There have certainly been lots of male fertility symbols, typically phallic in origin in the past.
If you look for them in art, you will see lots of representations of male fertility, maybe they are not particularily identified or named as an official fertility god, but they function as symbols of one.
All you need to do is look.
I can easily think of pre-Colombian or other American images with giant phalluses.
You will also find them in Indian architecture and art. Unfortunately this art is destroyed or hidden away by modern culture.
I am not a historian, but I can easily extrapolate that if they are hidden or destroyed in the current cultural climate, they are likely to have also been destroyed in the past.
Did the Spanish not destroy most records, art and architecture of the Mesoamerican cultures?
The comic genre devoted to sex (among other adult subject matter) is know as Underground Comix.
Currently, phallic symbols are still used by men. Ties, skyscrapers, cigars, guns, etc. Whether by intent or not is debatable, but ultimately they are interpreted as phallic symbols even after the fact.
Now, as to what I mean by Male Fertility God, obviously one that is officially recognized as one, but also an icon that has taken over the role, or has filled the cultural void in the absence resulting from the disappearance of the religion or cult that worshiped them. In the same way that Santa Claus comes not only from the story of Nicholas of Myra, but also from traditions of Odin, Ruebezahl and Knecht Ruprecht, among others.
The Easter Bunny, (though sometimes seen as female, but often as male,) mentioned earlier becomes a symbol of Spring, birth and fertility, thus a fertility god.
I just finished reading Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett. It is basically a reworking of Midsummer Night's Dream, but set in Discworld.
Of course Oberon and Titania are there, though not mentioned by those names.
On the one had we have the Queen of the Elves and then there is her Husband (played in this photo by Patrick Stewart).
The Husband lives under a mountain with a giant sign of male genitalia, and though the King of Elves is supposed to be similarly endowed, a dwarf comments that he is not half of what he is supposed to be, maybe referring to his general size or maybe his endowment (which makes for a good joke, but not much sense, since he only appears to be, his real nature is something else entirely.)
Here is a similar giant as seen in Religulous:
I can think of two movies featuring the Green Man but can find no good photos: The Green Man (1990) and Gawain and the Green Knight (1973.)
The King appears as a horned giant, and immediately made me think of this drawing.
But also of the many horned hart of Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke:
and in turn of the forest giant, since they are two faces of the same god:
For example the Tororo spirit in My Neighbor Totoro, seems to have a shrine, even if no actual worshippers or cult. Maybe the shrine was for the overall forest and not specifically build to worship/venerate him, though the girls' father seems to imply that.
A forest spirit (or god or demon) that spreads seeds around (and gives them to girls/women) and makes plants sprout and trees grow is not, maybe, a Fertility God, but has to be seen as a spirit closely related to fertility of a kind.
Here I am assuming that Totoro is a male god, though I have no idea if gender even applies to him/her. I know Miyazaki has detailed Totoro's background further, but am not aware of specific discussions of sex.
And while Totoro is probably related to the Mononoke Forest God, at least conceptually, I don't know that Miyazaki consciously intended a connection.
Hellboy II has an intimate connection to Mononoke, in that Del Toro used a similar forest elemental giant:
And also a horned King of Elves/Faerie:
Which makes sense, since both figures are linked to male fertility, although in this case the forest elemental is a separate agent of the King, and not the King himself.
Now, let me point out that I am an idiot, and that it took me this long to see that both aspects of the Shishigami are not merely a Japanese religion/myth conception, but more universal myth figures.
This chain of thought made me start thinking of all the different manifestations of Male fertility gods, which include satyrs, the god Pan, and lead up to the "modern" versions of devils and their connection with goats (horns, hoofed feet, etc.)
This includes the conception of Hellboy himself. Thus the Elf King, and Hellboy are two different aspects of the Male fertility god.
Why are two fertility gods featured in the same movie?
Well, that is simple. Hellboy is named as the Destroyer Of Worlds, which I initially thought meant it in the Catholic sense of bringing the ultimate end of the world and somehow the end of Mankind (and not merely the end of the world as we know it.)
As we see, Hellboy II, not only brings upon the death of the King of Elves, but that of his son and daugther (who happen to be twins.) Hellboy then engenders two twins himself, (did it really take me this long to see this? Duh!)
Thus Hellboy is bringing upon the end of the world of Elves (Destroyer Of Worlds, remember?) while replacing it with a new world of his own progeny. Did the prince not clearly state that he would not be challenged/replaced by someone not of royal blood?
If you recall there is also a fertility goddess or that giant Willendorf Venus during the auction scene. (Of course, Hellboy knocks it down!)
And Hellboy doesn't merely reproduce by himself, he needs Firegirl to do this.
So Female Fertility also plays in all of this, though Male Fertility is featured more prominently.
The difficult thing is trying to figure out what DelToro's intentions are, and whether he isn't simply throwing everything but the kitchen sink in there!
On a different issue, I started to think how Christianity addressed the subject of male fertility.
As I've said the goat imagery is taken care of in representations of the devil, but it is not generally considered a good or positive thing.
I think the image of Christ somehow takes care of it but substitutes the reproduction by way of seed to a reproduction by way of blood.
Maybe the seed and the blood are one and the same thing from a Mythical perspective.
Also, the Lords And Ladies novel reminds us of the Elves' aversion to iron.
With all of that thought on different mythologies I thought it was weird that Christ was killed by iron (nails, spear,) and in this way the Christ myth becomes sort of Faerie-like in that sense.
Since Christ is descended from David, and Solomon, and Solomon was supposed to mess around with genii and efreets and such, could Christ as myth not have had the opportunity to have Faerie blood in him?
I know Christ as alien has been done (Demon/God Told Me To,) but has Christ as Faerie ever been done? Can the thorn crown be seen as an mythic visual evolution of the horns associated with a Faerie King?
I guess the Easter Bunny is no substitute for a Fertility God, Huh?
If you look for them in art, you will see lots of representations of male fertility, maybe they are not particularily identified or named as an official fertility god, but they function as symbols of one.
All you need to do is look.
I can easily think of pre-Colombian or other American images with giant phalluses.
You will also find them in Indian architecture and art. Unfortunately this art is destroyed or hidden away by modern culture.
I am not a historian, but I can easily extrapolate that if they are hidden or destroyed in the current cultural climate, they are likely to have also been destroyed in the past.
Did the Spanish not destroy most records, art and architecture of the Mesoamerican cultures?
The comic genre devoted to sex (among other adult subject matter) is know as Underground Comix.
Currently, phallic symbols are still used by men. Ties, skyscrapers, cigars, guns, etc. Whether by intent or not is debatable, but ultimately they are interpreted as phallic symbols even after the fact.
Now, as to what I mean by Male Fertility God, obviously one that is officially recognized as one, but also an icon that has taken over the role, or has filled the cultural void in the absence resulting from the disappearance of the religion or cult that worshiped them. In the same way that Santa Claus comes not only from the story of Nicholas of Myra, but also from traditions of Odin, Ruebezahl and Knecht Ruprecht, among others.
The Easter Bunny, (though sometimes seen as female, but often as male,) mentioned earlier becomes a symbol of Spring, birth and fertility, thus a fertility god.
I just finished reading Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett. It is basically a reworking of Midsummer Night's Dream, but set in Discworld.
Of course Oberon and Titania are there, though not mentioned by those names.
On the one had we have the Queen of the Elves and then there is her Husband (played in this photo by Patrick Stewart).
The Husband lives under a mountain with a giant sign of male genitalia, and though the King of Elves is supposed to be similarly endowed, a dwarf comments that he is not half of what he is supposed to be, maybe referring to his general size or maybe his endowment (which makes for a good joke, but not much sense, since he only appears to be, his real nature is something else entirely.)
Here is a similar giant as seen in Religulous:
I can think of two movies featuring the Green Man but can find no good photos: The Green Man (1990) and Gawain and the Green Knight (1973.)
The King appears as a horned giant, and immediately made me think of this drawing.
But also of the many horned hart of Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke:
and in turn of the forest giant, since they are two faces of the same god:
For example the Tororo spirit in My Neighbor Totoro, seems to have a shrine, even if no actual worshippers or cult. Maybe the shrine was for the overall forest and not specifically build to worship/venerate him, though the girls' father seems to imply that.
A forest spirit (or god or demon) that spreads seeds around (and gives them to girls/women) and makes plants sprout and trees grow is not, maybe, a Fertility God, but has to be seen as a spirit closely related to fertility of a kind.
Here I am assuming that Totoro is a male god, though I have no idea if gender even applies to him/her. I know Miyazaki has detailed Totoro's background further, but am not aware of specific discussions of sex.
And while Totoro is probably related to the Mononoke Forest God, at least conceptually, I don't know that Miyazaki consciously intended a connection.
Hellboy II has an intimate connection to Mononoke, in that Del Toro used a similar forest elemental giant:
And also a horned King of Elves/Faerie:
Which makes sense, since both figures are linked to male fertility, although in this case the forest elemental is a separate agent of the King, and not the King himself.
Now, let me point out that I am an idiot, and that it took me this long to see that both aspects of the Shishigami are not merely a Japanese religion/myth conception, but more universal myth figures.
This chain of thought made me start thinking of all the different manifestations of Male fertility gods, which include satyrs, the god Pan, and lead up to the "modern" versions of devils and their connection with goats (horns, hoofed feet, etc.)
This includes the conception of Hellboy himself. Thus the Elf King, and Hellboy are two different aspects of the Male fertility god.
Why are two fertility gods featured in the same movie?
Well, that is simple. Hellboy is named as the Destroyer Of Worlds, which I initially thought meant it in the Catholic sense of bringing the ultimate end of the world and somehow the end of Mankind (and not merely the end of the world as we know it.)
As we see, Hellboy II, not only brings upon the death of the King of Elves, but that of his son and daugther (who happen to be twins.) Hellboy then engenders two twins himself, (did it really take me this long to see this? Duh!)
Thus Hellboy is bringing upon the end of the world of Elves (Destroyer Of Worlds, remember?) while replacing it with a new world of his own progeny. Did the prince not clearly state that he would not be challenged/replaced by someone not of royal blood?
If you recall there is also a fertility goddess or that giant Willendorf Venus during the auction scene. (Of course, Hellboy knocks it down!)
And Hellboy doesn't merely reproduce by himself, he needs Firegirl to do this.
So Female Fertility also plays in all of this, though Male Fertility is featured more prominently.
The difficult thing is trying to figure out what DelToro's intentions are, and whether he isn't simply throwing everything but the kitchen sink in there!
On a different issue, I started to think how Christianity addressed the subject of male fertility.
As I've said the goat imagery is taken care of in representations of the devil, but it is not generally considered a good or positive thing.
I think the image of Christ somehow takes care of it but substitutes the reproduction by way of seed to a reproduction by way of blood.
Maybe the seed and the blood are one and the same thing from a Mythical perspective.
Also, the Lords And Ladies novel reminds us of the Elves' aversion to iron.
With all of that thought on different mythologies I thought it was weird that Christ was killed by iron (nails, spear,) and in this way the Christ myth becomes sort of Faerie-like in that sense.
Since Christ is descended from David, and Solomon, and Solomon was supposed to mess around with genii and efreets and such, could Christ as myth not have had the opportunity to have Faerie blood in him?
I know Christ as alien has been done (Demon/God Told Me To,) but has Christ as Faerie ever been done? Can the thorn crown be seen as an mythic visual evolution of the horns associated with a Faerie King?
I guess the Easter Bunny is no substitute for a Fertility God, Huh?
I thought of The Wicker Man, But I couldn't really remember any Male Fertility imagery, it's been a while. There's probably horns in there somewhere...
The dirty song at the pub has more to do with female sexuality than male. Maybe the Maypoles...
Here in California there is not much of a Maypole tradition, but I've been at some Renaissance Festivals where Maypole dances get pretty wild, Panic and Saturnalia all rolled into one.
And, is that where they show the snails (hermaphrodites) having sex? Or am I confusing it with La Bete (which also features snail sex)?
This is the other side of the coin, and I was thinking of this while lying in bed this morning. This is the first go and I'll polish it up during the next few days, but I wanted to put it down.
I ended the previous article on the Easter Bunny, which is fitting, since it represents an emasculation of sorts of Male Fertility Gods. In general, maybe in Western or American culture the Fertility Gods have gone underground. They are still there, but in hiding.
Highly iconic fertility images (horns) are no longer used very often, but the Superhero as a Male Hero or God is still there. However, the Superhero is strangely lacking in virility.
Yes, we still have James Bond, and we still have Captain Kirk, but for the most part the Superhero is expected to behave in a chaste manner. I can quickly mention a few examples: Superman II, shows Superman having to renounce his powers to be able to engage in sexual activity.
The Hulk, sidesteps the sex issue in his new movie. While the scene is funny and adequately worked into the story, it reinforces the adolescent (read chaste or immature, your choice,) nature of the hero.
Another example is the White Cowboy in Rustler's Rapsody, who loses his mojo if he engages in sex (read, if he matures.) In a way this example relates to the myth of Galahad (from The Once And Future King, I haven't read Morte D'Arthur) who is so pure that he ceases to be human, and becomes almost angelic.
The nature of Galahad is, however, misunderstood in Western Cinema, since Lancelot did not need to be that pure to excel at being Arthur's champion. Remember, he was boning Guenevere all that time.
So, do heroes need to be chaste? I say no to that. I say that the modern chaste hero is more a result of Puritanical influence than out of any actual need of heroic purity.
The Greek heroes certainly were not pure. And I've already mentioned Lancelot.
The other option for the existence of this perpetual adolescence is a denial of Death, as I've mentioned in another thread. An attempt at a denial of Death brings about a denial of growth in addition to a denial of maturity.
La petite mort refers to the period after orgasm (sex.)
And General Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove denies women his "essence," for some reason or other, but likely related to adolescent fears of death.
Is it that by engendering a child, you are thereby creating your replacement and thus become obsolete? Possibly that as well, but it doesn't cease to be an immature fear.
I am looking at maturity in two different ways. One implies reproduction. A seed is not mature till it is able to reproduce. Thus these heroes, stand-ins for Male Fertility Gods, are immature till they show an ability to reproduce.
James Bond has no kids. Both Indiana Jones and James T. Kirk are cheated into maturing. They engage in adolescent behavior their whole lives.
They have kids and are not even aware of it, thus show no growth or maturity. (And here we go full circle, since Kirk's surrogate, Picard, played by Patrick Stewart is shown as Oberon above.)
Over the course of several movies none of these, or Superman, or Batman, or Spiderman ever truly mature.
The other aspect is that these superheroes are born out of adolescent fantasies of empowerment, thus by origin, immature.
Witness attempts at allowing growth and maturity for the Superheroes in Chasing Amy's scene with Stan Lee, by acknowledging their sex lives.
In Superman II he loses his super powers by engaging in adult activities (maturing) and regains them by "erasing" the events. In Superman Returns, the writers have a dilemma of sorts, in that they acknowledge these events, but Superman becomes, then, a cuckoo, in addition to an irresponsible, absent, immature father.
I cannot imagine George Reeves' Superman ever doing any of this. His Superman was always very fatherly to begin with, except, of course that he is TV celibate (immature.)
Hellboy, refreshingly, matures over the course of two movies. And, if you discount the first film, he grows from child to mature adult in only his second film, resulting in two offspring.
I think this has to do with Guillermo Del Toro's own maturity as an artist, see, for example, his concerns regarding children in Mimic, El Espinazo Del Diablo, but also due to his status as an North American and Hollywood outsider.
The Puritanical influence is minimal in his artistic/creative makeup.
So where are the Fertility God icons? The answer to that is that partially this function has been relegated to the movie stars themselves, their view by the public as Sex Symbols in a way takes care of this, even if as sex symbols they barely take care of the reproduction aspect.
They are very deficient as Fertility God icons.
The other option is to look underground. Take a look at Stag or Adult Films (hey.. ...stag, there is that horn imagery again!) The Adult film industry has never gone away. It simply lies beneath the surface. And the actors and actresses main cultural job is to function as the priests and priestesses of the modern Fertility Gods.
Every once in a while (Flesh Gordon) we still get a genre movie that is simply a silly celebration of virility and sexuality.
Maybe this underground aspect of fertility gods has always been there.
I don't doubt it.
There certainly are private collections and museums of historic sex related ephemera, but they remain obscure and hidden.
I do acknowledge that comics, a different media than film, has allowed the superheroes to mature, have children and die. Superman, for example has done all of these.
But even comics fail to address proper or realistic aspects or fertility, for example, Superman is an alien with different gene plasm than that of a human being, thus would not be able to reproduce. Also his stories fail to address the Man Of Steel, Woman Of Kleenex aspect of said reproduction.
http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html
For now, I am only addressing Cinema.
No comments:
Post a Comment