There Once Was a Man From Nantucket

The LA Times writes today about Judd Apatow's engorged efforts to thrust the display of male genetalia more securely into the modern film age. The story outlines an episode in the new "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" where the main character, played by Jason Segel, is fully and frontally nude for quite some time. The scene, according to the article, prodded the audience at South by Southwest to fits of laughter. Apparently serious comedic benefits can be accrued by filmmakers willing to sling their sausage in the faces of movie goers. Given that the title of this blog and of my webseries, Grande Con Carne, is in fact a thinly veiled double entendre regarding the aforementioned male appendage, I am sympathetic to this argument. The problem with the article is that the author assumes this is a new thing when in fact phallic comedy is as old as the hills.

In 411 BC Aristophanes used erect phalluses to great comedic effect in his play "Lysistrata".

Here are just two examples, though more abound throughout the play.

CINESIAS:(To the audience and pointing at his jolting prick)

My God, this prick! It’s worse than starving Hercules, waiting for his lunch.

HE LIES DOWN WAITING WITH HIS PHALLUS POINTING AT THE SKY. MYRRHINI ENTERS WITH A PILLOW.

and then later:

SPARTAN HERALD:

That’s a… that’s a… Spartan message rod.

CINESIAS:

Hah! If that’s a Spartan message rod then so is this (Indicates his own phallus)

Don’t worry friend, I know what’s up. You can tell me the truth. How are things with you men in Sparta?

SPARTAN HERALD: (Moral relaxation ensues after the disclosure but he is still visibly, very uncomfortable physically because of the affliction (ed note: the "affliction" is an erection))

All of us, Spartans, as well as allies, have stiffies like this one. We all need a fuck!

(ed. note: the original Greek word for "fuck," according to Google is: γαμω)