Feb 28, 2021 12:50 AM
(This post was last modified: Feb 28, 2021 01:52 AM by C C.)
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...is/618153/
EXCERPT: The world of Danish children’s television is not for the prudish. Kids who turn on the tube in Denmark might be greeted by gratuitous flatulence, cursing, casual nudity, or cross-dressing puppets. One show centers on a pipe-smoking pirate who wallops ninjas and flirts with Satanism. In another, an audience of 11-to-13-year-olds asks probing questions about the bodies of adults who disrobe before them. [...] Danish children’s television is not unlike an LSD trip: “Everything is possible in that universe ... and people won’t complain about it.”
But people did complain when the Danes debuted a kids’ animated series in January featuring a protagonist with an absurdly long, prehensile penis.
The show [...] was written for 4-to-8-year-olds. It centers on the eponymous John Dillermand, a mustachioed Claymation character whose last name translates roughly to “penis man.” ... Gifted, or perhaps cursed, with a retractable phallus that seems capable of extending at least 20 times the length of his body, Dillermand must navigate life alongside his über-ostentatious junk, which at times has a mind of its own. His schlong graffities walls, digs up gardens, lassos a moving caravan, and even coils itself into a bobbing, seaworthy boat—not always with Dillermand’s permission.
Scandalized viewers criticized Dillermand as inappropriate, tone-deaf, and a jarring choice on the heels of the country’s growing #MeToo movement. But the series’s creators, and many bemused fans, defended it as a subversive comedy that has served up opportunities for parents to have frank and unsqueamish conversations about anatomy with their kids.
[...] While I don’t speak Danish, the tone of John Dillermand is not easily lost in translation: The show isn’t about sex. It’s about taking responsibility for your actions, and the awkward realities of inhabiting a human body. But in every minute of the Dillermand jaunt, there’s also a reminder that male bodies are still allowed freedoms that female ones are not. John Dillermand is, in some ways, a throwback to the man-children who have dominated kids’ TV across continents and decades.
[...] Dillermand embodies a child’s view of the human body: strange, impossible, invincible, hilarious. He validates the idea that the diller is okay for kids to discuss. ... The show's success could also be read as a testament to Denmark’s progressive approach to sexuality and autonomy in general. Sex education has been a requirement in Danish elementary schools since 1970 (a year after the country became the world’s first Western nation to legalize pornographic imagery). It's hard to imagine Dillermand sitting well in countries with a more fraught approach to sex, such as the United States, where “we sexualize everything...”
Perhaps in this context, a penis does not have to be a sexual device—especially when viewed through the eyes of a 4-year-old. [...] Yet despite its candy striping, John Dillermand’s penis is, in the end, still a penis. The diller acts as if morally bankrupt; it is recklessness incarnate. It threatens, perhaps even overtly, to absolve men of responsibility. “To me, this penis is out of control,” [Eileen] Crehan said. Despite its lighthearted tone, John Dillermand—a show about men, dreamed up by men—reinforces the bottom line about male sexuality: It’s so uncontrollable, it can demand its own television series.
[...] Dillermand, despite his apparent age, is jobless and friendless. He piddles the day away on the front lawn, playing pranks or practicing badminton with his only willing athletic partner, who is—surprise!—his own penis. While Oldemor urges him to rub elbows with doctors and lawyers, Dillermand manages to befriend only a lonely young boy, with whom he filches candy from a shop. And Dillermand himself is not completely sexless. In one episode, he nurses an obvious crush on his thankfully age-appropriate neighbor Yvonne. His penis, by and large, behaves itself. But the character’s desires evoke the discomfiting possibility of an unwelcome advance nonetheless.
[...] DR, the company behind the show, has argued that Dillermand and his penis could have "easily" been swapped out for a female-bodied character. And yet, on one point, every person I spoke with agreed: Reimagined with a biologically female lead, John Dillermand would not have worked. Even in Denmark, vaginas and vulvas aren’t considered innocent or endearing enough to delight young minds...
[...] This imbalance is a reminder of the dominance of masculinity, Groes said. Although the sexuality of the penis can be toggled on and off, female genitalia occupy a cultural space with decidedly less dynamic range. The sexuality of women is still taboo enough that it is most easily ignored; when it is offered a modest ... spotlight ... it is excoriated for its audacity. While the nuanced lore of the penis thrives, female genitals are struggling to shed their “hypersexualized” identity...
In John Dillermand, the female presence is so starkly absent that one cannot help but confront the reasons it has been erased. The show isn’t uncomfortable because it’s so radical to make a children’s series about a penis, but because it’s decidedly not... (MORE - details)
EXCERPT: The world of Danish children’s television is not for the prudish. Kids who turn on the tube in Denmark might be greeted by gratuitous flatulence, cursing, casual nudity, or cross-dressing puppets. One show centers on a pipe-smoking pirate who wallops ninjas and flirts with Satanism. In another, an audience of 11-to-13-year-olds asks probing questions about the bodies of adults who disrobe before them. [...] Danish children’s television is not unlike an LSD trip: “Everything is possible in that universe ... and people won’t complain about it.”
But people did complain when the Danes debuted a kids’ animated series in January featuring a protagonist with an absurdly long, prehensile penis.
The show [...] was written for 4-to-8-year-olds. It centers on the eponymous John Dillermand, a mustachioed Claymation character whose last name translates roughly to “penis man.” ... Gifted, or perhaps cursed, with a retractable phallus that seems capable of extending at least 20 times the length of his body, Dillermand must navigate life alongside his über-ostentatious junk, which at times has a mind of its own. His schlong graffities walls, digs up gardens, lassos a moving caravan, and even coils itself into a bobbing, seaworthy boat—not always with Dillermand’s permission.
Scandalized viewers criticized Dillermand as inappropriate, tone-deaf, and a jarring choice on the heels of the country’s growing #MeToo movement. But the series’s creators, and many bemused fans, defended it as a subversive comedy that has served up opportunities for parents to have frank and unsqueamish conversations about anatomy with their kids.
[...] While I don’t speak Danish, the tone of John Dillermand is not easily lost in translation: The show isn’t about sex. It’s about taking responsibility for your actions, and the awkward realities of inhabiting a human body. But in every minute of the Dillermand jaunt, there’s also a reminder that male bodies are still allowed freedoms that female ones are not. John Dillermand is, in some ways, a throwback to the man-children who have dominated kids’ TV across continents and decades.
[...] Dillermand embodies a child’s view of the human body: strange, impossible, invincible, hilarious. He validates the idea that the diller is okay for kids to discuss. ... The show's success could also be read as a testament to Denmark’s progressive approach to sexuality and autonomy in general. Sex education has been a requirement in Danish elementary schools since 1970 (a year after the country became the world’s first Western nation to legalize pornographic imagery). It's hard to imagine Dillermand sitting well in countries with a more fraught approach to sex, such as the United States, where “we sexualize everything...”
Perhaps in this context, a penis does not have to be a sexual device—especially when viewed through the eyes of a 4-year-old. [...] Yet despite its candy striping, John Dillermand’s penis is, in the end, still a penis. The diller acts as if morally bankrupt; it is recklessness incarnate. It threatens, perhaps even overtly, to absolve men of responsibility. “To me, this penis is out of control,” [Eileen] Crehan said. Despite its lighthearted tone, John Dillermand—a show about men, dreamed up by men—reinforces the bottom line about male sexuality: It’s so uncontrollable, it can demand its own television series.
[...] Dillermand, despite his apparent age, is jobless and friendless. He piddles the day away on the front lawn, playing pranks or practicing badminton with his only willing athletic partner, who is—surprise!—his own penis. While Oldemor urges him to rub elbows with doctors and lawyers, Dillermand manages to befriend only a lonely young boy, with whom he filches candy from a shop. And Dillermand himself is not completely sexless. In one episode, he nurses an obvious crush on his thankfully age-appropriate neighbor Yvonne. His penis, by and large, behaves itself. But the character’s desires evoke the discomfiting possibility of an unwelcome advance nonetheless.
[...] DR, the company behind the show, has argued that Dillermand and his penis could have "easily" been swapped out for a female-bodied character. And yet, on one point, every person I spoke with agreed: Reimagined with a biologically female lead, John Dillermand would not have worked. Even in Denmark, vaginas and vulvas aren’t considered innocent or endearing enough to delight young minds...
[...] This imbalance is a reminder of the dominance of masculinity, Groes said. Although the sexuality of the penis can be toggled on and off, female genitalia occupy a cultural space with decidedly less dynamic range. The sexuality of women is still taboo enough that it is most easily ignored; when it is offered a modest ... spotlight ... it is excoriated for its audacity. While the nuanced lore of the penis thrives, female genitals are struggling to shed their “hypersexualized” identity...
In John Dillermand, the female presence is so starkly absent that one cannot help but confront the reasons it has been erased. The show isn’t uncomfortable because it’s so radical to make a children’s series about a penis, but because it’s decidedly not... (MORE - details)
