Dead Bodies Everywhere!

A wise woman once said to me when I told her I was going to happily trot off to the Body World 3 exhibit at Science World, “I don’t want to hear anything about it. I don’t want to discuss it. I don’t agree with it at all,” To you, oh wise woman, I say step away from your screen. You do not want to follow me down this road. Believe you me.

On some level, maybe I wish I had blanketed the whole hoopla over the Plastination fascination as weirdo and never given another thought. Things would have been easier. My dreams would have been unmarred by the images of 14 dead babies in various stages of development. My mind wouldn’t be askew with malicious conspiracy theories involving government cover-ups, Nazi Germany and alcoholic physicians getting kickbacks in return for cadaver paperwork “misplacement.” Don’t even get me started on the mini-dramas that enraptured my mind when I began pondering the symantics involved when these plastinized statues, once free-thinking, vital and functioning human beings told their loved ones that they wanted their bodies to be used not for finding a cure for ALS or Lupus or even donating their skin to burn victims but to be sliced and diced as an op-ed art piece for the layperson to see what their insides look like and more importantly for 8-year old girls to giggle and point and learn the spelling of the word PENIS. Who said honour was dead?

















I guess it’s interesting. It’s not something I have ever really thought about, though. I know I have muscles, and ligaments and organs and whathaveyou underneath all these bells and whistles we call our human form. But what it really looks like and what it would like if my muscles were sliced open and spread out and then covered in plastic, is not something that really occupies my mind. I’ve got other things to think about. I figure the people that need to know how all those things work; well they probably went to school for that. They probably understand the human form better than I ever will from examining an eyeball and freaking out because the eyelashes fluttered due to the air conditioning system.

You know, I wouldn’t let my car mechanic make me a gourmet meal with his tool kit; so why do we let anatomist Gunther von Hagens use his doctoring abilities to cut people up and call it art?

Don’t even get me started on this guy, Gunther. A quick wikipedia search confirmed what I had already suspected. He’s a freak. He performed an autopsy on live television? For kicks? And I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s like part of some anti-abortion coalition. He scares me.








So I won’t say much more. I’m sure he has spies everywhere. But let this post serve as a record, neither I nor anyone in my family or posse will let Gunther plastinate our bodies into cages that will trap our souls forever is a weird limbo where annoying kids point at our genitalia and giggle.