When science, feminism and religion meet, it is a three- fisted, hamhanded fight to the death which embarrasses everyone and enlightens no one.
Body Worlds is an extraordinary trip into the human body, made possible by Plastination, a new technique in preservation which seals out time and age and seals in freshness. Cadavers are injected with a plastic resin, and we are able to see the body in an entirely new way. The muscle fibers no longer fall to the force of gravity and bacteria. We can imitate the body’s energetic and electrical charges and replicate life, in a way.
At last we are able to see our flesh as it engages with the spine, the skeleton, the nervous system. It is at once beautiful and jarring, the act of watching ourselves in action while encased in plastic inaction. At once we are removed from the panic of death and decay, but then again wholly confronted with it in a new way. It is taken from a place of mysterious rumination and imagination and thrust into an interactive universe, where we are allowed to play with the image of our own mortality. Exquisite corpses are riding bicycles and their muscles are splayed out in a cartoonish alarm, a state of comic suspended animation.
There are few women’s bodies in the exhibit of hundreds of specimens. When the corpses are female, they are active participants in the exchange of womanhood. The feminine mystique is abbreviated, because scientific research has to butt heads with society, fleshly mores, the erroneously perceived ‘problem’ of women. There is a large barrier put up between the main exhibit concealing the small aisle focusing on the uterus and fetal development. A large disclaimer is placed next to the entrance, explaining that the corpses on display, pregnant women and their embryos, in different stages of development, were all people who had died of natural causes or accidents. It fell just short of saying, “No women or children were killed for educational purposes.”
That is so dumb. We didn’t need that assurance coming into the Body Worlds show, because we assume that the human beings on parade gladly gave themselves to science for our edification. They are not victimized by our gaze or our curiosity. However, the gender of the specimen changes, and all hell breaks loose. Suddenly, learning is an outrage just waiting to happen.
Why are women’s bodies intrinsically scary, in need of barriers, censoring, disclaimers, reasons and justifications? Why are men’s bodies totally secular, to the point where we can have ‘fun’ with them, such as in the sly humor injected along with plastic resin into the displayed cadavers of Body Worlds, where dead men play basketball and fling their skin over their skeletons like dry cleaning? Why are men science and women pornography?
Reading the comment books after the show, there are numerous remarks by pious, preachy types, writing in labored, swirly script that “it is a sad day for science.” There are also a few complaints by people wanting to know where the women were in the show, and why there must be so much explanation and punch pulling when the female form is finally introduced. Then there were lots of drawings by kids of skeletal beings with their skin hung casually over their shoulders.
I never tire of the human anatomy. It is incredible to me, the way we are put together. Some people might find this fascination gruesome, but it isn’t. Bodies are amazing feats of engineering, which when lived in and then discarded become incredible epitaphs. The corpse is a multi-tiered anthropological, historical, sociological, economic and scientific essay. The story of who we are is found in our remains. When we are prevented from freely looking at ourselves, we never get to the end of the story.
The plot is stillborn, just like one of the silent embryos suspended in plastic.