A while ago I said that the traveling exhibition called ‘Bodies’ was coming to Framingham, Massachusetts. Well, it’s here, and having seen Bodyworld 2 last year, I recommend staying away. A local pharmacist named Aaron Ginsburg is speaking out against the exhibit, and while I may not feel as strongly as he does, I think he’s on track with his comments, which you can read by clicking here.
The medical advisor of the show claims, in this article from the Metrowest Daily News, that…
…all bodies in the exhibit died of natural causes and were unclaimed. Under Chinese law they were acquired by Dalian Medical University for research and loaned to Premier Exhibitions for the show. After the exhibit, they will be either donated to U.S. medical institutions or returned to China to be cremated and interred.
Do I believe this? Nah. But even if it’s true, some of the displays of human bodies I saw last year at Bodyworld 2, including a literal chest of drawers, aren’t about education, so much as they are about desecration.
Did Jack Kevorkian have a point about dying with dignity? Sure he did. But, c’mon, didn’t it seem there was something “off” about the way he went about it? Same thing, in my view, with Gunther von Hagens saying these body exhibits are solely educational, and Mel Gibson’s claim that he was interested only in portraying the suffering of Jesus in ‘The Passion of The Christ.’ In my opinion, these guys are acting out something very deep and dark.