"Tina Fey and [Amy] Poehler tried hard, and sometimes too hard... their jokes about prosthetic penises fell flat."

Writes Alessandra Stanley about the hosting of the Golden Globes last night. Oddly, Stanley attributes the jokes that fell flat to the actresses' effort "to be like the guys and go blue."

I say oddly, because I didn't watch and I don't know what all these supposedly "blue" jokes were, but the one she referred to — without quoting — was about a topic that doesn't seem particularly like a guy thing. Prosthetic penises? That made me think of some medical devices to assist persons who have undergone penile amputations, then wonder whether  "prosthetic penises" is the way you say "dildos" and "strap-ons" in the NYT.

See, this is the kind of question you're forced to ponder when you don't watch the awards shows and you try to figure out what happened the next morning by reading the NYT.

Googling, I figured out that it was a movie thing. Extra doodads the makeup artists stick on are called "prosthetics." So like Kenneth Branagh getting a rubbery attachment for his chin so he could play Laurence Olivier, Jonah Hill submitted to genital appendagement for "The Wolf of Wall Street." Ah! Here's the text of Amy and Tina's opening routine:

AP The Wolf of Wall Street is a big nominee tonight, and I really loved the film, but some of it was too graphic. If I wanted to see Jonah Hill masturbate at a pool party, I’d go to one of Jonah Hill’s pool parties

TF Jonah Hill actually used a prosthetic penis in The Wolf of Wall Street, so you have that to look forward to the next time you eat at Planet Hollywood.

I think I get that joke, the joke that the NYT TV writer says fell flat. Correct me if I'm wrong. The idea is that a "prosthetic" really is a  medical devices for someone who has had an amputation, so if Jonah Hill wore a prosthetic penis, his real penis must have been lopped off somehow, and also, it's the mystery meat in the food at a local Hollywood restaurant.

There's more:

AP A number of big movies used prosthetic genitals this year. Blue is the Warmest Colour, The Wolf of Wall Street, Saving Mr. Banks. A lot of people don’t know that, Tom Hanks was wearing one the whole time. He’s wearing one right now – he’s really enjoying it.

So were AP and TF being like the guys? It's inconceivable that a male host on an awards show would single out an actress in the audience and talk about her genitals. If he did, critics would savage him. They wouldn't merely opine that the joke "fell flat." AP and TF were not acting like guys, they were exercising female privilege.