Thursday, February 23, 2012

National Lampoon's Vacation



When reading the chapters in Washington and the chapter by Roach I was appalled and a little intrigued. I couldn’t believe that people would look at the dead as so disposable. If I was cutting apart a person I would be thinking about the family they had and the family that would come to the grave sites to morns over an empty casket. The doctors seemed to be much desensitized to the death of others. In one of the readings it said about doctors playing with the dead, arranging them or placing them in each other’s bed to for a joke. In another passage it talked about students and doctors that were studying would take things from the dead body to show off to others. I believe that playing, joking and stealing bodies is horrible I wonder if it still goes on today. While reading these readings I couldn’t help but think of the movie National Lampoon's Vacation. In NLV death is made fun of and not respected like it should be. It is also seen in video games today. How many people have played Black Ops or Grand Theft Auto; where the main objective of the game is to kill and mane people? 
Looking through today’s historical lenses we see the doctors as desensitized and horrible people, but maybe because death was so much more a fact of life back in the 1800’s and even the early 1900’s they were just dealing with death the only way they knew how.  In one of the reading there was mention of Post- Mortem photography. Now some of our society would think that it was creepy and disrespectful but during the 17 century it was big business. Funeral parlors would let the family take pictures of the dead to remember them by and for most families this is the only picture they have of them.
Yes I still believe that the doctors in the readings especial Sims were kind of serial killerish, Frankenstein, Silence of the Lamb-ask.  Maybe to be the only way they could cope back then was to be totally and utterly desensitized. 
-Sarah Fiorella 

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