Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Life / Media Halloween Will Soon Be Upon Us
Posted by David Schmader on Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 10:51 AM
Do you have your costume? I want to go as a cheerleader turning into a werewolf, but I don't have the stuff.
Anyway, this story's a little stale, but more relevant than ever. From the Cincinnati Enquirer:
[Amusement park] Kings Island has dropped a Halloween Haunt display showing skeletons of dead celebrities. Don Helbig, Kings Island spokesman, spent a rainy Thursday helping to remove the scene of slain NFL quarterback Steve McNair and his dead mistress Sahel Kazemi, along with other skeletons made to look like dead celebrities, including Heath Ledger and Michael Jackson. The skeletons were near The Beast rollercoaster and have been replaced with generic skeletons, Helbig said. “We weren’t intending for it to be distasteful and we do apologize if we offended anyone,” he said.
Whaddya know? They offended lots of people:
Reaction to the McNair display was negative, particularly in Nashville, where McNair played most of his career and was killed on July 4. Police said that Kazemi shot McNair to death before killing herself. The McNair skeleton wore a jersey numbered 9 and sat on a couch with a dress-wearing skeleton sprawled in its lap. A gun was on the ground, and the jersey-clad skeleton held a Tennessee Titans snack bowl.
There was also a Farrah Fawcett.
Meanwhile in Seattle, Bodies: The Exhibition has returned for another crowd-pleasing run. Now I ask you:
(Thanks to Ethics Soup for the supplementary images.)
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3
They're not nobodies, they're political prisoners executed for wanting Democracy.
And whose families had to pay for them to be executed.
Please correct the error.
It's not just Falun Gong they use, it's parents whose kids died in earthquakes, things like that.
And whose families had to pay for them to be executed.
Please correct the error.
It's not just Falun Gong they use, it's parents whose kids died in earthquakes, things like that.
7
There is nothing magic about dead bodies. They don't have the spirits or souls or whatever still attached to them.
10
Fake skeletons of recently dead celebrities: tacky and tasteless
Real questionably obtained corpses posing as pseudo science in stereotypical displays when it's really just a circus sideshow: offensive and dumb
Real questionably obtained corpses posing as pseudo science in stereotypical displays when it's really just a circus sideshow: offensive and dumb
15
Bodies: The Travelling Sideshow does nothing to further scientific knowledge. It is purely a spectacle.
16
@15 It's not meant to further scientific knowledge, it's meant to further scientific education. I won't defend how the bodies were acquired, or the morality of the exhibit in that context. It's reprehensible. However, the exhibit itself is far more illuminating about human physiology than spending an hour with Gray's Anatomy. Things like the utter complexity of the human circulatory system just don't come across as well in books and figures, or even in autopsy.
My beef with the exhibit in itself is that it made my previously agnostic mother reconsider her belief in God.
My beef with the exhibit in itself is that it made my previously agnostic mother reconsider her belief in God.
17
@16: People have done quite well at understanding the body without "Bodies" for a century or so. The exhibit is intended for prurient interest. Calling it science is like call the WWE a sporting event.
18
@17 I'm not calling it science, I'm calling it science education, and that is also the mission of the exhibit. There is a huge difference between those two concepts. And, yes, medical professionals have done quite well without this resource because they put in a lot of time into learning about the human body.
I'm talking about the benefit to people who are not scientists/doctors/nurses who otherwise would not have the opportunity to learn about anatomy without undertaking independent strenuous study. You could say that anyone who wants to know about astronomy could look in a book, but it is more interesting for laypeople and children to go to a planetarium. The only difference between this and astronomy (again, aside from the morality issue, which I've already agreed is Not Cool) is that Bodies has the extra dimension of being titillating for some in its gruesomeness.
But just because a subject matter is titillating doesn't make it de facto evil. Take Dan's column, for instance. Many people find it titillating and read it solely for that purpose, but that doesn't diminish its educational value. That doesn't make it worthy of excoriation. The fact is, that many people who read Savage Love find it edifying and helpful in their relationship communication. And sometimes people who just turned up for the perv-factor find that they learn something that can benefit their body of knowledge.
I see Bodies in a similar vein. Some people go to learn. Some people go to see corpses. But the latter people don't devalue the education achieved by the former. Similarly, some of the latter may actually find themselves learning something about the human body that they never expected.
I'm talking about the benefit to people who are not scientists/doctors/nurses who otherwise would not have the opportunity to learn about anatomy without undertaking independent strenuous study. You could say that anyone who wants to know about astronomy could look in a book, but it is more interesting for laypeople and children to go to a planetarium. The only difference between this and astronomy (again, aside from the morality issue, which I've already agreed is Not Cool) is that Bodies has the extra dimension of being titillating for some in its gruesomeness.
But just because a subject matter is titillating doesn't make it de facto evil. Take Dan's column, for instance. Many people find it titillating and read it solely for that purpose, but that doesn't diminish its educational value. That doesn't make it worthy of excoriation. The fact is, that many people who read Savage Love find it edifying and helpful in their relationship communication. And sometimes people who just turned up for the perv-factor find that they learn something that can benefit their body of knowledge.
I see Bodies in a similar vein. Some people go to learn. Some people go to see corpses. But the latter people don't devalue the education achieved by the former. Similarly, some of the latter may actually find themselves learning something about the human body that they never expected.
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