Viggo Mortensen's Annihilating Penis
Robert Parker

David Cronenberg’s reputation as a cornerstone of the body horror genre precedes him. His work on Videodrome (1983), Naked Lunch (1991), Dead Ringers (1988) and eXistenZ (1999) haunts the rest of his filmography with the threat of social/supernatural/ultraviolent contagion (often) in the form of ulcerated orifices opening on the flesh of the protagonist(s).

Videodrome, perhaps Cronenberg’s most cogent expression of an organizing principle, took its cues from the media paranoia of Network (1976). The film reworks mad-prophet Howard Beale into the Simulacra/Media Prophet/Monologist Dr. O’Blivion and brings the societal fears of media control to the flesh. However, where Network expressed quiet concern for the control television has on reality, Videodrome explodes those fears into a widespread epidemic of televised violence having a direct impact on reality. Cronenberg drags those fears centre stage, using the vagina that opens on James Woods’ chest as ground zero, making Videodrome perhaps the most infamous in a long run of orifice-centred body horror that constitutes his oeuvre.

It is with Eastern Promises (2007) that Cronenberg seems to feel self-conscious about his pervasive aura of the orifice. Cronenberg again mines pop culture for material, hitting paydirt with the pseudo-nude wrestling scene at the climax of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006). In Videodrome, Cronenberg maintained a tension between the vaginal orifice on James Woods’ chest and the pistol/phallus that eventually becomes a part of his hand. In Eastern Promises, Cronenberg sidesteps the orifice entirely, climaxing the film with a clash of phalluses: the phallus-metaphor of knife-wielding assassins and the fleshy spectacle of Viggo Mortensen’s penis.

At this moment in the film, when Mortensen bests two armed men and collapses with a post-coital sigh, Cronenberg problematizes the long-favoured Freudian approach to Hollywood cinema. In Cronenberg’s hands, Mortensen’s cock is an annihilating presence, emptying itself and all nearby phalluses of meaning in a great arterial spurt. It is the ultimate Signified, and over the course of the fight, the horror of the actual phallus negates the knives’ significance of manliness and dominance as the viewer watches Viggo penetrate the assailants to death with their own equipment.

Thanks to David Cronenberg (and an excellent underground music scene) Rob is proud to call himself Canadian. He’s probably watched the steam room fight scene more times than is healthy, and wishes he had a VCR-vagina on his chest like James Woods. Rob recently completed his M.A. in Film & English Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, and currently writes music reviews for lambgoat.com.