"It’s become a commonplace in postmodern studies to speak of the clothed penis as the invisible signifier of the phallus. “In actuality, the penis (man’s hidden ‘nature’) cannot compare to the phallus (man’s cultural power),” writes Chris Straayer, the author of the cinema-studies text Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies. “Male sexuality, as a representational system, depends on displacing the penis with the phallus.” But the reverse is occurring. It’s phallic authority that’s being displaced by all these actual penises, male power that’s being symbolically deflated. And not just male power. I think these dopey penises are caution flags, symbolic indicators of a national power drop that encompasses politics, economics, education—the works. Now that we’re no longer king of the world, American self-confidence is undergoing its own shrinkage; no one believes in the Top Gun jockstrap bravado anymore, and the joshing attitude and shrugging posture our movies have adopted reflect a country and a culture that have lost their spunk and don’t feel like keeping up the pretense of swagger anymore. Tired, lazy, pooped, we’re pulling it out because we’re packing it in."
