Moviewatch: 'Changeling' character repeats common falsehoods re circumcision
I saw Changeling not too long ago and overall I think it was a very good movie from a lot of angles. However there was a scene wherein a character, Dr. Earl Tarr (played by Peter Gerety), a psychiatrist, states:
"Very likely his abductor thought it appropriate. After all, circumcision is hygienically sound. Must have been quite traumatic at the time. No wonder he's submerged the memory."
The script is available here (.pdf file); see page 32 of the file. Granted, his character was an antagonist, and the times (the late 1920s-1930s) the movie is set in are portrayed overall as still being rather backward in many ways. Nonetheless, this is a popular movie currently in theaters and this line from it offers MRAs an opportunity to write letters -to-the-editors pointing out the line in this movie and how it is both false and, unwittingly perhaps, encourages this barbaric practice.
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???
Someone's going to need to frame the quote in it's proper context because I have no idea what they're talking about.
I'm assuming....
Having not seen the movie, that's all I'm doing, but it seems to me that the replacement child who's not Angelina Jolie's character's son was circumcised, whereas her real son was not. It's a double-edged sword in this instance; the primary idea taken away from the line is that MGM is "hygienic;" but it could also be seen as the idea that, hey, there was a woman who didn't get her kid mutilated. Will the latter be seen? Doubtful. I mean, they could have left that whole excusing the mutilation bit OUT, just acknowledge that he was cut and leave it at that.
Check out the script
Link to the script is in the main post.