Phallux and Obelix

where we consider that the Pope (any Pope) is used to phallic monuments on a large scale.

Luqa Mayor John Schembri must be really happy now. He has made it to the front(ish) pages of one of Luxembourg’s main papers – L’essentiel. The heading? Malte – Pas du monument phalique avant la visite du pape. (Malta – No phallic monument before the pope’s visit). And there we were wondering whether sponsorship of failing Premier League clubs (Portsmouth FC) was the best way to go to advertise holidays in the sun. John Schembri might have accidentally stumbled on a niche market – that for tourists in search of the kitsch, weird and fantastickal. All he needs to do now is lobby with the government of Malta to create a workable connection to the Grand Region and he can then just sit back and wait for a flood of tourists from Alsace, Lorraine, Luxembourg and Rheinland-Pfalz eager to get that snapshot with the monument of monuments.

This campaign started off as what seemed to be an April’s Fool joke and has turned out to be a typical story that makes it to the “unusual” columns of the international media. It’s all about Paul Vella Critien’s monument baptised “Mediterranean Column”. There is no doubt that the column could evoke the shape of male genitals. If you were a smurf with a particular fetish of coloured tattoos it would help but the shape is there. As Blackadder’s puritan aunt would say: “Wicked Child”. The genitalia fixation is however only part of the story. As Vella Critien himself says, the inspiration behind the phallic shape (and he does not mention the word phallic, I’m just cutting symbolic corners here) is an avant-garde presentation of the antique egyptian style monuments that “pointed towards eternity”. You cannot and should not overlook this important explanation.

The list of examples of phallic symbols in art are too numerous to elencate. Just thinking of Barcelona evokes Joan Miro and his ladybird monument as well as Antonio Gaudi’s (that holiest of men) chimneys on Casa Mila. However the most poignant and repeated symbol of all is one that we have inherited from our fore-fore-fore-fathers: The Obelisk. Readers of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol will by now have had an overdose of the meanings and symbology behind this form of monument much loved by the Egyptians and copied by the Greeks and Romans. Again it is undoubtedly a phallic symbol that point upwards to the heavens – and links the very heavens with what is down here on earth. (As above so below).

From Washington to London to Rome the obelisk is present in all its phallic glory. And guess who has a lovely view of a phallic monument of antique origins every time he gets to the main balcony to address his faithful followers? Yep. You guessed it. No one other than Pope Benedict XVI himself. They have capped the Saint Peter Square obelisk with a cross but that only makes it an obelisk with a cross on top. It does not stop being an obelisk with all its symbolic (and yes, phallic) connotations.

The real offense is not caused by Vella Critien’s (what an ironic surname by the way) monument but rather by the ignorant calls for its removal (or concealment) during the pope’s visit. What Mayor Schembri’s call serves to highlight is the fact that standards on what is or is not considered to be obscene cannot always be elicited from a majority (or loudest noise) perspective. Otherwise we would have to heed equally ridiculous assertions that the image of a crucified man is offensive and harmful to the young and impressionable and should be censored. Do those baying for the removal of Vella Critien’s monument understand that? I doubt it. We’re in huge danger of making a huge dick of an impression of ourselves.

AFP Press: Obscene sculpture must go before papal visit: mayor

Earthtimes: Phallic sculpture embarasses some in Malta ahead of Pope’s visit

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