(December 2003)

Popular television has begun to reflect the growing consensus against circumcision.  Arrested Development, The Practice, and The Simpsons have all had anti-circumcision themes in the past month.  Fox's new hit comedy Arrested Development featured an ‘intactivist’ in its premiere.  In ABC's The Practice, a Roma (Gypsy) woman responds to charges about barbaric practices in her society by saying “[In America] when a baby is born you cut off the tip of its penis.”  Fox's recent Simpsons episode was less diplomatic in its embedded Itchy and Scratchy cartoon (modeled after the classic Tom and Jerry).  In “A Bris Before Dying”, Itchy as an infant mouse is about to be circumcised by Scratchy the cat, acting as mohel.  Before the cat-mohel can circumcise him, the young mouse rips the cat’s eyes out and tricks the cat into dismembering himself with the circumcision blade.  The mouse then runs the cat-mohel through a meat grinder and roasts him over a fire on the end of a blowpipe.  The mouse forms the cat-mohel into a wine glass, wraps the glass in a white napkin, and crushes him.