Foreskin Man—real name Miles Hastwick—has all the trappings of the typical comic hero. His chiseled jaw is just too damn perfect, he attracts too many women, and he constantly wears his costume underneath his suit.
Here’s where it gets interesting: Foreskin Man’s duty is to protect the foreskins of baby boys from his arch-nemeses, Dr. Mutilator and Monster Mohel. When Hastwick is not Foreskin Man, he heads the “Museum of Genital Integrity” on a small island right near San Diego, promoting circumcision prevention.
Created by Matthew Hess, president of MGMbill.org, Foreskin Man is a product of Hess’ mission to prevent infant male circumcision. Like his character, Hess currently works in San Diego, but instead of donning a cape and plasma boots, he is pushing the Male Genital Mutilation (MGM) Bill to ensure government protection against forced male circumcision. Hess has even been restoring his own foreskin.
Through Foreskin Man, Hess hopes to promote the cause through a more popular and tangible medium. In an interview with PRWeb, Hess explained,
The Foreskin Man comic book uses popular art to shine a spotlight on the practice … Over the years there have been a lot of rationalizations and justifications to keep [circumcision] going, but the bottom line is that forced circumcision violates human rights. I hope this story will help convince some people of that in a way that words alone cannot.
I’m very happy with how [the comic] came out, and I hope readers enjoy it.
♦◊♦
Editor’s note: Obviously, Foreskin Man is intended to be more anti–child abuse than anti-Semitic, but I’m curious to hear the responses from the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish groups, who, as shown by the above panel, will not take kindly to this kind of caricature. (Here’s another—note the claws.) To the artists’ credit, this is no Der Stürmer—the villains here don’t look particularly Semitic underneath the beards and payos—but it still makes me queasy.
Can there be Jewish villains without vilifying Jews? I’d like to think yes, but I don’t think Dr. Mutilator and Monster Mohel pull it off. —CF
♦◊♦
—Photos via Foreskinman.com
About Zaneta Jung
I find this somewhat amusing, but it is pretty Anti-Semitic. Muslims also practice circumcision on their boys. I was brought up a Jew and was circumcised, I don’t resent it at all and I don’t honestly think pleasure can feel any better than it does. This dude really thinks this is such an important issue, what about real human right abuses maybe not domestic but clitoral mutilation is practiced in many parts of Africa and Middle East, secretly here..Snip snip!
1. just because you’re pro foreskin does not make you anti semitic
2. do a bit of research about what has been taken away from you with out your concent.
you wrote “I don’t honestly think pleasure can feel any better than it does.”) cut and pasted directly from your comment.
you will find it’s not just a flap of skin.
side note
you don’t honestly think that? would that be a freudian slip?
3. I am no more in favor of male genital mutilation then I am of female genital mutilation.
both are wrong. if I could stop all the bs that is going on in this world I would.
I’m just starting where it’s easiest to get to, my own back yard.
4. the snip snip line is classless.
Comic books have been dealing with difficult issues and adult themes for decades now. Watchmen, Dark Knight, and The Invisibles, to name a few, all showed that wearing spandex did not preclude dealing with complex issues. Now there is Foreskin Man, a character that does his best to combat circumcision in California. At first glance the book seems to be a high-production-value spoof on generic hero types. The artwork reminded me of the much-maligned style that Todd McFarlane popularized in the ’90s with his comic Spawn.
The hero’s insignia is the head of a penis with foreskin intact. Women dress like high-end call girls and need dates to a bris. But the creator, Matthew Hess, is painfully sincere in his message and here is where the trouble starts. If Hess gave the entire book a tongue-in-cheek tone, there would be no problem with the character Monster Mohel, but since it is played straight, a subtle tone of anti-Semitism creeps in around the corners.
Things start out innocently enough, with our hero’s alter-ego Miles Hastwick loading what is presumably liquor onto his yacht in preparation for a party. His attention is diverted by an “Intactivist Alert” on the news reporting that the entirety of San Diego’s “circumstraints” have been stolen. These portmanteaus are well within the goofy realm of Bat Shark Repellent and multi-colored Kryptonite, and would seem to lend an air of self-awareness to the script. Unfortunately, once Monster Mohel appears, all humor evaporates.
Monster Mohel appears at the bequest of software magnate Jethro Sacks to circumcise his 8-day-old son, Glick Sacks. Glick certainly sounds ridiculous enough to be a knowing wink to the reader, concerning comics’ penchant for exaggeration. That is, until a Google search reveals that Dr. Leonard Glick is an MD, PHD and has written the book Marked in the Flesh. The entire volume concerns Dr. Glick’s problem with the “circumcision dilemma,” as he calls it, and Glick comes down strongly against infant circumcision. This is not just a silly name given to a baby, but a serious reference to a real-world Intactivist.
The most damningly anti-Semitic panel of the comic takes place on page 36, as Foreskin Man listens in on the beginnings of the ritual. Monster Mohel, far from showing a villain’s characteristic disregard for the spirit of a thing, adheres to halacha, or Jewish law. He is clearly going through the proper rituals and pronouncements as he prepares Glick Sacks for his brit milah. He refers to it as “the sacred cut” and thanks the lord for the “joyous metzitzah b’peh” he is about to receive. Hearing this sacred ritual being performed partly in in Hebrew, Foreskin Man thinks to himself, “That’s it, Monster. Keep babbling.” This is a man who runs a museum in his day-to-day life. Earlier in the comic we learned that he had just installed an exhibit covering the Jewish ritual of brit milah. He has no respect for the culture, their beliefs, or their language. Hebrew is just the ravings of a madman when you’re Foreskin Man.
After thwarting Monster Mohel, Foreskin Man realizes that he cannot leave Glick Sacks with his father because he’ll just arrange for another circumcision, so he steals the baby and gives him to the Intactivists responsible for the circumstraint theft mentioned at the beginning. Even after this preposterous act, Foreskin Man is the hero—and this must be the final evidence that Hess takes his creation too seriously. Children would be better off being raised by strangers living outside the law than circumcised and raised by their parents. The implications that Jewish beliefs are monstrous are equally sincere, and that is why Foreskin Man the comic book is anti-Semitic.
So you’re (rightfully) worried about the suspect depiction of Jewish people, but where’s the criticism for trying to legislate what parents can and can’t do for their sons?
Female Genital Mutilation has no health benefits whatsoever. But studies have shown male circumcision cuts down on penile cancer and reduces the chance of contracting HIV, among other benefits. I respect those who choose not to circumcise, but there’s a real problem when condescending zealots try to tell me I can’t make my own decisions about what’s best for my own kid.
And as far as this comic book…well, I think it’s hardly worth the press you’ve bestowed upon it.
@Daddy Files: “where’s the criticism for trying to legislate what parents can and can’t do for their sons?”
Since when was “what parents can and can’t do [to] their sons” above legislation? Children are rightly protected from harm done by anyone, including their parents. Cutting off any other normal, healthy, non-renewable, functional parts of their bodies is already outlawed, and the most nearly corresponding parts of girls’ bodies get special legal protection. The AAP flirted with relaxing the law last year to allow a token pin-prick of girls “much less invasive than male genital cutting” but had to back down, so great was the uproar – led by the same people who are on the case of male genital cutting.
@Fitgers: Foreskin Man’s Hebrew is better than yours, since you don’t seem to know that Metzitzah b’peh is sucking the blood from the boy’s penis by mouth. Hasidic mohelim in New York insist on doing it to this day, with the permission of Mayor Bloomberg (so long as they wipe their lips with alcohol), despite three babies being infected with herpes from the practice, and one dying.
@
It’s not enough that male circumcision may (but probably does not) “cut down on penile cancer and reduces the chances of contracting HIV, among other benefits” when it would take hundreds or thousands of circumcisions (with their attendant risks and harms) to prevent one case.
This strip needs to be put in context. It’s the second of a series featuring the same blue-eyed, blond superhero, and the villain in the first was Dr Edric Griswold (Edgar Schoen / Thomas Wiswell anyone?) aka Dr Mutilator, who was equally unflatteringly portrayed.. It’s been hinted the third will be about African tribal circumcision (which caused 55 deaths last year in one province of South Africa alone). Doubtless that will be condemned as racist.
Hugh7, I’m well aware of what Metzitzah b’peh entails. I too know how to use wikipedia. The simple fact that the Hebrew phrase has a meaning proves it’s not babbling, no matter what Foreskin Man and Hess believe. Though you may not respect the act you cannot deny that labeling a sacred Jewish function as the ravings of a madman comes off as ignorant and offensive.
Sucking a baby’s wounded penis – “beautiful”? That IS babbling.
Sucking a baby’s wounded penis – “sacred”? THAT is offfensive.
Hess pulled his punch, neither translating the phrase nor showing the act.
There is no sucking a babies penis you retard. You aren’t one of those moron anti-semites who think Jews are bloodsuckers are you?
Man this world is just full of idiots.
Here is a Youtube of a Rabbi defending Metzitzah b’peh. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCAsAEwe1EU Jewish anthropology professor Leonard Glick (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4UEbsg-k5Y) suggests that it is the other way around – that it was brit milah and especially metzitzah b’peh that gave rise to the blood libel. Christians seeing Jews doing that to their own children could only guess what they might do to Christian children, and he shows an old antisemtic woodcut of Jews crucifying a boy – but they are drawing blood from his penis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJd9dUMRUL8&feature=related
So the mohel only pretends to put his mouth on the boys penis and suck?
Comic books have always used exaggerated heroes and villains, so I don’t see any problem with the antagonist being Jewish. And, its not like Jews aren’t critical of cutting upon the genitals of their boys (but not their girls like Muslims do). Jewish leadership has twice considered dropping the circumcision requirement for membership. And the pro-intact movement is over-represented by Jews. Calling this anti-Semitic to me is just overactive and over-reactive political correctness.
Correction, the Reform movement has considered it twice; Reform is hardly religious at all. Religion to them is just a cultural thing and should be discarded as soon as it needs to be in order for them to be accepted by society. The reason they haven’t dropped circumcision is because they know once they do that no other Jew will consider their children Jewish, because they broke the original covenant.
A) The villain is evil eyed, big-nosed, dressed as a Rabbi and is shown to be “mutilating” a boy.
B) The hero is the perfect Aryan man.
C) The victims are all varying degrees of Aryans who are being “held captive” by the Rabbis.
If this isn’t anti-semitic work, then nothing is.
Calling a Jew “Jorah” (‘sewer’ in Hebrew) and caricaturing him as a villain with claws while and innocent baby is being saved by a Nordic hero is not antisemetic. It was not antisemetic 70 years ago in Der Sturmer, and it isn’t now. Really. It’s not. How could it be?
Except Jorah means first rain/ autumns rain. Its a good name
http://www.biblical-baby-names.com/meaning-of-jorah.html
If you want to see a Jewish villain who isn’t anti-semitic just look at Magneto.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am surprised to see such blatant anti-Semitism in the US in 2011.
- depiction of a religious Jewish mohel as a blood-thirsty fiend (“monster”)
- depiction of circumcision as something forced against parents’ wishes, including the use of violence
- conveys the idea that mohel rejoices in consuming infant’s blood
- suggests that the above false depictions are part of Jewish religion (“Praised be Thou etc.”)
This is nothing short of a renewed Medieval blood libel.
As the comic’s creators well know
- most circumcisions are not performed by religious mohelim
- mohelim are kind, gentle folk (actually, perhaps they don’t know this)
- no religious circumcision is performed against parents wishes
- the mohel does not consume blood as it is not kosher, nor is there any “joy” in metzitzah b’peh when it is used
The comic is libelous in all of these ways, and actually probably hurts their cause, because (it is hoped) sensible people reading it will find its bigotry offensive.