Go for a run and feel the freedom of your legs carrying you. Hold a newborn baby in your arms. Watch the water glide smoothly over a swimmer's shoulders. Catch a rhythm as you salsa dance. Heck, even admire the prison-built physique of someone like 50 Cent (just kidding. Kind of).
All of these are indicators of the amazing reality that is the human body. Not to mention the internal mystery that somehow keeps the rhythm of our hearts and the movement of our lungs on pace. Needless to say, despite the fact that we commonly exploit images and expectations of our bodies, they are far too sacred to be an exhibition.
So naturally, something fresh and new in Durham titled "BODIES... The Exhibition" would draw my attention. From late spring this year until just a few weeks ago, we were inundated by ads for this "amazing" new experience. It was on billboards, in every newspaper I picked up and plastered along the sides of public transport buses. But I still wasn't convinced to check it out until early May.
I was leaving The Cheesecake Factory at The Streets at Southpoint when I was distracted by immense commotion. There was music blaring, neon lights flashing and souped-up cars gunning all to the delight of the mass of prepubescent teens trying their best to look trendy outside Urban Outfitters. Nope. All of this hype was for this supposedly educational exhibit on the brilliance of the human body.
I looked up the exhibit online a few days later, saw that it was occurring simultaneously at various locations throughout the world, and was thrilled that of all places, "BODIES" had made its way to Durham. To something as easily accessible as the mall, at that! The Web site touted that I would be taken up into a story of "reverence and understanding." As someone who thinks very highly about bodies, this was something I could buy into. Using a special polymer science called "plastination," the exhibition has preserved full specimens of the human body and its organs within to display-for educational purposes-to the public. In doing this, its goals are to not only bring anatomy and human biology to life, but also to highlight the effects of common disease and ailments on the body.
Intrigued, I purchased my student discount ticket for $22.50 expecting to get a big bang for my buck.
I was horrified.
Any idea of "reverence" was long gone even before I entered the exhibit. I was surrounded by all sorts of people, from medical science students to middle schoolers, all absorbing the information around us like sponges. It seemed problematic to me that the event was so casual, with tour guides walking around in labcoats giving fun-loving presentations on anatomy. I overheard a young girl comment that "their lips look funny," and noted that the reconstructed face muscles made these bodies look more like macabre masks. As I took in everything from testicles to the pituitary gland, I couldn't help but wonder, weren't these bodies real? Didn't they once have families?
I was deeply disturbed, but pressed through the bones, through the brains, to the lung exhibit. Before me was a perfectly healthy lung, and a lung black from years of smoking. Next to it was a drop-box for folks to leave behind their packages of cigarettes for a better future. Now, I'm not a proponent of smoking, as I have seen the devastating affects of lung cancer in my own family. However, the exhibit implied smoking to be only a choice for the uneducated, the stupid, the unhealthy, and quitting to be as easy as pie. The message literally counted off the minutes of a smoker's life, stating that, "We'd like you to be around longer." I found myself frustrated at the lack of context. Not everyone smokes because it's "cool."
My offense only deepened as I saw spliced open a pregnant female body, with her percentage of 'adipose' tissue (read: fat) calculated, and iterated through point cards. Of course, next to the woman the message was certain: "Ignoring [the feeling of fullness] can lead to overeating and destructive weight gain." Never mind proper nutrition or healthy body image and self-esteem. I watched as the middle-school girls looked up at the exhibit and read aloud this conclusive statement.
I reached my boiling point, though, as I entered a room that showed the human fetus at its various stages of development, from nine weeks to seven months. Human babies, once exhibiting life, were now to be seen as statues for my mere learning. I was horrified, and quite sick.
I moved toward the exit, but not before a labcoat beauty stuck out her hand to me. In it she held a plastinized brain, and beckoned me over for a quick feel before I exited the exhibit. I quickly declined, confused at what had just happened, but she called out to me again. There before me were two breasts, one containing a cancer lump and one without. Was this really the appropriate place to imitate a mammogram? Surely an anatomy book is one thing, and a cadaver in medical school is another, but this was exploitation.
As it turns out, the bodies were donated or unidentified corpses that came from China. Here I was, looking at unclaimed corpses of Chinese people for the purposes of "education." What sort of demographic does this appeal to, next to the Urban Outfitters at a fairly steep price for 30 minutes of viewing? What does it mean that we are allowed to gaze upon naked, exposed bodies as if it were nothing? One thing is for sure-this exhibit did put bodies on display, in a horrible, twisted exhibition. I'm just wondering who makes the profit and who pays the cost for this to occur.
Amey Adkins is a graduate student in the Divinity School. Her column runs every other Tuesday.
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