Phallacy
In 411 B.C. Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, a Greek play where women use sex as power to negotiate a peace treaty, was performed in Athens with only male actors. However, the protagonist, Lysistrata, is a heroine. A great majority of the cast consists of female roles, but were all played by men. Aristophanes used many different theatrical techniques of the time to fruitfully project the fallacy of the dominant phallus in Lysistrata’s comedic reversal of power.
Aristophanes’ satirizes phallic centric ancient Greece with explicit, witty dialogue and theatrical props. Understanding the costumes of fifth century Greece, the actor playing Cinesias would likely have been wearing flesh colored tights with a large phallic prop. Cinesias enters the scene moaning and sporting, as Lysistrata exclaims, “love upon him like a staff” from being without his wife to ease his suffering. Use of props to exaggerate physical attributes highlights the powerful effect of the women’s sex strike. This is also shown by the Magistrate’s interactions with the Herald. The Magistrate asks the Herald, “why do you hide that lance,” while the Herald boldly remarks, “I've brought no lance.” These phallic props would be designed to grasp the audience’s attention and allow for the comedic effects to sink in. The Greek women forcing the stiff, unyielding men to their knees with a treasury heist and sex strike turns Athenian male dominant society on its head.
Our main character, Lysistrata, and her accomplice, Calonice, were played by men in dresses. Aristophanes’ further validates their female identities through dialogue when Lysistrata tells Calonice that together the women will save Greece. Calonice’s reply, “How could we …. women who dwell….with gowns of lucid gold and gawdy toilets of stately silk and dainty little slippers....”Lysistrata responds, “These are the very armaments of the rescue. These crocus-gowns, this outlay of the best myrrh, slippers, cosmetics dusting beauty, and robes with rippling creases of light.” Their sex or the sex of their characters, as displayed through cross-dressing, is the essence of their power. An interesting and amusing example of the comedic spectacle of cross-dressing occurs between the married couple Myrrhine and Cinesias. Cinesias wandered to the Acropolis seeking Myrrhine. Myrrhine instigates Cinesias’ lustful state at the coaxing of Lysistrata, who tells the woman, “You know how to work. Play with him, lead him on, Seduce him to the cozening-point--kiss him, kiss him, Then slip your mouth aside just as he's sure of it”, she allows for the threat to come to a turning point within the play. Myrrhine teases Cinesias while brokering the peace treaty up to the point of breaking their abstinence, whereby this would have added to the grand view of male and male interactions. These comedic acts within the play are dramatized by cross-dressing male actors in for the female roles. This can only heighten the comedic release from every scene.
If women and slaves in fifth century Greece could have seen this play it might have represented to them a means to end wars, servitude, or even every day struggles. Women having been exposed to Lysistrata might have seen it as a sisterly call to arms, influencing them to rebel against men or ideals that negatively impact them. The fact that it was cross-dressing men outsmarting men was merely visual, the characters in Lysistrata were very much women. Women would easily identify and sympathize with Lysistrata’s objections to wars impact, especially in her exchanges with the Magistrate; “What of us then, who ever in vain for our children must weep borne but to perish afar and in vain?....Then while we should be companioned still merrily, happy as brides may….we are forced to lie single.... But leave for a moment our pitiful plight, It hurts even more to behold the poor maidens helpless wrinkling in staler virginity.” Men would have enjoyed the vulgarity and props used in the play more so than women, but might have been unsettled that the play could influence women to use abstinence or coercion. However, the witty dialogue and cross-dressing male actors stage a rollicking comedic tone disarming such fears.
Overall, Aristophanes’ satirized the supposed dominance of males in Athenian culture through his play Lysistrata using cross-dressing, phallic props and clever dialogue.