The first thing you notice: eerie, sleek, air-lock cleanliness. Bodies: The Exhibition being an emporium of dissected dead people, I expected cots and canvas, a triage tent with bloodstains and tears. I couldn’t believe how many couples were on dates. An exhibition of dead bodies, apparently, is a romantic hot spot. I brought beef jerky.
The bodies on display are small and svelte, skinless, and Asian. Muscles and bones. Cross sections of neatly carved-up torsos. Wet- looking lungs and hearts. Kidneys, intestines, and dangling balls. Lots of balls. Bodies is a ball fest. Also: penises. One body is flayed into two parts—its skeleton holding hands with its muscular system (ball area included) in a macabre eternal jig. Even more unsettling were the eyelashes. Tiny, delicate fringes, so alive, so familiar, guarding soulless, piercing glass eyes. The eyelashes made the bodies look like they were about to say something. Something like “Stop staring at my balls.”
There is a hands-on station where you can hold an actual human brain. A brain. From the head of a human. “Look at it!” my friend said, aghast and kind of sad, turning the brain over and over in her hands. “It’s all full of memories!”
“Not anymore,” barked the brain docent, dismissively. I smelled the brain. It smelled like a chanterelle mushroom.
Eating beef jerky at the Bodies exhibit feels wrong (also, it is explicitly against the rules). Going out for ribs afterward—which we also did—does too. But the Bodies exhibit is wrong and demented by nature. It is a bonanza of wrong. Corpses of (alleged) dead Chinese prisoners in jaunty sports poses? Wrong. Without proof of where they came from? Or consent? Wrong. Some, it is rumored, possibly victims of torture? Beyond wrong. At the Bodies exhibit, what you’re dealing with are levels of wrongness. Adding jerky and ribs into the equation is an attempt to attain a higher (wronger) level of wrong. I was only playing their game. Bathing in the wrong.
I couldn’t escape thinking about the bodies’ origins. I didn’t see an incredible and artistically dissected human machine shooting a basketball and think, “Wow, look at the way the veins stem out of the triceps and lead to the fingers.” I thought, “Damn, I can’t believe they took a dead Chinese prisoner, burned off his skin, and put a basketball in his hand and his balls on display.”
Premier Exhibitions, the Atlanta, Georgia, company behind Bodies, has admitted that “the bodies were not formally donated by people who agreed to be displayed.” Everywhere I looked, I couldn’t help but invent narratives: Some Chinese peasant spent the last 15 years of his life imprisoned for stealing a pear for his daughter, was worked to death in a concentration camp, then his body was sold for $300 and ended up in the hands of Premier Exhibitions, which had his skin burned off with acid and his body pumped full of liquid rubber, then posed him like he’s throwing darts with the guys at the local tavern, and then carted him around the world in a wooden crate, to be ogled by teenagers on dates. I bet the guy never threw darts in his life. Now he’s aiming for a bull’s-eye for the rest of eternity, with his spleen hanging out.
Another corpse was sliced up into thin horizontal sections. It looked like ham. Like a meat and cheese plate without the cheese.
Feeling slightly freaked, we decided it was jerky time. It was a racy escapade, sneaking the bites of hard, dry meat while standing around inside the exhibition of hard, dry meat. But it’s one of those things you do, to see what it’s like—like cocaine or skydiving or a handlebar mustache. It’s an upping of the ante.
We came to the one female body in the exhibit. We named her Rebecca. Or Becky, if you’re feeling casual. Rebecca is commanding. She is completely shaved. There was more of a crowd around Rebecca than around the other bodies—something about her was compelling. The exhibit took on a whole new meaning for my friend, a woman, when she and Rebecca came face to face. “Knowing it’s a woman makes me uncomfortable. It’s more personal now. I was okay when I thought they were all dudes.”
It was hard to chew on beef jerky without being seen, so we left Rebecca for a dimmer, less crowded lower level. I managed to sneak a big bite of jerky (teriyaki) in the empty stairwell. I slipped through a doorway and ended up in the fetus room—a somber chamber of unborn babies of varying ages and phases. Not exactly the place—of all the spots in Bodies—you want to be gnawing on jerky. The 30-week-old fetus looked exactly like a doll. Some floated in fluid. I chewed.
Ethics and rumors and controversy aside, seeing these formerly alive humans up close, and understanding the scientific process behind preserving and displaying them, is undeniably fascinating. The “specimens” are dissected, dunked in acetone, placed in a large bath of silicone polymer, and then sealed in a vacuum chamber. Basically, they turn from flesh into plastic and will never decay. From the Bodies website: “All the bodies were obtained through the Dalian Medical University Plastination Laboratories in the People’s Republic of China. Asia possesses the largest and most highly competent group of dissectors in the world, and they are highly skilled in preparing the bodies for educational and scientific purposes.”
The official word from Bodies: The Exhibition is that these people died from “natural causes.” They say the law doesn’t allow them to disclose information about identity or cause of death. Nothing at the exhibit clearly addresses any of the torture rumors (floated by people like New York’s attorney general Andrew Cuomo: “The grim reality is that Premier Exhibitions has profited from displaying the remains of individuals who may have been tortured and executed in China”). You’d think the whole thing would be one giant disclaimer.
We wandered on and came, at last, to the lone butthole. A butthole away from its body. No cheeks, just tubing. A solitary butthole in a square glass display case. Like one would look—with admiration and awe—upon a teacup recovered from the Titanic, we stood and gawked at this lonely, sliced-out, slightly hairy human hole. A mummified lone butthole. Mummified and glowing under track lighting. There I stood, entranced, bewildered, gnawing, tasting leather and hickory.
On our way out, we passed the Bodies merchandise for sale: toy eyeballs, keychain spines, bone-shaped pens, and some fake formaldehyde squeezy toy holding more eyeballs and little skulls. The merchandise is a circus of wrong. A black hole of wrong. I bought three Bodies pens, as gifts.
Then we went to Willie’s Taste of Soul. Meat. I saw fibulas. I couldn’t get the dart-throwing dart-man out of my head. I was eating dart-man. Dart-man would throw his dart at my nuts. Rebecca, shaven Rebecca. Her power pose. Pork ribs. A pile of ribs on a plate. Not in a power pose. Willie’s food is delicious, but it didn’t go down easy. I’m sorry, Rebecca. 
Trent this article is genius!!, and once again reminds me why i have NEVER ever wanted to support or go to Bodies: The Exhibition
There is another, separate from Premier Exhibitions, traveling corpse circus called Bodyworlds where EVERY body used was specifically donated for the purpose of anatomical exhibition.
It’s a much different experience when you don’t have to freak out about how creepy the exploitation is (against owners will = very creepy) and you can focus on the extreme intricacy of the human body.
It can still be creepy…
I dig your style, Trent. Snap into a Slim Xin!
If the owners of this exhibition looked in the mirror they would see slightly hairy butt holes.
I went to the Bodies Exhibition in Las Vegas (you know, as a flimsy “educational” excuse to go to Vegas). As a biology teacher, I found it pretty fascinating. Outside of medical students, how many people would get a chance otherwise to see what a human lung really looks like from the inside?
I knew the moral controversies going in. And it is creepy that a lot of people treated it as a date or a family outing. But I look at it like I look at eating factory-processed meat: the body is already dead, and possibly died an inhumane death. By going with an earnest attitude, to try to learn something, I restore some honor and purpose to the body.
To be honest, the thing that offended me the most was the fetus room. Not because it was a bunch of dead, possibly aborted babies, but because they put a special disclaimer and a bypass route for people who might be offended by (gasp!) abortion. People, if you haven’t been freaked out by the executed dissident adults on display, I’m pretty sure you can handle looking at a beige dot (the week-old embryo).
We took my grandma – an ancient, sharp-tongued survivor of Stalinist and, later, Nazi work camps – and after taking a look around she stated plainly, “I’ve seen all this before.”
I don’t see anything wrong with them using executed prisoners. They were members of a communist regime AND criminals… showing American couples their balls and organs is probably the most useful thing they ever did.
I say cook up a few more and put American flags in their hands… lets give them a chance to be Americans finally!
I wonder how much Premier Exhibitions pays for candied Stranger writers?
You are a brave man Trent Moorman. Ribs after? Brave.
and that picture, dart on balls, right on!!!! Wow.
the bodyworlds exhibit puts forms at the exit for people to sign up to donate their cadavers as future specimens. by 2004 they’d had over 3,000 people sign themselves up.
This blew my meat eating mind away.
Eating beef jerky inside the Bodies exhibit is exactly like sky diving, yes.
Thank you, Trent. Really really liked it. Sorry you ended up in the Fetus room with a mouth full of beef jerky.
11, I don’t know if I could sign up for it. They would have to promise to put me in some amazing pose, like doing brain surgery on another ‘Body’, and then have that body making a model train.
Anyone want to try this out? Sneak jerky in, then go eat ribs? Stranger should make the Stranger Suggests guy try this.
Stranger suggests we sell a writer or two to the bodies exhibit for cheap?
I don’t condone anything this young man does! I think it’s terrible. Shame on you
Awesome and well-written article.
I think I threw up a little in my mouth.
I saw Body Worlds in Toronto it is the same thing+ ethics. Meaning you still don’t know where the bodies come from but they were donated to science and everything is pretty by the books. I think Seattle’s Bodies sounds like the discount version.
Excellent article, Trent. Thanks for going for me and telling the tale- now I *know* I don’t need to see this. Ever.
I’ve always found the idea of these exhibits repulsive on so many levels, but my fascination with human anatomy has tempted me to go anyway. I’ll content myself with A&P books to satisfy my curiosity. You did the dirty work so I don’t have to.
I loved the article. It was very clever, entertaining, and I loved the jerky theme. I don’t know I agree though. I really loved the idea of the brain, in your hand being “full of memories”. That struck me inside.
I think Bodies is really interesting and poignant. It is turning these bodies into plastic. Not the person they once were. This isn’t a chinese prisoner; its a body. The chinese prisoner, to which atrocities were committed against, left that body when the person died. The person. The soul. That was the sacred thing; the body is just a plastic shell.
I don’t like the gift shop. I do think the body is a mechanical marvel and should be respected. That sicked me out. It sicks me out that people go to Bodies and don’t get it. They don’t realize the amazing thing they are seeing. But I don’t think its the lack of respect for the person that the figures were that bothers me as much as the lack of respect for the incredible gift we are given by having the chance to see natures complexities.
I see Bodies as a celebration of the magical genius that is the human body. We should be seeing it and be in awe. Celebrate our bodies. Respect them. Be amazed. Be inspired to use them.
I like that you ate meat. Its the same thing. That meat wasn’t a cow that had a calf it loved. Its the meat that’s left over after the cow is gone.
@2 and @18, thank you for mentioning that Bodies…The Exhibition and Body Worlds are not one and the same.
Body Worlds, which originated this concept, is scrupulous in its use of release forms, rendering unassailable the intent to be a part of the exhibition and garnering donations from all over the world. Its displays are marginally more tasteful but infinitely more educational.
The figure in the ad Bodies runs weekly in The Stranger clearly sports the facial features of a Chinese man, a perpetual reminder that People’s Republic corpses of “unknown origin” are the exhibition’s ONLY source material.
It is no accident that Body Worlds shows up in science and natural history museums and Bodies arrives in convention centers and casinos.
Bodies has now visited Seattle twice. Both Portland and Vancouver have hosted the real Body Worlds. Once again, our neighbors get the ethical win.
Some of the background and thoughts about the exhibit is interesting, but the puerility of the jerky thing really screwed this article.
Leave the pretentious ooh-I’m-an-edgy-hipster-eating-jerky-in-front-of-dried-bodies thing out next time, and we might have something that people can read without their (non-desiccated) eyeballs rolling out of their heads.
Trix, you sound like a fucking bore. I roll my eyes harder at you, than you could ever possibly conceive of rolling eyes at this article. You Trix, are what I like to think of as a Fuckwad. You judge, or like to think you judge. But really you lack passion and risk and humor and beauty and life. You are afraid, and therefore turn your nose up at things you consider to be below you. Fuck you and everything you represent.
Trix = spot on. Sorta.
Awesome article.
I work at one of the Bodies exhibits. I eat beef jerky there all the time. It helps soothe the annoyance of listening to people’s stupid comments and watching gross couples make out.
Every article in the past years on the Bodies exhibit talks about the controversy. When has there ever been anything written or shown on media that doesn’t address the issue of origin? Can any visitor go into the exhibit saying they were not aware? No – and neither can you.
Sorry but this article seems to be an attempt to write another promotion article just to justify attendance when you know good and well every penny of your admission and merchandise purchases just furthers this type of exhibit.
This is a bad exhibit and the Stranger should be ashamed of itself for running its full page ads
and promoting the exhibit.
This exhibit is not just “wrong”, I believe it’s illegal.
It has been banned in California, Hawaii,Venezuela and other countries. How does a display of dead bodies ever come into the United States? These are all Chinese persons. If this was a display of African-Americans, or all women, I don’t think it would be here in Seattle.
Trent Moorman and past attendees, I expect you to be protesting outide the exhibit every Saturday to correct your karma.
Wow, your friend is awesome. “Knowing it’s a woman makes me uncomfortable. It’s more personal now. I was okay when I thought they were all dudes.”
So much for common humanity. Thank God she’s not in charge of anything that might affect me — and if she is, she should be removed immediately.
Seattle San,
They can legally enter the U.S. because they are considered “plastics” by U.S. Customs. They aren’t human tissue anymore, but plastic.
There was actually some trouble at some point getting the Bodies through customs. Confusion as to how to claim them. Go figure.
This show came through Edmonton a couple of years back, I couldn’t believe anyone actually went. A friend of mine did though, and he said at the end there was an opportunity to sign up to donate your body to the exhibit. (he said the line was way too long) Strange….
Edmonton got Body Worlds, not Bodies. Big difference, apparently!
I’ve been to both bodies & Body Worlds. Body Worlds somehow comes across way better and as was pointed out, less Chinese dissident-y.
The mummified lone butthole, away from its body is the apex of this piece. That is solid work, Trent. I laughed, very hard.
Oh, and the teacup from the Titanic as compared to the lone butthole is perfectly fitting. Similarly morbid. Why would you want to look at either one, but something you can’t turn away from. Like these whole ‘Bodies’ exhibits.
I’m sorry, but I can’t differentiate between any of them. They are dead people in poses and like Trent says, it’s all just levels of wrong.
I seriously doubt all the bodies in Body World, the ones that are supposed be donated, knew they were going to be put in sports poses and carted around the world on display. This IS NOT donating your body to science. It’s donating your body so that someone else can make money off it.
Thank you, Trent. I’ve never so thoroughly deluged myself in wrongness to that degree.
It’s in the vicinity of how I regard, storms at sea (having once beat a tempest to port):
I’m pretty sure I don’t anticipate going there, but I’d like to have had the experience of having been there.
Uriel, I agree. I would NEVER in a million years eat jerky, look at one of these exhibitions, then go eat ribs. But it is a very interesting experiment. I would never do this, and I’m glad we have Trent telling us how it is.
I agree that everyone here ought to be ashamed of themselves. You kids don’t know what my generation went through fighting dictators and perverts
Pat, I take it you aren’t going to donate your body to Bodies when you pass?
I took my 14y/o sister to this exhibit and though she was sceptical (repeatedly asked her if she was sure) she thanked me for taking her. It is rare that any of us will ever see the body this way. The bodies may have been aquired through tragedy they do serve a good purpose now, education. I must say that beef jerky would be the only thing that would have made it more interesting, well written.
#20 has to be the flakiest thing I’ve ever read. You’re bulldozing over important ethical questions (both human and animal) by pointing to the souls in the happy hunting ground?
41, it is amazing to see, these bodies. But lets not kid ourselves, the bodies used in this exhibit are making someone money. It’s not for education. It’s capitalizing on the human fascination with death.
Has anyone ever seen the German horror flick “Anatomie” from 2000, starring Franke Potente (of Run Lola Run)? Or its sequel, “Anatomie 2”? They’re about a bunch of anatomy students running around their university (which specializes in plasticisation) trying not to be turned into human mannequins.
The tagline from the poster is “They can’t wait to get their hands on you. Your end is only the beginning. “
I think of those movies whenever I see the poor sliced-in-half dude on the billboards all over town.
Entertaining, yes, but not something you want to have been real life for anyone.
This just made my year. Laughed out loud and people at work looked at me, looking at balls, reading about mummified buttholes.
Trent!!! Very well done. The solitary butthole / teacup, away from its body is VICTORY.
I’ve been driving around town for I don’t know how long, staring at the billboards waiting for them to go away, now I feel better. Now I feel like I’ve conquered it, knowing you were in there eating beef jerky. Haaaa.
I look forward every week to the Stranger. The article by Trent Moorman
made my week! Great insight, humor and imagination! Thanks for
the laughs and good insight. John Ryan
Trent – This was one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time. I went to the exhibit last week, interesting, weird, and ethically disturbing. Big thanks for the continued laughs.
– Christian
Gee, another article on how crass one can get while spitting on the last human rights of a person.
Not cool.
Public display of mutilated corpses. It’s disgusting and I am disturbed every time I see an advertisement on the sides of Metro buses. I can’t believe it’s legal and people pay to go see it.
Trent, take care around your “woman friend.” She’s fucking frightening.