 Spy thriller/comedy Morgan (Kate McKinnon) and Audrey (Mila Kunis) are friends caught up in a spy plot. The two women have been involved with a sexist Ukranian agent (Dustin Demri-Burns) who they've been trying to educate in feminism. He has sent Morgan some pictures. Morgan is on the phone to her mother. Morgan (on phone) "Mom, did you get the dick pics I forwarded? Audrey thinks it's weird that we tell each other everything. I know it's normal... that's what I said!... It looks like an unbaked crescent roll. Mom I know you like them uncut, hold on... (to Audrey, who is trying to interrupt her) My mom wants to know if you've been with an uncircumcised man... Audrey: Morgan, I'm begging you to get off the fucking phone! It is (slight) progress that a character (unseen) likes intact men.

State and Main

US, 2000 A woman is about to make love to a man and asks him if he is Jewish. He replies, "Yes, why do you ask?"

She says, "I love Jewish men."

He asks, "Why?"

She then looks at his crotch excitedly and says, "Ohh, you know why!" This reinforces the first myth, that only Jews (and all Jews) circumcise. (She might as well have asked, "Are you American?")

For him to know why would assume that all women prefer circumcised penises.

Summer Storm

[Sommersturm]

Germany, 2004 A comedy about a young rower coming to terms with being gay during a training session camped by a lake. One of the rowers is brought to the camp in agony. His body is hunched up, and when they force his arms and legs apart one lifts the blanket that wraps him and says "His foreskin is caught in his zipper." Then some woman rowers come to complain that a man has been peeking at them, and they identify him as the culprit. He is taken away to see a doctor. Some of the youths joke about serving his foreskin at a barbecue. At the end of the film he confesses to one of the women that he had been "choking the chicken" and she slaps his face. Having a foreskin is taken for granted. There is only a comical suggestion that it, rather than the zipper, will be sacrificed.

Superman

US, 1978 The baby Superman walks out of the crash-landed rocket from Krypton, circumcised.

(The question arises, coming from a super-civilization, why?)

Superman II

US, 1980 The infant Superman is again shown circumcised. Other anomalous circumcisions.

Supot (Intact)

Philippines, 2002 A short film (10:49, embedded in its entirety here) about a supot young man who breaks free. A little slow and symbolist at first, but with an uplifting ending (from 7:20 on). Supot (Uncircumcised) from OGi Sugatan on Vimeo.

Suzie Gold

UK, 2003 Comedy. Suzie, a Jewish girl (Summer Phoenix) in London, under pressure to marry a nice Jewish boy (Iddo Goldberg), falls for Darren (Leo Gregory), a gentile. Suzie's more orthodox friend Debbie (Sophie Winkleman) questions her about Darren: Debbie: Well I just don't know how you can do it. Suzie: It's really not that different. I mean it's got its pluses as well. Debbie: Such as?

Suzie: Well it's full of surprises, it's not like with a Jewish boy, you don't just get what you see, it's like, there's an extra layer, like, a mystery you uncover. Debbie: Something like loads of cheese underneath. Suzie: No, he's very clean. Suzie may have been speaking about gentiles, not genitals. It is Debbie who is focused on his foreskin.

Debbie: When the foreskin fetish has worn off and you're sitting in your warmest cardigan in your council flat with your six snotty-nosed kids, and you're waiting for your goyische fella to come back from the pub and beat you up, I'll try very hard not to say I told you so. Later, in the synagogue: Debbie: You know you can do some extra repenting for your non-kosher diet ...? ... Two days fasting on Yom Kippur - and no cheese for a week. Since the film is about love finding a way, the supposed obstacle of his foreskin is soon dismissed.

Things I Never Told You

[Cosas que nunca te dije]

Spain/US, 1996 In two scenes of traffic jams, we can hear the drivers' thoughts. In the first, a man says, "Why was I circumcised, anyway?" In the next, he answers himself, "It's cleaner and healthier, women prefer it."

Threads

Khait Errouh

Morocco, 2003 Producer's synopsis: Hayat, a young American woman, accompanies her dying father, Mehdi, on a trip to his childhood home in Bejjaad - a small Moroccan town teeming with people she may never meet, but whose lives unfold before our eyes: Karim (Mohamed Farhat), a young boy, is plagued with nightmares on the eve of his circumcision. ... As each of these characters undergoes a rite of passage, Mehdi embraces the end of his life.

... and well he might have had nightmares.

Three Needles See 3 Needles

Time of the Coment

(Koha e kometes) Germany/Albania, 2008 Historical comedy Upon learning that Albania is no longer under Ottoman rule, Shestan (Blerim Destani) ... ventures forth with his men to seek out and defend the newly named German king of Albania. ... The makeshift troop finally reaches King Weid (Thomas Heinze), who has ethnic problems of his own. Faced with a choice between his throne and his foreskin (Albania's considerable Muslim population demands he be circumcised), Weid abdicates." - Variety September 21, 2009 As someone commented, "I think I'd abdicate, too." [The comet in question, Halley, came in 1910. The film is set on the eve of WW1, in 1914, so the time of the comet is well over. Perhaps that is part of the comedy.]

Time to Say Goodbye

Simon sagt 'Auf Wiedersehen' zu seiner Vorhaut

Germany, 2016



Comedy [How can anyone even think of making a comedy about genital cutting? Humour at its most nervous.] The German title "Simon says 'See you again' to his foreskin" is misleading (Simon sagt 'Tchüß'... perhaps?). Twelve-year-old Simon Grünberg (Maximilian Ehrenreich, "The Book of Life") approaches his Bar Mitzvah in the midst of his parents' marital separation. His recently observant Jewish father (Florian Setter) advocates for his circumcision, seeing the significance of his son's covenant with God as a non-negotiable rite of passage. His mother (Lavinia Wilson), a fiery and headstrong erotica author, finds this appalling and refuses to subject her son to circumcision for the sake of pious rules. Simon, for lack of a better term, is torn.



To complicate matters, Simon's new Rabbi, Rebecca (Catherine De Léan), is a warm, beautiful, intelligent woman—and he's not the only one who notices. With well-meaning strategic help from his buddies Ben and Clemens, Simon sets off to win her heart before his father can. When an especially intimate tactic (that drew groans of all kinds from its North American Premiere audience) becomes public fodder for a private feud, Simon considers more drastic measures. His desperation to attract a first love twenty years his senior drives him to bond with God on his own terms. - from the Reel Georgia review

Typically, it is taken as normal that a virgin boy is expected to part with his foreskin without ever knowing what it does.

Tiyabu Biru

Senegal, 1978 Made in the Soninke language, English title "Circumcision". No other information available.

The To Do List

USA, 2013 Comedy about teenage girls wanting to experiment sexually. A teenage girl is about to masturbate a youth, who turns out to be intact. She reports: "It has skin, I don't remember seeing that in any of the health books." She asks her mother why some boys aren't circumcised and the mother replies: " The better question is, why are boys circumcised? " She goes on to explain the foreskin and how much extra sensitivity it has, and that it is a shame that we cut them off our sons at birth.

A touch of spice

(Politiki kouzina) Greece, 2003 A drama set in Greece and Turkey. A Turkish customer and his son enter a spice shop owned by a Greek in Istanbul. The son is dressed in festive garments resembling a king's or sultans's dress. While the two men talk about politics, the boy approaches the merchant's grandson, but his father forbids him from doing so. He explains to the merchant that the son is to be circumcised shortly, but he will allow him to come another day to play with his grandson. (Later in the movie the two boys meet again as men and we realise that the promised visit - after the circumcision - never took place.)

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story

95 mins

UK, 2005 "An unfilmable 18th century literary classic becomes a comic film-about-a-film." Laurence Sterne's 'The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman' is a mock autobiography renowned for its digressions and its asides, These are paralled in this film version by stepping out of the story into its filming. During the re-creation of a crucial point in Shandy's childhood, when he was circumcised by a plunging sash window, this painful accident is interrupted by Steve Coogan as Shandy hectoring the child actor (Conal Murphy) for his poor performance.

The Two Of Us

Le viel homme et l'enfant

France, 1967 Drama The parents of a little Jewish boy (Alain Cohen) decide to evacuate him at the height of the bombing of their town in 1944. He goes to stay with an elderly couple. Jews are being rounded up and the old man (Michel Simon) is superficially anti-Semitic, so the boy is told to say he is Catholic, and even learns the Lord's Prayer. The drama is about the developing relationship between the boy and the man. He has a couple of near-disclosures, especially when he's told to bathe in the iron bath in the middle of the kitchen. We see his "problem", the determined old lady (Luce Fabiole) who wants to wash him does not.

Tuli

Philippines, 2005 A lesbian feminist film. Daisy (Desiree Del Valle) has inherited, from her abusive father, the role of circumcising all the young men in the village, and she bristles against the expectation that she must then marry one of them. “Let’s show all the men here our world doesn’t revolve around their balls,” she tells her friend Botchok (Vanna Garcia). There are several scenes of circumcisions in the first hour. I rented the movie Tuli from netflix. I expected, from the descriptions I'd read on various websites, that Tuli was an anti- circumcision film, as it is repeatedly described as the story of a young woman bucking against traditional Filipino society and her circumciser-father. And so it seemed, throughout the entire movie, beginning with the horrible opening scene of children being circumcised; the circumciser (Bembol Roco) portrayed as an evil drunk; then his daughter, Daisy (Desiree del Valle), specifically choosing the one intact young man in town, Nanding (Carlo Aquino), to impregnate her. The movie is filled with depictions of the evils of superstition; from villagers who believe that dwarves and lesbians curse children; to Catholics who whip themselves with instruments of torture on Holy Days. The recurring theme is that all the 'bad' men in town are circumcised, while the one kind man in town is uncut: contrary to what the villagers believe, circumcision does NOT make the man. At the movie's climax, the village people get together to violently tear Daisy and her female lover, Botchok (Vanna Garcia), from their home. It is Nanding alone who comes to their defense, fighting off the attackers, and when he succeeds, Botchok shouts to the villagers: "YOU are the uncut ones after all!" ("supot", the derogatory term in Tagalog for intact -- as well as homosexual -- carries the connotation of "bad".) And yet, after all that, just like ALWAYS, the very last scene of the movie, after spending two hours depicting their uniqueness and independence, shows Daisy circumcising Nanding, because he, after all, is a "REAL" man - and, like the idiotic villagers shouted all along, "REAL" men are circumcised. There are repeated Catholic images and scenes throughout the movie; even the ending credits are adorned with various Christian drawings. The current pope has even again reminded Catholics that they are "a church without circumcision." Why won't his church listen? Danielle in Pasadena

The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 1: The Moab Story

UK, 2003 IMDb summary: The first of three parts, we follow Tulse Luper in three distinct episodes: as a child during the first World War, as an explorer in Mormon Utah, and as a writer in Belgium during the rise of fascism. Packed with stylistic flourishes, it's a dense, comic study of 20th century history, revolving around the contents of one man's suitcases. During Tulse's childhood (5'40" in), he (Richard Pask) and his friends are playing war and explain to their friend David (Joshua Light) that he must be Jewish because he's "lost a piece of his willy." Circumcision was also a class marker in the UK in the early 20th century.

Uncut

Canada, 1997 A comedy set in Ottawa in 1979, about three gay men named Peter - one, Cort (Matthew Ferguson), is writing a book about male circumcision; another, Koosens (Michael Achtman), is transcribing that book in a typing agency and is obsessed with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to a degree that draws the attention of a police officer; the third, Peter Denham (Damon D'Oliveira), seduces the first two and then betrays them both. "[a] witty, imaginative and frequently subversive reapraisal of cinematic form... this is certainly different and refreshing viewing." - Time Out

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas

US, 2011 Comedy about two dopers, Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) and their dangerous quest for a Chrismas tree . A Jewish man who has converted to Christianity is extolling the new-found joys of being a Christian at Christmas: "Next week I have an appointment to get uncircumcised. That's right, I'm going to get my snozzle!" Implying only Jews are circumcised, even though the two main - gentile - characters' circumcised penises both appear in the film. Harold's is absurdly stretched when he tries to pull it from a post to which it has frozen, and is probably a stunt-cock.

Click on images for larger Clearly the restoration involved is surgical.

View from the Top

US, 2003 A romantic comedy about becoming a flight attendant. At a dinner party, a veteran flight attendant, Sally Weston (Candice Bergen) married to a rich Texan, is host to several new flight attendants. Donna (Gwyneth Paltrow): So what was it like, Mrs Weston, when you started flying?

Sally: Sally, please. Oh, it was wonderful! The exotic cities -

Christine (Christina Applegate): I hear all those Europe men are uncircumcised.

Randy (Joshua Malina, informatively): Uh, not all. (Mr Weston looks pained) The humour lies in the inappropriateness of the question, topped by the inappropriateness of the answer, with a mildly homophobic dig at Randy's supposed promiscuity (though one circumcised European would be sufficient for him to be correct). On another level, it is anti-intact: he is reassuring her that she can date a European without having to put up with a foreskin.

Virtual Sexuality

UK, 1999 Romantic comedy with a touch of sci-fi. Justine Parker (Laura Fraser), 17, wants to lose her virginity. She goes to a virtual reality fair for a date with self-styled superstud Alex Thorne (Kieran O'Brien), but he stands her up and she goes with her friend Chas Lovett (Luke de Lacey). In a machine intended to give her a virtual makeover, she sets the controls for her ideal man (Rupert Penry-Jones) instead. An explosion puts her into his body and she calls herself Jake, but has much to learn about being a man. Jake and Chas are in a locker-room, where naked men are horsing around: Jake: Jesus, would you look at Carter's. Chas: Don't point. Jake: But he's got no - the inside's showing. Chas: He's been circumcised. Jake: Poor bastard! A scene that would probably have been turned on its head in the US.

Waiting for Guffman

US, 1996 A semi-improvised comedy. Blaine, Missouri. To celebrate the town's 150th anniversary, an off5-Broadway director is mounting an historical pageant. (Guffman is a Broadway theatre critic who has been invited to the opening night.) Two of the cast - a travel agent who has left town only once and the dentist - and their partners are having dinner together. Ron Albertson (Fred Willard): How'd you find this place? Dr. Allan Pearl (Eugene Levy, who played Dr Wasserman in "Off Centre" ): Well, we've been, uh coming here for many years Sheila Albertson (Catherine O'Hara rather the worse for wear) What's it.. what's it.. Ron: Shhh ... Sheila: Girl talk. What's it like to be with a circumcised man? Mrs [first name not given] Pearl (Linda Kash) reacts. Sheila : I'd ask you more about that but Ron said the whole Jew thing... Ron whispers in Sheila's ear. Reaction from Dr Pearl. Sheila: When Ron had his surgery... when Ron had his surgery ... Ron (interrupting): All right, all right ... Sheila: ... I said, 'Hey circumcise it while you're at it,' you know... because I had never been with anyone else. Ron's the only man I've been with. [This does not follow. ~75% of the world's women have never been with any but intact men.] Dr. Pearl: What surgery did he have? Ron: A minor corrective surgery. (to a waiter) Can we have some coffee at the table please? Sheila (sarcastically): It's not minor anymore. [?] Dr. Pearl (noticing Ron's embarrassment): Well maybe we should change the subject. Ron: I had, uh, what most guys would, um, dream of: I had penis reduction surgery. Dr. Pearl (startled): I'm sorry? Ron: Penis reduction surgery. Which there aren't many. You're gonna say, 'I've never heard of that,' because there haven't been that many cases. (Reaction from Mrs Pearl) Sheila: I said, 'Ron do something' and he said, 'Why don't you get one of those vagina enlargements?' The scene continues without further reference to circumcision.

Walk on Water

Israel, 2004 Explores Israeli-German and straight-gay relationships, among other things. An Israeli intelligence man, Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi), is hunting down an old Nazi. He poses as a tourist guide and befriends the Nazi's grandson, Axel Himmelman (Knut Berger). They are showering after swimming in the Dead Sea. Eyal: So they didn't circumcise you? I think I never saw one. You know, we used to talk about it in the army. If it looks bigger and if it's better in bed... Axel: I don't know. It's the only one I ever had. Eyal: Is everybody like that in Europe? Axel (as they get dressed): In Germany, hardly nobody's circumcised - except for the Turks. In other countries of Europe...? Let me think... Italians? Definitely not circumcised. Also the English and the French. Definitely not. Actually, only the Muslims are circumcised in Europe. And the Jews, of course. I think it looks better circumcised. Eyal (thoughtfully): I see you know quite a lot about it. Circumcision is a plot device to develop the relationship between the men. Axel is giving away that he is gay, but Eyon doesn't notice. Not many gay Germans would think a circumcised penis looks better than their own - perhaps he is flirting.

Waiting in the Wings

USA, 2014 Musical about a would-be Broadway actor whose CV is switched with a stripper's. In a song "Gays, Jews and Girls Who Need Love" about people who support musicals, is the line: No-one is more loyal

Than those who use a mohel. - underlining "Judaism = circumcision"

Wassup Rockers

USA, 2005 Dramatised documentary by Larry Clark about a group of Guatemalan American and Salvadoran American teenagers in South Central Los Angeles who, instead of conforming to the hip hop culture of their gang-infested neighborhood, wear tight pants, listen to punk rock,and ride skateboards. Jonathan (Jonathan Velasquez) and a young woman have been pulling their clothes off as they go upstairs. When they reach the bedroom, Jonathan takes off his trousers. (0:50)

She: You're not circumcised.

Jonathan: No, I'm Latino. Why, it looks different?

She: It looks dangerous! (Kisses him passionately. They begin to have sex.) A welcome change from "Eew!"

What's Cooking?

USA, 2000 Comedy-drama about two days - around Thanksgiving - in the lives of four Los Angeles families, African-American,Vietnamese, Latino and Jewish. On Thanksgiving morning, Ruth Seelig (Lainie Kazan) is showing Carla (Julianna Margulies), the partner of her daugher Rachel (Kyra Sedgwick), how to stuff the turkey, and complaining about her son, Art, and his wife. Ruth: You know they haven't spoken in over a year? It's terrible. That's it, Carla. Just make sure it goes all the way in the back. Carla: Mmm, that's my favorite part. Ruth: I mean, our only grandson not circumcised, yet. It's a shanda [disgrace, scandal]. And, and, and they spoke to the moyel in Beverly Hills about the bris and everything. Rachel (who is pregnant by artificial insemination, unknown to her mother): But it's up to his parents! Ruth: It's tradition! As usual, circumcision is not treated seriously in its own right, this time merely as a prop to illustrate the generation gap, and the grandson's rights or wishes do not get a look in.

What To Expect When You're Expecting

USA, 2012 Comedy about pregnancy and parenthood. Stars Cameron Diaz and Matthew Morrison joke nervously pre-release about the decision how much detail to include about circumcision. (Christopher Hitchens said, "Genital mutilation is no joke.") Keeping the larger-audience rating seems more important than informing parents about the grim reality of circumcising. The preview is not encouraging and Matthew Morrison seems to agree with his character, Evan: In their arguments, Ewan's case for cutting is that "How is it even a question?"

He's Jewish

People will make fun of their son

He likes sex just fine

"I'll feel shafted if he's not done." [We may hope that this means that if circumcision is unnecessary, he'll feel that he was shafted by being circumcised.] Jules's case for intactness is There's more sensation [intact]

Circumcision is violent and

Unnecessary A passing nurse says "Actually a lot of couples are choosing not to circumcise these days." A woman listening to their conversation says uncut guys are better and she had a blast in Europe. In the (happy) event, the baby is a girl, so the question never needs an answer - and the moviemakers are off the hook. They discuss the issue a few more times – MM tries to trivialize the idea of circ. While CD is in labor, she mumbles something about “I don’t care about his penis.” The issue is resolved when, to their surprise, the sonogram was wrong and she delivers a baby girl. Cameron Diaz told Jimmy Fallon she thinks it's strange that men want their sons to be circumcised and aren't comfortable with [a child having] a foreskin. There’s reality TV stars Jules (Cameron Diaz) and Evan (Matthew Morrison), a high-maintenance pair who argue about circumcision purely so the writers can throw in a few dick jokes but without the slightest degree of truth about how parents can disagree about major decisions even before they know the sex of the child. ... There are so few moments or scenes in “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” that don’t feel like they were processed by a machine. “What do we need to put in this movie? Nipple pain? Check. Flatulence? Check. Circumcision jokes? Check. Gags about how awful dads are? You bet.” - HollywoodChicago.com For circumcision critics, it is a slam-dunk in terms of pop-culture attention to this issue. Jules (Cameron Diaz) is an LA celebrity who is determined not to circumcise her son despite the protestations of the baby’s father Evan (Matthew Morrison). When a tabloid magazine prints that Jules won’t be circumcising on its front cover, the couple’s tensions over the issue escalate. The circumcision issue is not merely addressed in passing. It is a major plot point in the film. - Beyond the Bris, May 19, 2012

When Father was away on Business

[Otac na sluzbenom putu], Yugoslavia, 1985 A drama-comedy directed by Emir Kusturica and set in 1950s Yugoslavia. Early on the film, the father decides to have his two boys, Mesa (Miki Manojlovic), aged about nine, and Malik (Moreno D'E Bartolli), 12, circumcised. The adults throw a little party in the house. The boys are presented and circumcised by their uncle who is a butcher. Their father tells the butcher to "go easy" with the skin and is told that there is "enough skin left for a good fuck". Later on, Mesa shares a bathtub with a little girl. He resents being circumcised since a friend of his "can stick a stone in, while he can't". The girl tells him that her father, who is a doctor, performs such operations and that it is better to be cut by a doctor.

The Wicker Man

UK, 1973 Cult suspense/horror. A Calvanistic Scottish police sergeant (Edward Woodward) goes alone to an offshore island where the locals, led by their Lord (Christopher Lee), have abandoned Christianity in favour of pagan fertility rites, and becomes more involved than is good for him. A scene in the local chemist/photographer's shop opens with a closeup of jars labelled "Foreskins" and "Dimethyl glyoxime" (used to detect nickel, of no apparent significance) and tracks past jars containing "Rat Brains", a weasel, "Snake Oil Embrocation", "Brains" and "Hearts" and ends on a tank of calf embryos. The foreskins appear to be from adults. This is explained by a scene that was cut from the film: (Lennox leads the way into the shop. Howie's attention is taken by a large bottle marked "foreskins".) HOWIE: Foreskins? How do you get foreskins? LENNOX: Circumcision - how else? I pay Ewan a reasonable price for them. HOWIE: But what for? LENNOX: If ritually burnt they bring the rain. But, of course, up here there's very little call for them. Now, how can I help you? A character is credited as "Doctor Ewan". It is most unlikely that he would ever need to cut off as many foreskins as appear in the jar, suggesting he did it without medical need.

The Wound

Inxeba (in Xhoxa with English subtitles)

South Africa, 2017 Director: John Trengove A slow-burning drama set at a Xhosa initiation. The initiates are all cut early on in the film; nothing is shown but there is mention of painful herbs being applied, and infections. The foreskin is mentioned only once, near the end. It is clear that it is not genital cutting that turns boys into men.



The film was first given a 16LS classification n South Africa, then after demonstrations, X18 for "classifiable elements of sex, language, nudity, violence and prejudice" meaning it can only be shown in "designated adult premises".

Y tu mamá también

[And your mother, too]

Mexico, 2001 Two best friends, 17 years old, spend most of their time horsing around, swearing, smoking dope and having sex with their girlfriends. One, Tenoch (Diego Luna), is the son of a leading politician and a psychotherapist (very well off). The other, Julio (Gael García Bernal), is the son of a secretary (middle to middle/lower class) whose husband ran off many years ago. In an early scene, the boys are showering together alone at a country club. As Julio dries off, Tenoch comments on his "ugly dick." Julio ignores the comment but Tenoch continues by saying Julio's penis looks like a "deflated balloon." Julio tells him to "blow up my balloon, faggot!" winning the exchange. Later, during a road-trip with a Spanish relation of Tenoch's, Luisa (Maribel Verdú), they banter about the relative size of their penises. Tenoch: Plus, Julio has a really ugly cock.

Luisa: Oh really? Why do you say that?

Tenoch: It looks like a deflated balloon. It has a hood on it; it's really gross.

Luisa: Mmm, yummy. Foreskins. I love them!

Tenoch: Well, I think a hood is just gross.

Julio: Ah, you're just jealous 'cause I'm bigger. As the film goes on, they express the sexual tension between them in class terms. Tenoch calls Julio "white trash" and "a peasant", while Julio calls Tenoch a "spoiled preppie" and the beneficiary of a corrupt politician father. A voice-over mentions that Tenoch uses his foot to lift the toilet seat in Julio's home. Circumcision is just one clear line in the sand. The message is that boys in upper- and middle-class Mexican families are routinely circumcised, like the Americans they envy, while intactness is a mark of social inferiority in sophisticated Mexico City, where both boys live. Julio is unfussed about being intact, but Tenoch has a hangup about foreskins - not that they're dirty, but rather that they label social class. His best friend's intactness is a daily reminder that they're from different sides of the tracks. The connection is made very deliberately. Diego Luna is actually intact, but was made to wear a circumcised stunt penis in the nude scenes.

Year One

US, 2009 Prehistoric/biblical comedy. "What's with all the genital mutilation ?" asks Oh, a sensitive gatherer (as opposed to hunter), upon hearing the circumcision action plan put forth by Hank Azaria's Abraham. Don't worry, the bearded one says. "It's a very sleek look." Chicago Tribune, June 19, 2009 Many a true word is spoken in jest! This could be the first time "genital mutilation" has been used to describe male circumcision in a mainstream movie. (Actually, Oh didn't ask that until a eunuch in Sodom offered to show Oh his testicles.) With its exposed corona and sulcus, and dried surface, a circumcised penis is far from "sleek". The most hilarious character of the whole lot is undoubtedly the wonderful Hank Azaria as Abraham - a man who tries to convince Zed and Oh that circumcision "is going to catch on". The Sun June 27, 2009 Zed (Jack Black): "Let me get this straight, you're saying you have too much cock?" Exactly.

Most reviews have panned the movie.

You Don't Mess with the Zohan

US, 2008 Comedy. Mossad agent Zohan Dvir (Adam Sandler) fakes his own death so he can re-emerge in New York City as a hair stylist who gives his elderly female customers "special services" in the back room. But he is eventually recognized and risks losing his newfound life and career. Zohan has been staying with Gail (Lainie Kazan) and her son Michael (Nick Swardson) for several weeks, and had sex with Gail several times. He reveals to them that he's an Israeli counter-terrorist: Michael: Wow. You're an Israeli counter-terrorist? Gail: I knew it! Michael: What? Gail: Well, the Israeli part... 'cause he's circumcised. In NYC? She has to be joking.

Your Highness

US, 2011 Comedy about a mediaeval quest. Hollywood Confronts the Last Taboo

Why are so many actors dropping their pants? A film’s success rises or falls on the smallest of details. And so it was that the director of this month’s medieval stoner comedy Your Highness found himself in a boardroom with the suits at Universal Studios, discussing every last facet of his minotaur[, Brian Steele]’s manhood. How to light the half-man/half-bull’s prosthetic appendage? How large should the dimensions be? And what would the anatomy suggest about the beast’s religious leanings? [As though only Jews circumcise.] “We took the leap, culturally, and we circumcised him,” the director, David Gordon Green, explains. Or rather, they did the Amurrican thang and they circumcised him.

Documentary

Abandon the Knife

Kenya, 2011 In Pokot, a remote village in the hills of Northern Kenya, two teenage girls start a revolution by refusing to be the victims of female genital mutilation. The film tells the story of how Nancy and Gertrude stood up to their parents and their traditions and emerged as leaders and role models for future generations of girls in their village and their wider community.

Africa Ama

Italy, 1971 Sensationalistic documentary shows circumcisions of crying male and female children (with broken glass or a razor blade) clearly, and an infibulation. Female circumcision is described as severe mutilation, male circumcision as just a hygienic measure.

Africa Rising...

Kenya, 2009 VOA News

November 18, 2009 African Activism Against Female Circumcision Is Focus of New Film A new film focuses on the fight by African activists ... “I was forcefully cut when I was 14 years,” says Kenyan anti-FGM activist Agnes Pareyio. “I tried to resist; everybody was calling me a coward. There was a lot of peer pressure on me that forced me to prove to them that I was not a coward. But I hated it. So, I grew up hating it and made sure that not my daughter, not anybody who can listen to me, will undergo FGM.” The village-by-village effort of education and persuasion that Pareyio and others like her in Somalia, Tanzania, Burkina Faso and Mali have taken on is the subject of "Africa Rising: The Grassroots Movement to End Female Genital Mutilation," made by Paula Heredia for Equality Now, a group that works to promote human rights for women. The film opens with 14-year-old Mary Solio remembering the day she was cut. "My father decided to marry me off. I told him no, because I wanted to continue with my education,“ Solio says. “They beat me. They removed all my clothes and they beat me nakedly. I ran, but they got me on the way. I cry, but nobody was there in the forest. I cried but I don't have anybody to turn to. They beat me the same day and they took me to the husband's home." At least 100 million African women and girls have undergone FGM, which involves the removal of all or part of the female genitalia. Sometimes the remaining flesh is stitched closed, a practice called infibulation, leaving only a tiny opening for urination and menstruation, and making intercourse and childbirth painful and hazardous. FGM can cause immediate hemorrhaging and death or a lifetime of pain, disability and severe emotional problems, doctors say. Activists fight FGM by pointing out it is not practiced in most Islamic countries, and is not mentioned in the Koran. In Somalia, where most girls are cut by the age of eight, the film shows anti-FGM activist Hawa Aden Mohamed visiting a classroom. She tells the schoolgirls that God created female organs for a purpose, and so removing them cannot be right. "People are just trying to change His creation," she says. ... She described how she was considered crazy when she began speaking out against FGM seven years ago. Her husband left her after others said she was trying to spoil their culture, and she raised her four children alone. “In the beginning, it was tough,” Pareyio said. “My life was in danger, because I was trying to break the silence about a culture that was deeply rooted among the people. People believed in it and had never looked at it or even known the dangers, or wanted to talk about it. So, it was like I was crazy, because I was talking about the private part of a woman, which was a taboo in Africa. Nobody can even mention the part that I used to mention when teaching them. But I insisted, because I knew having seen some communities who don’t perform it, I knew that this was just another way of oppressing our women.” Now the subject is no longer taboo. “I’m happy now because at least everybody is talking about it openly, compared to those days,” she says. “These days I go to the field, and say ‘Well, I’ve called you here because I want to talk about FGM.’ So, we are moving towards stopping it.” Pareyio also invokes her Maasai culture in explaining why she does not let herself become discouraged by the decades of struggle that she sees ahead. “When you go to war, always be faithful [that you will succeed],” she says. “I have faith in me that one day women in the Maasai community will be free from the cut." http://www.africarisingthefilm.com

American Circumcision

USA, 2018 Shock Ya! April 6, 2018 American Circumcision Movie Review by Harvey Karten AMERICAN CIRCUMCISION Reviewed by: Harvey Karten Director: Brendon Marotta Screenwriter: Brendon Marotta Cast: Georgeanne Chapin, Jonathon Conte, Dean Edell, Andrew Freedman, John Geisheker, Leonard B. Glick, Ronald Goldman, Ryan McAllister, Marilyn Milos, Soraya Mire, Brian Morris Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 4/6/18 Opens: March 30 – April 28 in 15 markets. VOD release: July 3, 2018 ... “American Circumcision,” a freshman feature project of director Brendon Marotta (who at 6’5” is probably asked about measurements), is no joking matter. The subject is as deadly serious as political divisions brought about by gun laws, abortion, and transgender rights. After all, when 120 million American men have circumcised penises, they are likely to be disturbed, even enraged, by a film that challenges their judgment or the judgment of their parents. In fact America, often considered the exception in our world, is the only country in the developed world to indulge in a procedure whose opponents consider it barbaric, unnecessary, a ignoring of choice, yet in the same respect a twenty-minute operation that promotes hygiene, cosmetic concerns, even, ironically, an opening to greater sexual pleasures than should be expected by an uncircumcised male. The documentary does present both sides of the issue, though it is in no way balanced, any more than are Michael Moore’s “Roger and Me,” “Where to Invade Next,” and “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Clearly Mr. Marotta considers himself on the side of angels, capturing dynamic footage of demonstrations in front of the U.S. Capitol and the White House, even an attempt in California to provide a law by referendum that would outlaw the practice just as sure as female genital mutilation has been illegal here since 1996. Talking heads expressed similar views, some of these heads breaking down in tears, when they expressed anger at both the society and their parents for allowing the surgery when they were infants. ... ... soon we can expect this surgery, both because it is barbaric (take a look at those torture-chamber-like clamps used to shut of the blood of foreskins) and because it is inflicted on infants who should have the right some eighteen years later, to opt out. This is a splendid documentary which may be criticized by a boatload of people who have already crossed the Rubicon, cut the Gordian knot, or whatever metaphor you prefer, and who feel the obligation to defend what was already done. Even there, thankfully, there is a procedure to emulate the foreskin, but the length of time needed to do so and the painful process required would make that a choice of only a determined few. Unrated. 101 minutes. © 2018 by Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online Story – A- Acting – A- Technical – B+ Overall – A- * * * * *

Circoncision, un film de Nurith Aviv

France, 2000

(52 min) From a review:

"Sensitively done interviews, in English and French with subtitles, with a variety of people from various cultural backgrounds, circumcising and non-circumcising, and especially mixed couples, discussing their feelings about circumcision and facing the decision whether to circumcise. "One secular Algerian man describes how, under colonial French rule, to be circumcised was a proud mark that one was not French. In Paris, his family threatened to disown him if he didn't have his sons, 6-8 years old, circumcised. His French wife was opposed. They ultimately didn't, and he was ostracized from his family of origin. The film honored the depth of people's emotions and conflicts, while leaving no doubt that circumcision was a violent and sexually and emotionally disruptive thing." - Billy Ray Boyd "sober and penetrating documentary" - Ha'aretz (Israel) From the film's own website:

This film doesn't explore the religious dimensions of circumcision; the men and women expressing their views here are not religious. However, for them circumcision remains a major issue. Their questions focus upon this mar[k]ing of the body, but also upon lineage, cultural heritage and its transmission. These are particularly sensitive issues for mixed couples, for whom the decision of whether to circumcise or not can give rise to powerful emotions, sometimes leading to conflict.

Circumcise Me?

UK, 2006 [Not the 2009 US comedy, Circumcise Me!]

BBC Documentary by Christopher Sykes. IMDb summary: Is it better or not for men to be circumcised?

Circumcised

Sudan, 1999 Sudan’s unsung film hero By BAMUTURAKI MUSINGUZI HE MIGHT HAVE LOST HIS sight, but Gadalla Gubara is determined not to abandon the skills of film-making that he has mastered over 60 years in his career. ... In the film Circumcised (Sudan, 1999, 20 min), Gubara makes a strong statement against the practices of circumcision as performed in Africa, particularly in Sudan. The East African

Circumcision

Israel, 2008 Circumcision \ a film by Ari Libsker, 21 minute documentary in Hebrew and English, with subtitles. .

The film itself. Interviews with recent immigrants who regret being circumcised for conformity (2'35"): "It was very, very stupid." parents who did not circumcise, though their son later wanted it (4'38"): "A child has to be very hard on himself to hurt himself in a place where you learn how to love." a man who sued his parents for circumcising him (13'22"), and Israeli parents struggling with conformity and custom (16'26"): "In order for him to be called a Jew, he has to suffer these hellish experiences."

Couper Court

Cut Short

Canada, 2007 Official summary: Infant circumcision is a delicate subject. For some, it stands as a religious law, impossible to circumvent; for others, it amounts to a serious lapse from children's right to physical integrity. This documentary gives an opportunity to men and to women to express freely their concern with this question.

52 minutes

Producer: Evelyne Guay

Production Productions VF Inc.

Cut

USA, 2007 A documentary by Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon which examines male circumcision from a religious, scientific and ethical perspective. "Using cutting-edge research, in addition to interview footage of rabbis, philosophers, and scientists, Cut challenges the viewer to confront their biases by asking difficult questions about this long-standing practice." Primarily about Brit Milah, the Religious News Service says the film "respectfully questions the ritual". After its theatrical premiere in Chicago on September 9, 2007, the director answered questions from the audience. An independent review:

I approached the film with a complex set of preconceptions and, to the filmmaker's great credit, after it was over my certainties were utterly shaken. It would be entirely too easy to make a joke about the subject of Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon’s thoughtful new documentary, “Cut:Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision.” After all, Jewish comedians have been doing that for decades. And at the beginning of his film, one expects from its tone that Ungar-Sargon may be planning to do the same. But “Cut” is a deadly serious and admirably balanced look at the medical, sociological, ethical and religious aspects of male circumcision. The filmmaker interviews a profusion of doctors, activists and rabbis, returning periodically to a non-observant Jewish couple who are preparing for the brit milah of their second son, which we see towards the end of the film. Ungar-Sargon was himself raised as an Orthodox Jew, and describes his uneasy investigation of this issue as one more step in his “lifelong struggle with Jewish tradition.” As his father notes, he was circumcised by the same mohel who had performed the rite on the filmmaker’s grandfather and father, a detail that underlines the significance of circumcision as a practice that unites Jewish men across generations. Despite his own misgivings about circumcision, Ungar-Sargon is admirably even-handed in his choice of witnesses and the use of their statements. It would be very easy to caricature some of the odder “intactivist” activists , and one cannot help but bristle a little at the non-Jewish anti-circumcision organizer who says, “I don’t prescribe for Jews at all,” with a certain air of disdain, or the non-observant Jewish anthropologist who takes obvious delight in pointing out the preponderance of Jewish physicians doing research to support the purported medical benefits of the procedure. [ It would be even easier to caricature quite mainstream circumcision activists.

He would bristle even more at Intactivists who do prescribe for Jews - damned if we do and damned if we don't, it seems. Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon: Would you argue that Jews should discontinue the practice of circumcision?

Harry Meislahn (NOCIRC Illinois): No, I don't - I don't prescribe for Jews at all. This is an absolute loser, I'm not Jewish. One of the other things about it is that I would maintain that a Jewish baby feels pain just as a non-Jewish baby feels pain, and there are Jewish men, just like non-Jewish men, who are real angry that this was done to them so at that point I withdraw from this field because it generates lots of heat, very little light, and I understand a lot of people have used arguments against circumcision - hundreds of years ago - to convert Jews from Judaism, and Jews know that. Disdain?

Prof. Leonard Glick:

As I studied the history of American circumcision, the names that came up repeatedly with most prominence - Wolbarst, Ravich, [Fink], Weiss, Schoen (still active today) - the names - with the single exception of Thomas Wiswell (who's the main proponent for [circumcision to prevent] Urinary Tract Infections) - but with that single exception, really in recent times, I think it's accurate and reasonable and fair to say that the names of Jewish physicians are inordinately prominent. Were these men being insincere in some sense? Did they have "ulterior motives"? I really don't think so. I think in their own conscious minds, what they were doing was recommending a Jewish practice that had turned out to be a very good medical practice, one that everyone should adopt. Were they at all influenced by the fact that they were Jewish? I think it's pretty hard to conclude that they probably were not. I would say that, whether consciously or unconsciously, they would have been pleased or satisfied to know that a Jewish practice that had been vilified for centuries was now being accepted by their fellow physicians - non-Jewish physicians - as something worth doing. (Prof. Glick spells this out in more detail on page 183ff of his book.) Delight?] Yet it is hard not to be moved when both a midwife and anti-circumcision speaker and the woman rabbi who runs the Reform movement’s Berit Milah program speaking passionately about the responsibility to protect our children. The question remains, of course, whether that is best done by circumcising the male infants or eschewing that practice. In a sense, the entire film is leading up to the final scene between the director and his father, who has been a highly articulate but intransigent defender of Orthodox ritual. Over the course of making the film, Ungar-Sargon returns to his father in his home study repeatedly, but it is only in their final chat that the older man admits that even he is prepared to acknowledge that the question is a fraught one and that he can live with his son’s answer (or lack thereof). The questions surrounding male circumcision do not admit of any easy answers but, to his credit, Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon has resisted the easy laugh and the pat response to convey something of the thorniness of the issue. He has confronted in a specifically and intensely Jewish way, and that is all you could possibly ask of a filmmaker under these circumstances. Cut is a sound piece of documentary filmmaking on a difficult issue. George Robinson in Cine-Journal Blogspot DVDs of "Cut" are available from the film's website.

Cutting Silence

South Africa, 2008 A 29-minute dramatised documentary about Somalian FGC. Synopsis: The film tells the story of a small contemporary North African family having to deal with the traditional practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). The main focus of the film falls on a young mute woman, Haadiya, who has lived with the effects of FGM all her life. Now that the time has come for her own daughter, Karida, to be circumcised, lost memories about her own experience start to return and fill her mind with doubt. However, a culture that demands the infabulation for social acceptance makes her situation more complex. When Tawvah, bearing the scars of her own infabulation, shows up to do the circumcision on Karida, Haadiya is forced to make a quick and drastic decision. The film investigates the cultural reasons for the continuation of this practice in North African societies. During this short period, actual experiences and scientific facts are condensed into the lives of the five fictional characters, predominantly on the four female characters, who are forced to evaluate their roles as women bound by tradition as well as the life-long damage this cultural practice inflicts on their minds and bodies. The film thus examines through the genre of docudrama the cultural and personal reasons why such a practice still exists in Africa today.

Trailer

The Day I Will Never Forget

UK (TV), 2002 A low-key documentary with little commmentary.

From a review: Set in the Somali community of Nairobi, Kenya, where female genital mutilation is still a common practice, The Day I Will Never Forget takes a many-faceted look at the complex social and cultural forces that continue to thwart effective reform. A Western-trained nurse confronts a new husband with his wife's need for corrective surgery, only to see him put his fear of being shamed by his friends before his wife's well-being. A men's fraternity leader, wearing traditional dress, claims that the clitoris is no different from the foreskin and therefore must be removed. Middle-class mothers sit around a living room rationalizing their own suffering and justifying why they have passed the practice on to their daughters. But filmmaker Kim Longinotto ... provides a larger context for the practice with a look into Somalian marriage customs... Ultimately hope is found in a group of young girls who petition the court for a restraining order against their parents. - Jeannine Lanourette

San Francisco Film Festival Justifications offered for FGM are tradition, to keep girls from sleeping around, and cleanliness. The elder argues that the clitoris is the male organ in the female, as the foreskin is the female organ in the male, and claims God has ordered both to be removed. Opposition to (female) circumcision is largely Christian-based, and religious justification for it vaguely Muslim (the man who puts this forward is sure there is something in the Qu'ran about it.) The most harrowing scene is of a young girl, who has just watched her elder sister being mutilated, being suddenly and unexpectedly held down and subjected to the same process.

The 8th Day

US (TV), 2001 A video documentary about two Jewish couples wrestling with the decision whether to circumcise their sons. Karen Markuze made the video as her master's thesis in broadcast journalism.

Facing Circumcision: Eight Physicians Tell Their Stories

US (TV), 1998 (20 mins) Seven family practice physicians and one emergency room physician in Santa Fe, NM, struggle with their consciences as they examine the ethical and human rights issues of infant circumcision. Three of them tell why they stopped circumcising, the others why they continue to circumcise or to advocate circumcision and discuss what might lead them to change their minds. Available through NOHARMM:



Female Circumcision in Indonesia: The Weight of Tradition

France, 2012

(26 mins)

in French Official Summary (includes the complete film when logged in): Directors: Alexandra Deniau & Eric Beurot In Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, female circumcision remains a firmly rooted tradition. Starting very young, little girls must undergo genital mutilation. In some Indonesian provinces, the vast majority of young girls are circumcised. Today, many ulema [Muslim community] members fervently argue in favor of the necessity of female circumcision. Their influence is strong, and they are forcing the government to back down on its plans to ban female genital cutting. We followed Arista, a three year-old little girl who must go through the procedure according to her family’s wishes. Her mother drives her to Bandung in Southeast Jakarta where a circumcision ceremony is orchestrated by an Islamic group. Who is responsible for perpetuating this religious tradition? Why is the Indonesian government allowing medical staff to continue to perform female circumcision? And who will help the country break free of this ancestral tradition?

Hidden In Plain Sight: Trauma in America

US, in production "The effects and costs of traumatic stress, America's largest health care crisis" To include a section on circumcision. Produced by Henry Astor.

It's a Boy!

UK (TV), 1995 This documentary proved to be more anti-circumcision than its makers ever intended: the bris they were filming went wrong. The mohel told them to stop the camera but they carried on. The baby had to go to hospital, where he developed an infection, went into intensive care and needed antibiotics, oxygen and drips. Excerpts from this circumcision were used in a mainly pro-circ US current affairs item, with the outcome not mentioned. The makers of "It's a Boy!" were, predictibly, denounced as anti-Semitic and the filming was blamed for the mishap, yet brisot are commonly videotaped by relatives, as in "The Nanny", and the producer, Victor Schoenfeld, is the Jewish father of a circumcised son. He also presents details of two babies who died as a result of their circumcisions and an interview with the mother of a third who almost bled to death. It reveals cases of permanent genital disfigurement, claiming that, at a conservative estimate one in 50 circumcisions leads to serious complications. The film also shows Muslim circumcisions. It's a Boy! is now available on DVD. Trailer at the website.

Keep the River on your Right: a modern cannibal tale

US, 2000 Includes documentary footage (virtually irrelevant to the subject, an elderly anthropologist, Tobias Schneebaum, who wrote an important book of the same title) of Muslim ritual circumcision of terrified Malaysian boys.

Includes close-ups, not for the squeamish.

Me and the Jewish Thing

Mig og Jøderiet Denmark, 2009 Documentary about, and by, Ulrik Gutkin Through conversations with his wife, Signe, we learn that Ulrik, who is Jewish, and Signe, who is Christian, do not share the same opinion about the need for circumcision. Ulrik, a 4th generation Danish Jew, feels strongly that their son should be circumcised. Signe, however, sees circumcision as a "medieval" act of mutilation and cruelty. The film covers four years of the couple's life, spanning from the last weeks of Signe's pregnancy, through the first few years of their son Felix's life. Interwoven with Ulrik and Signe's ongoing debate, we learn about Ulrik's Jewish history, his attachment to his religion and culture. In addition to questioning the physical purpose of circumcision, Signe wonders why it's important to Ulrik to become more Jewish, [and] make a film about this Jewish topic, when Judaism wasn't a big part of Ulrik's life prior to having kids. Ulrik struggles to articulate why he feels strongly in favor of circumcising their son. As it becomes clear to him that their son won't be circumcised, he looks for other ways to impart Judaism on Felix, though he and Signe again feel differently about those efforts. Review at the IFF Network Blog October 26, 2010< /P>

Nurses of St. Vincent's: Saying NO to Circumcision

US (TV), 1995 In 1992, more than 20 nurses of St Vincent Hospital, Santa Fe, NM, refused to perform any more circumcisions, and in 1995, two of them, Mary Conant and Betty Katz Sperlich, founded Nurses for the Rights of the Child. This is their story. Dir. Barry Elsworth. Review by Jeannine Parvati Baker

Omnia

United Arab Emritates, 2015 First-hand account of a young Egyptian woman coming to terms with the fact she was circumcised as a child. Amena Al Nowais, 26, awarded the ‘Best Documentary’ award in Image Nation’s first short documentary competition for this film.

Partly Private

Canada, 2009 Produced by Danae Elon - "a personal examination of the ritual of male circumcision. In it, Elon travels the world with her husband after the birth of their son." Program Notes

No decision made about a newborn son is as consequential and irreversible as one made by parents around the world, often without a second thought: What to do about that pesky foreskin? [Since Muslims, Filipinos, South Koreans and tribal people cut years later, and neonatal circumcision is residual in the Commonwealth, in fact only in the US (and Israel) do parents have to give it even a first thought.] To filmmaker Danae Elon, who grew up in Israel but is a secular Jew, the entire ritual of circumcision is ridiculous. But her partner, Phillip, comes from a traditional French/Algerian Jewish family and believes wholeheartedly in the tradition of the bris. So what else does a documentary filmmaker do but explore the issue on the big screen? Intimately opening her own personal experience to the world, Elon (Another Road Home, TFF '04,) takes a witty approach to a complicated and serious subject, turning Partly Private into a fun and entertaining movie that is as much about family as the subject of circumcision. Traveling around the world during her pregnancy, she examines how people from other cultures in other countries feel about what she considers an absurd and outdated ritual, and yet Elon never allows the film to become overly preachy for one side of the debate or the other. Partly Private is an ironic and clever look at a topic to which most new parents may never give enough thought.

--Aaron Dobbs - Tribeca Film Festival programme Interview with Danae Elon It all began when Philip, my partner told me about a story his father had told him: “In Algeria”, he said, “there is a tradition of putting the foreskin in the couscous dish after the ceremony”. “In the couscous dish?????” We never really spoke about what we wou