The Pirate Lord in Goonies Is Named After a Penis, and Other Bizarre Inferences
5 crazy things that occurred to me after watching it this time
If this is your first time here, that headline might seem a bit shocking. Not just the accusation—we’ll come to that—but the brazen act of inserting male anatomy into the title. Clearly that belongs in the seedier section, like the footnotes.
For my regular readers, this is business as usual.
True story: I’m in the process of trying to rename & rebrand this newsletter, which mostly consists of rubbing together random words and seeing if it sparks. Naming things is so hard. It’s the worst! More than once I’ve thought, “Just call it the Penis Chronicles.”
At the risk of being labeled the boy who cried penis, we need to talk about how the long-dead pirate lord in The Goonies is an obvious euphemism for one. And some other weird things that have been in this movie the entire time.
I’ve seen The Goonies so many times, I have most of it committed to memory. Even so, it was crazy how many things jumped out at me as a startling implication. Those things have been there for 40 years, like fossils waiting for excavation. Some of it didn’t even require any digging; it was right in front of my face.
I tend to rewatch movies a fair amount, and most times I come away with new revelations. The movie hasn’t changed; I’ve changed. The Eric who watched The Goonies five years ago is different than the one I am today. And because I’ve changed, the parts of the movie that speaks to me has also changed.
Which makes this first one hilarious.