The journalist and documentary filmmaker Daniel Lombroso has been consistently releasing shorts and features that reflect on two central themes: beauty and the American society. In the previous years, he released Denial, Hold the Line, American Scar, and White Noise, which all portray the history of the United States and its troubled political landscapes. He also released You’ll Be Happier, a film about BBL (Brazilian Butt Lift), and an outlier in his filmography, Nina and Irena, arguably his most successful work, which portrays the Holocaust survivors and their guilt. In his latest effort, his second feature documentary, Lombroso intertwines the two central themes of his works, studying the search for penis enlargement procedures, coming from a place of toxic masculinity, and the necessity of the validation of their sexuality.
We follow three central timelines. The first is that of Bill Moore, an esthetician who is promoting a solution to revolutionize the market for male enlargement procedures. He created PhalloFILL, a product that uses hyaluronic acid to provide girth to the penis. Hence, he aims to popularize the product as an essential procedure for men, as Botox has become a vital beauty practice for women. Then, we see two different perspectives of clients of those methods to enlarge the organ. Ruben, a forty-year-old man with five children, decides to spend his savings on getting more girth. On the other side, we have David, a twenty-something gay pornstar who decides to seek enlargement because of the aesthetic pressure of his business. Consequently, we watch three different perspectives: the provider of this method, the married man seeking validation for getting old, and a young man who needs to fix a terrible procedure that deformed his work tool.
From the first moments, Lombroso documents it as an absurdist piece that feels like a ludicrous reality show. Thus, the film has a certain artificiality in the lighting and in the utterly polished look that serves the activities documented. The work by Moore is an unnecessary procedure that serves to provide esteem, and it is not a treatment that is extremely necessary to the functioning of the organ. Yet, the esthetician feels like he is developing a cancer treatment or a medicine that is going to change the world forever. Lombroso captures the self-centeredness of the clinic owner, who profits from performing procedures to help other people’s insecurities as a means of healing himself. Promptly, we understand the roots of self-doubt, how the looks influence each person’s daily lives, including the reaction to the events around them. There is a fascinating analysis of the intentions that each individual has in their treatment. Usually, the reasoning to justify them is that women perform breast implants surgeries, abdominoplasty, and other procedures to enhance their femininity. Why not normalize men to do the same?
As the director portrays, the necessity to perform the enlargement usually comes from the justification of one’s virility. Despite five children, a number bigger than the average for the normal man, Ruben still feels the necessity to feel more masculine and desirable for his wife. Still, the reasoning is born from the consumption of far-right and utterly masculine podcasts, such as the Joe Rogan Experience, which question the dwindling of the average man’s testosterone, and the big media coup to feminize all men. Instead of following the common presumption of the duty of the male provider, which is caring for his family, Ruben decides to spend their money on the enlargement, contrary to his wife’s wish. Therefore, the unveiling of their necessity to move from Texas to Arizona because they are unable to pay for the mortgage is an evident conclusion in the shifting and poor judgment of the man to the necessities of his house. The individual before the collective, and the personal engagement before securing the basis for his wife and three children.
Despite moments that feel too long, Lombroso crafts a film similar to the works of Lance Oppenheim, specifically, the three-part docuseries, Ren Faire. They are similar, especially in how both filmmakers document their central subjects, which are fascinating but utterly doubtful in character. Hence, Manhood is a compelling study of the American perspective on the modern man’s masculinity and the necessity of feeling emasculated. If in the past, the validation would be through muscles, now it is through the penis girth. A change that feels weird, and Lombroso thrives in expanding the political reasoning behind it.
Manhood recently played at SXSW.
Learn more about the film at the SXSW site for the title.
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