Penis Peeping: A Bromantic Story of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck

 I know I have touched on bromance before in our blogs, but I am deciding to bring it up again this week because of a really funny tabloid trending about Matt Damon and Benn Affleck. Apparently, paparazzi flocked around Matt Damon recently, who is very close friends with fellow actor, Ben Affleck. During a session of autograph signings, one of the paparazzi asked Matt whether he had ever seen Affleck's penis during the filming of Gone Girl, Affleck's most recent blockbuster hit. Damon's response to this invasive question came as a delightfully humorous surprise to those interviewing and now to the rest of America, since his reaction to the question went viral.

After doing a bit of research, I learned that the two are apparently well known for their bromance in the Hollywood community. As we can tell from Damon's gross 90's Nick Carter hairstyle in the image below, the picture is clearly not from this decade. Thus, we can conclude that they have been friends for many many years.

Now, knowing this, Matt Damon's response to paparazzi's penis question becomes all the more interesting. When asked, "Did you happen to see Ben's penis in 'Gone Girl'?" he replied, "Oh, I've seen it many times before that." If you don't believe me, there is the TMZ footage below to prove it.
What makes it so funny and what is probably one of the reasons that it has now gone viral is how he is so nonchalant about it. Damon doesn't even seem to flinch at the question. He responds in a way that seems so natural, framing the answer to the seemingly unusual question as a natural answer as well. I would say that the fact that Matt Damon is so casual about his friendship and the degree of comfort he feels with another man's naked body, especially a man who is so close to him as a friend, is really telling of modern male-male friendships. I would say it definitely adds to the trend I mentioned previously of men in media depicting bromances as an increasingly normal thing.

To some, Damon may have said it as a joke and some may even go as far to say that he was being sarcastic. But, again, the degree to which Damon de-stigmatized homoeroticism adds to a larger deconstruction or challenging of traditional male friendships. From what we have seen previously in the literature, the use of comedy could potentially play a role in the way we interpret and make meaning of media content. As we read in Gottfriend et al's (2013) work, "it is possible that some further aspect of comedies renders the sexual content they contain more influential on adolescents' increased likelihood to engage in sexual behaviors. That is, some characteristic of the structure or content of comedy programs may lead viewers to process the messages within them differently than other genres, leading to their heightened impact. One possibility may be the use of humor." (88) From this, we can take that presenting content in a humorous way can shift meanings for consumers of media.

However, would this also be the case for impromtu humor outside a planned comedy production such as those featured in Gottfried's work? Could it be possible that Damon's use of humor is an effective tool to destigmatize homoeroticism, especially within male-male friendships? I would argue that it very well could and that it would be the case even more given the fact that he is off the screen, away from publicists, in a space where he answers the question off guard. In any case, I would definitely consider this an important addition to the growing bromance/homoerotic trend.

Works Cited 

Gottfriend, J. A., Vaala, S. E., Bleakley, A., Hennessy, M., & Jordan, A. (2013). Does the effect of exposure to TV sex on adolescent behavior vary by genre? Communication Research, 40(1), 73‐95.