Blake McCartney
I had heard about Body Worlds a while ago, but I had forgotten about it until I found out we were going to see it in this class. I was not really prepared for what it turned out to be – I had only heard vague descriptions. The plastination itself wasn’t disturbing; it was actually pretty hard to believe these were real human bodies! I read the pamphlet on plastination they provided, it’s an interesting process (Body Worlds plastination process).
I just think that the way these bodies were displayed was kind of troubling. All of the bodies were shown doing various activities, or their muscles were arranged in designs. I found one display of a man with his muscles completely splayed out and a top hat on particularly disturbing. In past years there been debate over the sexist or “heteronormal” poses of the bodies. However, I thought they did a pretty good job with changing that; I remember seeing a male dancer and gymnast.
The point of the exhibit honestly is not clear to me for reading the Body Worlds website and from the exhibit. The website states, “the exhibition shows the body through cautionary displays about distress and disease, and inspirational insights about the virtuosity and resilience of the human body”. I only recall a couple displays about disease – most of them were just poses.
There is definitely supposed to be educational value, but I was disappointed by the amount of anatomical labeling. I found that the descriptions were pretty vague and not very helpful in figuring out what I was looking at. The exhibit wasn’t as educational as I had hoped. For someone who knows what they are looking at the exhibit is informative and interesting, but for the average person – who would be the majority of people who see this exhibit – wouldn’t know what they were looking at. Before this class I would have just seen it as a freak show. Now I can identify a lot of parts, but I’m not sure if that’s the message people are receiving from Body Worlds exhibit.
There is a lot of controversy over whether or not informed consent was actually given from the people who donated these bodies. From the research I did it seems that these people do in fact give informed consent to use their bodies for plastination, although, I’m still a little skeptical. I feel people should be able to do whatever they want with their body after they die and that these people should have that right.
Personally, I would never subject myself to this; it just seems demeaning to have people pay a company to gawk at you posed in some strange position. Also, you get no compensation for donating your body – you actua