Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Hello, hello, hello, everyone. Welcome back to Weird World Adventures, the podcast. I'm your host, Mallory, and I'm here to show you just how weird this world of ours really is. We have a pretty fun topic today talking about weird museums.
[00:00:19] I am a sucker for weird, strange, unusual, peculiar museums, things that are out of the ordinary. And I will say you can see a lot of these strange museums in our adventures in Weird World Adventures, which is on Amazon Prime. Season two will be dropping any day. We're just at the discretion of them to release it.
[00:00:42] So stay tuned. We'll make a big announcement as soon as Weird World releases on Amazon prime, but in the meantime, you can check out Mallory's Adventures.com M A L O R I E Sadventures.com to find more daily strange adventures and weird history and all the fun stuff you love on our website.
[00:01:04] So let me ask you something. When was the last time you went to a museum and felt genuinely uncomfortable?
[00:01:10] I'm not talking about bored. I'm talking about uncomfortable. Like maybe you shouldn't be there, or maybe you aren't sure you should be looking at what you're actually looking at.
[00:01:20] Maybe there was something transgressive about the whole experience.
[00:01:23] Most museums are designed to make us feel safe and enlightened. We walk through hushed galleries, we read informative plaques. We nod appreciatively at carefully curated objects behind glass. It's all very civilized, very educational, very comfortable, very cultural.
[00:01:44] But there's a whole category of museums that deliberately violate that comfort. Museums that display human remains, that showcase death, that force us to confront our own mortality or taboos that make us uncomfortable.
[00:01:58] So tonight we're going to explore some of the most unusual and most controversial museum experiences in the world.
[00:02:05] We'll talk about what draws millions of people to stare at dead bodies, what cultural boundaries those exhibitions cross, and what it says about us that we can't look away.
[00:02:17] So, you know, bear with me here. It might get a little dark, but the questions these places raise are absolutely fascinating.
[00:02:26] The first one I won't spend too much time on, only because we've covered it many, many times, and that's Body Worlds. So let's start with the big one, Body Worlds, the exhibition of plastinated human bodies created by German anatomist Gunther von Hagens.
[00:02:43] If you've never seen Body Worlds, which I'm hoping you've heard about it before, because we've covered it a lot, here's the concept. Real human bodies are preserved through a process called plastination, where the water and Fat in the body are replaced with plastics. The bodies are then posed in various positions, playing chess, doing gymnastics, riding a horse. Internal organs are displayed in these situations, and systems are isolated and shown. So. So you can see every muscle, nerve, blood vessel, whatever they're trying to put on display.
[00:03:18] It is extraordinary, it's educational, and it's deeply and profoundly weird.
[00:03:24] And I hope that you tune into Weird world Adventures Season 2, because we do actually conduct an interview at the Science Museum of Virginia and feature body worlds within that. So we saw body worlds, and I'll be honest, I went in a little skeptical. You know, I've studied death rituals and death in different cultures, and, you know, a lot of people have serious questions about the ethics of displaying human remains as entertainment.
[00:03:52] And let me be clear, body worlds, it is entertainment, but it is also incredibly informative and educational, and it does really push the boundaries of scientific display. It tours internationally, it does charge admission, and it sells merchandise.
[00:04:14] But walking through it, you know, you can be struck by how carefully it walks the line between education and spectacle. The bodies are positioned to teach, so you can see how muscles attach to bones, how organs relate to each other, how disease affects tissues.
[00:04:30] But these people are posed dramatically and artistically in ways that are clearly designed to provoke emotional responses. And a lot of the emotion they want to get out of you is happiness, because they want to remind people to be happy and that life is short and that there's things we all want to do before we die. So that's a big takeaway from it.
[00:04:51] The figure of the runner mid stride, every muscle visible.
[00:04:57] There's smoker's lungs displayed next to healthy lungs. And here's the thing that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I guess the exhibition was packed with people moving slowly from body to body, staring intently.
[00:05:13] But there's also children there celebrating, you know, the human anatomy.
[00:05:19] If you hear the story, the person that actually conceptualized this exhibit wanted people to know what it was like, because you can't. You can learn anatomy from a textbook, but there's nothing like seeing it in person. And they wanted this to be accessible to everyone, to be able to learn how the human body works, but in a way that was engaging but also could provoke feelings of happiness.
[00:05:44] And, you know, people can't stop looking at it. You can't stop looking at it.
[00:05:49] Okay, so there's a question of consent here. When people hear about it, they get uncomfortable. They want to make sure that everything was ethically sourced.
[00:05:58] So the question of consent.
[00:06:01] Von Hagens claims that all bodies in the exhibition were donated with full informed consent through his body donation process.
[00:06:10] So this is something where everybody involved has signed their releases. They have agreed to what in their body, if it's just an organ, if it's. The full body is going to be on display. So it is very documented, very appropriately done. And that kind of removes the controversy from Body Worlds, in my opinion, knowing that this is how these people wanted to be displayed after they died adds to some of the peace and takes away some of the uncomfortable feelings.
[00:06:41] There are other.
[00:06:43] There are other. Other places, however, other exhibits, particularly some that have toured in China, that there was questions if the bodies were sourced legally.
[00:06:57] Some appear to be unclaimed bodies from Chinese prisoners.
[00:07:02] So again, some of these exhibits, like Body Worlds, are legit. And there's just such a more ethical, happy display, happy feeling, happy emotions from that. When you start to realize that there are some out there that maybe haven't sourced the bodies ethically, it becomes more questionable. It makes it more shocking. It kind of takes away that safety and does make it uncomfortable.
[00:07:29] For instance, in Guanajuato, the Museum of the Mummies in Guanajuato, they didn't sign releases to be on display. There's murder victims. There is a deceased pregnant woman and her fetus.
[00:07:43] There's a lot of really hard things to look at. They're all mummified corpses. And the people there were dug up because their family couldn't pay a burial tax.
[00:07:53] So I think how things are sourced and consent people give is obviously a huge question in making something ethical or not when you're looking at bodies on display.
[00:08:04] There's also a cultural question. Different cultures have. Cultures have vastly different beliefs about what should happen to bodies after death.
[00:08:12] So many religious traditions mandate specific burials. The idea of a body being turned into an exhibition might horrify some belief systems. That's something that kind of makes it uncomfortable for us.
[00:08:25] But I will say something like body worlds, you kind of forget you're looking at. At cadavers because it is so uplifting and interesting and informative and it lifts it up and makes it a little more comfortable in the way that it's presented.
[00:08:43] And, you know, part of it is we are actually learning something. And the other part is we're kind of satisfying this primal curiosity about death. We've always been fascinated by death. Medieval Europeans made pilgrimages to see displayed bones of saints.
[00:09:02] Victorian Englishmen attended public dissections.
[00:09:05] Ancient Egyptians made an art form preserving the dead.
[00:09:09] So people being fascinated with death, it's because of our fear of the unknown or our curiosity of the unknown. And it's not anything new. Body Worlds is just another way we can kind of explore that fascination in a way that might seem more kosher because it's presented in such an informative way, which is interesting.
[00:09:30] The education is real because medical students do learn from these exhibits.
[00:09:35] But it's also the spectacle we're just drawn to preserve bodies the same way people are drawn to carnival sideshows, because it's intriguing to us.
[00:09:45] What makes Body Worlds different is that it's wrapped in the language of science and education, which kind of gives us a permission to stare. We feel like maybe we're not being morbid. At least we tell ourselves that we're learning about anatomy. So we're appreciating, appreciating the complexity of the human body.
[00:10:03] But if that's all it was, I don't think 50 million people would have paid to see it. I think we are by nature fascinated with what we don't understand. And death is one of those big things. And it draws people like flies to Body Worlds and other exhibits like that, they're popping up everywhere, the non body world versions. We've seen one in Vegas, we saw one in Gatlinburg by the Great Smokies. They're starting to appear wherever there's tourists because people will pay to see it.
[00:10:36] Now let's talk about a place that doesn't even pretend to be anything other than exactly what it is. A museum of medical oddities. The Mutter Museum in Philadelphia houses one of the world's most extensive collections of anatomical specimens, medical instruments and pathological curiosities. It's part of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, and it was Originally created in 1858 as a teaching collection for medical students.
[00:11:06] What makes the Mooter different from Body Worlds is that it's unapologetically a collection of abnormalities. So this isn't about showing normal human anatomy. It's about showing what happens when things go wrong.
[00:11:19] So you can see skulls showing the effects of different diseases.
[00:11:23] A nine foot long colon removed from a patient.
[00:11:28] The conjoined liver of Chang and Ing Bunker, the famous Siamese twins.
[00:11:35] Hundreds of preserved fetuses showing various development abnormalities.
[00:11:39] The tallest skeleton in North America at 7ft 6 inches tall.
[00:11:46] Drawers full of objects swallowed by patients, Safety pins, buttons, even a crucifix.
[00:11:52] And the Soap Lady, a woman whose body turned to Adipocare, a soap like substance that forms when body fat undergoes chemical changes after death.
[00:12:04] She's been on display since the 1800s and we still don't know who she was.
[00:12:12] Yes, yes, yes. So, on the one hand, the Mutter Museum, I'm sure you've heard of it. It's very famous. It's genuinely educational.
[00:12:21] Seeing a skull ravaged by syphilis drives home the reality of disease in a way that a textbook never really could.
[00:12:28] Understanding that this colon came from a real person who live with this condition creates empathy, and the collection makes medical history kind of visceral and real.
[00:12:39] On the other hand, there's something deeply uncomfortable about the way visitors interact with their remains.
[00:12:45] I've watched people laugh, take selfies.
[00:12:49] It's a little bit overwhelming. The museum has a gift shop where you can buy skeleton earrings.
[00:12:55] So where does the line fall between education and exploitation?
[00:13:00] The Mutter Museum actually grappled with this question pretty directly. In recent years.
[00:13:06] They've updated their exhibit labels to be more respectful, referring to the individual whose remains are displayed, rather than just the conditions. They've added context about the people these specimens came from, which humanizes it and makes it less of a sideshow and more of a reality.
[00:13:28] And their reputation of creepiest Museum, they have also really leaned into that. They host adult only Halloween events, sell merchandise that treats medical anomalies as aesthetic curiosities.
[00:13:43] The medical professionals who created the collection in 1858 weren't trying to be disrespectful. They were trying to educate.
[00:13:50] Modern visitors who are fascinated by these specimens aren't necessarily being morbid. They might be genuinely curious about human variation in medical history, but there's a reason that Mutter has had ongoing discussions about whether to remove certain specimens from display. There's a reason they've updated their photography policy, because the question of how we display human remains in the 21st century, it remains complicated, but there's a.
[00:14:23] It's interesting. Many of the bodies were collected in an era where marginalized people, poor people, people of color, people with disabilities, had no say what happened to their remains. So again, it's another conversation on consent.
[00:14:37] If people didn't consent to be included, that kind of makes it a problem.
[00:14:42] The soap lady wasn't consulted about whether she wanted to spend eternity on display.
[00:14:47] The conjoined twins who died in 1874 could not have anticipated that their liver would still be on display 150 years later.
[00:14:57] So we're left with a difficult question.
[00:14:59] Do the educational benefits outweigh the ethical concerns?
[00:15:03] It's an ongoing conversation, and there's not really a right answer. It's just something we're always trying to decipher our way through and the last one, which I think is quite, quite fascinating, it brings in the catacombs. I think catacombs are a lovely, interesting and fascinating display of remains, but a lot of times it's remains that were moved into these positions years after people were buried.
[00:15:33] So for our final stop, let's travel to Palermo, Sicily, to visit what might be the most unsettling death museum in the world, the Capuchin catacombs.
[00:15:43] This is not a medical collection or a scientific exhibition. This is a burial site that's become a tourist attraction, housing over 8,000 mummified bodies displayed in corridors beneath the monastery. The practice started in the 16th century when a Capuchin monk named Silvestro de Gubbio died in 1599. His fellow monks discovered that the catacombs beneath their monastery had naturally mummifying properties. So instead of burying him, they preserved his body and displayed it.
[00:16:14] Over the next several centuries, this became the prestigious burial method for wealthy and notable Sicilians. People paid to have their bodies embalmed, dressed in their finest and displayed in the catacombs.
[00:16:27] They're arranged by category. Men in one corridor, women in another, priest in another, and children in another.
[00:16:33] Walking through the Capuchin catacombs, it's like walking through a nightmare. The bodies are standing, sitting, hanging on the walls. Their clothes have rotted, but remain draped on skeletal frames. The skulls grin from the alcoves. Hands clutch crosses and rosaries.
[00:16:51] Some bodies are remarkably well preserved.
[00:16:54] Others have deteriorated into skeletal remains that are barely recognizable as human.
[00:17:00] And in the center of all of it is Rosalia Lombardo, the sleeping Beauty, a two year old girl who died in 1920 and was involved so perfectly that she still looks like she might wake up. Her body is so well preserved, you can see her blonde eyelashes, her tiny hands and the faint color still in her cheeks.
[00:17:19] Now, here's what's fascinating from a cultural perspective. This wasn't meant to be macabre, it was meant to be devotional. In Catholic tradition, the incorruptibility of a body is seen as a sign of holiness.
[00:17:32] Many saints are displayed in churches across Europe, and the catacombs and the Capuchin catacombs took this practice and basically democratized it. You didn't have to be a saint to have your body preserved and displayed. You just had to be able to afford it.
[00:17:49] So the families of these dead people regularly visited them and brought flowers. They prayed beside them. The bodies weren't exhibits. They were still members of the community, just deceased.
[00:18:01] But somewhere along the way, that changed. The last body was interred in 1920. That was Rosalie Lombardo. The catacombs stopped being an active burial site and became a tourist attraction.
[00:18:13] Now thousands of visitors tour through every year, taking photos, posting them on Instagram and and marveling at the creepy mummies. What was once a sacred space has become a place of curiosity.
[00:18:25] One that was devotion has become spectacle. And the monks who maintain the catacombs have mixed feelings about this.
[00:18:32] They need the tourism to obviously stay relevant, to preserve their site. But they also struggle with the way that visitors treat the space. Laughing, making jokes, treating human remains like Halloween decorations.
[00:18:45] So it's the same tension we see at Body Worlds in the Mutter Museum, but it's even more complex here because these bodies are placed here by people who had specific expectations about how they would be treated after death.
[00:18:57] And they expected prayer and respect, and instead they got Instagram.
[00:19:05] So all of these exhibits we talked about today, they force us to confront the reality of death in a culture that usually hides from it. In modern Western society, we don't typically see dead bodies unless we're attending a funeral. And even then, they're carefully prepared to look peaceful and natural. These museums kind of violate that sanitization of death for us. They show us death, unvarnished, educational, fascinating, grotesque sometimes, and we just can't look away from it. And I think there's something valuable in that discomfort.
[00:19:38] In an era where death happens largely in hospitals behind closed doors, these exhibitions serve as an important function. They remind us that we're mortal. Our bodies are temporary. Death is real and physical and unavoidable.
[00:19:54] But I also think we have a responsibility to engage with these displays thoughtfully, to remember that these were people, not specimens, and to ask ourselves why we're looking at at them and what we're looking to learn to consider the ethics of displaying human remains for education, for profit, and for entertainment.
[00:20:16] And death museums exist in every culture, in every era. From Egyptian mummy collections to Buddhist temples with mummified monks to Victorian anatomical museums. We've always been drawn to death. So the question really is, what are we looking for?
[00:20:32] I don't know. I don't have the answers. But it's interesting that we're so drawn to it. Please make sure to visit mallorysadventures.com where we talk about these exhibits and many more. And tune in to Weird World Adventures Season 2 on Amazon prime and Roku here very, very shortly. It will launch soon, so please follow us and we'll tell you when to see the Body Worlds museum in the second season.
[00:20:56] Again. I'm your host, Mallory. And until next time, everybody stay weird.
