At the heart of Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s hilarious new heist movie, Drive-Away Dolls, is a MacGuffin that would make Alex Cox’s Repo Man blush. The fulcrum upon which Drive-Away Dolls turns is a suitcase full of dildos, but these aren’t your everyday buzzcocks!
As seen in psychedelic flashbacks, Miley Cyrus plays Tiffany Plaster Caster in an inspired cameo, lovingly molding each statue using live models, usually just after a romp in bed with them. Not only that, but it just so happens that each of her models/lovers has since gone on to become a powerful figure of state or culture. But the best part is that Tiffany is based on a real artist — the late, great Cynthia Plaster Caster.
How did Miley Cyrus get involved in “Drive-Away Dolls”?
Credit: Focus Features
Simply enough, Cooke and Coen asked her. You’d think it was because the pop star has a known appreciation for dildos, using sex toys as decor personally and professionally, but you’d be wrong. It was simply serendipitous.
As Cooke told Pridesource, “When we approached her, we knew her music and we knew her from SNL and some performances, but we didn’t know the extent of her fascination with phalluses… She’s like, ‘I thought that’s why you hired me.’ She just assumed that we knew that she performed with gigantic dildos and had a dildo room in her house. She said, ‘Yeah, they interviewed me in Town & Country in my room, in my dildo room.’ All of those cool things together: Town & Country, dildo room, and Miley Cyrus.”
Who was Cynthia Plaster Caster?
Credit: Roger Kisby / Getty Images
If you stay past the credits, just as the last notes of Joyce Harris’ ultra-obscure cover of “Got My Mojo Working” trail off, you’ll see the movie is dedicated to underground artist Cynthia Plaster Caster, with the message, “We remember!”
So, the suitcase of dildos isn’t just a horny red herring: It’s an homage! Cynthia Plaster Caster (née Cynthia Albritton) was a self-identified “recovering groupie,” who made plaster penis casts of rock gods and subcultural icons. The project first began as an art school lark and a way to meet the rock stars she adored. As chronicled in the 2001 documentary Plaster Caster, Cynthia was given the assignment to make a plaster cast of “something hard,” which she hoped would give her a unique opportunity to chat with wacky ’60s rockers Paul Revere and the Raiders that weekend.
As she told Rock Confidential in 2004, “You know when the subject [of making a plaster cast of the rock star’s penis] would arise then maybe something else would rise! That would be responsible for the seduction because I just wasn’t capable of it. I was too shy and dorky. And that’s what did happen. I didn’t make a plaster cast. I just got laid.” (She ended up making a cast of a carrot for the class, as chronicled in the 2001 documentary Plaster Caster.)
Lucky for us, one failed plaster cast didn’t deter Cynthia from her artistic pursuits. Her “sweet babies,” as she referred to them, were molded from the members of everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Jello Biafra and from MC5’s late Wayne Kramer to underground cartoonist Mike Diana, whose Boiled Angel zines got him jailed for obscenity. Some were cast in bronze as well. And there were plenty of failed plaster casts along the way; turns out keeping a firm erection while ensconced in alginate (yes, the stuff they use at the dentist) is more difficult than you’d think.
As time went on, Cynthia also began making plaster casts of female rock stars’ breasts, including Karen O of the American indie rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs and provocative Canadian electrocrash musician Peaches.
Where are Cynthia Plaster Caster’s pieces now?
Credit: Mick Hutson / Redferns
Though she and her pals started out as self-described groupies who used fake business cards and a suitcase to schlep casting materials to and from hotel rooms, by the time she passed away at the age of 74, she had amassed a unique artistic legacy. She donated her cast of Jimi Hendrix’s penis — “just about the biggest rig I’ve ever seen!” she wrote in her diary — to the Icelandic Phallological Museum before her death.
In 2023, the Kinsey Institute acquired “an historic collection of artwork, memorabilia, and personal effects” that have been dubbed the Cynthia Plaster Caster Collection. Once fully processed and digitized, the collection will include the infamous “Plaster Casters of Chicago” suitcase, memorabilia, diaries, and much more.
To learn more about Cynthia Plaster Caster, watch the biodoc Plaster Caster on Prime Video through Freevee.
Drive-Away Dolls is now in theaters.
