Dead and Nekkid
On Saturday evening, my cousins and I went to see the exhibit "Bodies."
I'm going to give you time to let that sink in. We looked at the dead naked bodies of real people. Chinese people. I thought it would creep me out, but it didn't. It was unbelievably easy for me to forget that these displays used to be real living people. I don't know if it was because we're so used to real looking things today or what.
I was actually a little disappointed that the organs were not displayed better. It turns out those are the items I'm most interested in. For a long time I've been fascinated by the concept of the intestines. (Isn't that odd?) I just can't wrap my mind around how they fit in the body.
One of the coolest parts of the exhibit was at the end. I held a real lung and a real brain in my hands. (Yes, I washed up afterwards!) I did think about the real people while I was holding the brain in my hands. But it still didn't give me the jibblies. It was too awe-inspiring.
Another part you have to see is the baby room. They have big jars with embryos and fetuses (I know that's not how you pluralize fetus) in several developmental stages. It is amazing. I just don't get how people can argue that life doesn't begin at conception. The first jar is just a mass of cells. But the next jar is a tiny being already in the familiar "fetal" position. Again, it was amazing.
It was fairly clear throughout the exhibit that the people were of Asian origin. I don't know how we found out, but someone in my group knew that the bodies were all from China. At the end of the tour, there was a book for comments. One person left the most annoying comment. They said (I'm paraphrasing), "Just because you put blue or green contacts on the eyes doesn't make these people White. I'm appalled at the exploitation of Blacks I see in this exhibit." Since when are Chinese people Black? Yes, the exhibitors had to put contacts on the bodies because our eyes lose color. They'd also had to paint the muscles red so that we'd recognize them.
I guess using blue and green contacts made the bodies seem more multicultural than if they'd all had brown contacts. But how did that idiot get the impression that these were Black people? If someone is that ignorant and quick to find racial prejudice where there is none, (or at least none against Blacks) why would they come to an exhibit like this? I get that people may be creeped out over them using real people. I get that they may not like the Baby room. I get that they may have a problem using people from a culture where overpopulation is a problem. There are tons of things people could get upset about. But to cry racial prejudice where there is none...just burns me up.
I'm going to give you time to let that sink in. We looked at the dead naked bodies of real people. Chinese people. I thought it would creep me out, but it didn't. It was unbelievably easy for me to forget that these displays used to be real living people. I don't know if it was because we're so used to real looking things today or what.
I was actually a little disappointed that the organs were not displayed better. It turns out those are the items I'm most interested in. For a long time I've been fascinated by the concept of the intestines. (Isn't that odd?) I just can't wrap my mind around how they fit in the body.
One of the coolest parts of the exhibit was at the end. I held a real lung and a real brain in my hands. (Yes, I washed up afterwards!) I did think about the real people while I was holding the brain in my hands. But it still didn't give me the jibblies. It was too awe-inspiring.
Another part you have to see is the baby room. They have big jars with embryos and fetuses (I know that's not how you pluralize fetus) in several developmental stages. It is amazing. I just don't get how people can argue that life doesn't begin at conception. The first jar is just a mass of cells. But the next jar is a tiny being already in the familiar "fetal" position. Again, it was amazing.
It was fairly clear throughout the exhibit that the people were of Asian origin. I don't know how we found out, but someone in my group knew that the bodies were all from China. At the end of the tour, there was a book for comments. One person left the most annoying comment. They said (I'm paraphrasing), "Just because you put blue or green contacts on the eyes doesn't make these people White. I'm appalled at the exploitation of Blacks I see in this exhibit." Since when are Chinese people Black? Yes, the exhibitors had to put contacts on the bodies because our eyes lose color. They'd also had to paint the muscles red so that we'd recognize them.
I guess using blue and green contacts made the bodies seem more multicultural than if they'd all had brown contacts. But how did that idiot get the impression that these were Black people? If someone is that ignorant and quick to find racial prejudice where there is none, (or at least none against Blacks) why would they come to an exhibit like this? I get that people may be creeped out over them using real people. I get that they may not like the Baby room. I get that they may have a problem using people from a culture where overpopulation is a problem. There are tons of things people could get upset about. But to cry racial prejudice where there is none...just burns me up.
1 Comments:
Bodies is good... that's grammatically correct if you imagine that there are quotation marks around "bodies," just like that.
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