It seems as though everything so far we have talked about related to the concept of freaks. With the documentary that we saw in class about the Mutter Museum, the narrator of the documentary was talking about the body parts as being freakish, or freaky. I honestly don't agree with this idea. We can see that in the earlier days that there were many interesting medical findings in the past. But just because someone had a unique medical condition, that doesn't make them a freak. Honestly I don't like the term freak at all. If I knew someone that had a unique medical condition, I wouldn't call that person a freak.I know some other people would call them freaks, but I think it is wrong to call them freaks.
-Courtney O'Donnell
With what I am seeing in your post I can agree with your point of view. Calling certain body parts and recreated molds freakish is not the correct way to describe this Museum. The real way to describe the Mutter is to consider it as a clash between the old way and new way of education. The old way may have been considered the freak show way, but the new way we can consider it to be observational learning. So to call them freaks in this modern era would be completely wrong.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the video had a negative effect on me. Showing bodies or parts of bodies can be interesting for some people. For others the museums are used for entertainment because they have never seen these "abnormalities". If they could make the museum educational for the modern day, I would probably side with the educational value. With the way our society has progressed through time, I'm siding with the museum serving as an entertainment value. I do agree that it is wrong to consider these "freakish" qualities. Here's a question if anyone wants to respond: Would we care as much for a disease if we didn't think it was abnormal? Would we leave it alone, or do very little about it? I think if we didn't stress "abnormalities" in society, perhaps part of the medical world would be behind compared to the achievements it has made up to the modern day.
ReplyDelete@Darren:
ReplyDeleteI think the problem with using the disease comparison is that diseases is a malicious attack on the body/immune system. Although people known as "freaks" may have abnormal components, many did not cause serious medical problems. Of course we'd want to treat a disease because of its harm to the body. But physical abnormalities were viewed as harm potentially cause of lack of medical knowledge and skewed elements of society. "Freaks" were not the only victim; the mentally challenged and certain ethnic and religious groups were viewed as harm in Western Christian views. Although I see the point you are trying to make, perhaps a disease was not the best comparison because of its malicious components.