Censoring Science in 1930s and 1940s Hollywood Cinema (original) (raw)
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What do the insides of our bodies look like? This perennial question has occupied and frightened humans, and has resulted in some of the most striking and influential images by doctors and artists from Mansur ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Yusuf ibn Ilyas, Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci and Vesalius, to the latest scans. The outer skin gives way to a seemingly infinite inner complexity. From the 17th through the 19th centuries, the limitation of two-dimensional drawings led to depictions of the human body in three- dimensional models made of malleable materials such as gypsum or wax. But the solidity of these materials hindered the view of the interior. Peering into ourselves became a design challenge. The Transparent Man revolutionized self-perception. It was a life-sized model of a man whose transparent skin exposed the inner intricacies of the body, revealing the multi- layered spatial relationships between internal organs and the skeletal, arterial venous, nervous and lymphatic systems. Designed by German doctor and scientist Franz Tschacker, it was conceived at the Deutsches Hygiene- Museum in Dresden as an educational device on anatomy and hygiene for the wider public. The first prototype was developed in 1927, but only went on public view as the centerpiece of the 2nd International Hygiene Exhibition in 1930. Building on dramatic techniques Werner Spalteholz had developed for the 1st exhibition in Berlin in 1911, the translucent organs were coloured, the skeleton was constructed out of lightweight metal, and the snaking structures of the circulatory and nervous system were modelled in painted wire. But Tschacker’s decisive innovation was to render the mannequin’s skin in Cellon, an early form of transparent plastic that could easily be moulded with hot steam.
Filming the Freak Show. Non-normative Bodies On Screen
MEDICINA NEI SECOLI. ARTE E SCIENZA, 26/1 (2014): 291-312. Journal of History of Medicine
The article focuses on four films that display the exhibition for profit of non-normative bodies in a context that is variously called freak show, sideshow, monster show, odditorium. Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932), The Ape Woman (La donna scimmia, Marco Ferreri, 1964), Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980) and Black Venus (Vénus noire, Abdellatif Kechiche, 2010) are reflexive movies that tell stories of abnormal bodies and of people who buy a ticket to see them. They inquire the fictional nature of “freakness” – a cultural and historical artefact, a social construction, a frame of mind and a set of practices – and draw attention to the continuity between the world of the freak shows and the scientific and medical milieus. The article finally considers the new visibility of the corporeal freak in contemporary voyeuristic television programs. Alberto Brodesco, "Filming the Freak Show. Non-normative Bodies On Screen", in Medicina nei secoli. Arte e Scienza. Journal of History of Medicine, n. 26/1, 2014, pp. 291-312
Avanca - cinema, 2021
In historian Leslie Fiedler's book "Freaks: Myths and Images of the Secret Self" (1978), he argues that monsters are intriguing for us because we look at them as mirrors of ourselves. Although the fantasy of manipulating nature emerged centuries ago, Germany's Expressionist silent cinema had its own place and message for using monsters. In the post-First World War climate, characters such as Cesare in Robert Wiene's Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Paul Wegener and Carl Boese's golem (1920), and Fritz Lang's pseudo-Maria (1927) are all reflections of the era's political situation. Meanwhile in the US, genetic imagery was a known and popular topic and movies like Frankenstein (1931) directed by James Whale were inspired by the German works. It also sums up the cultural, ethical, and moral issues of the 1920s, which are still valid today. Although the cultural environments of the two countries are different, they both make use of the same concept in order to show greed for power: the concept of the non-human.
Cinema and Science: The Hybrid Body
Animus. Revista Interamericana de Comunicação Midiática, 2021
The relationship between science and cinema has not always been peaceful. If film has been fundamental to scientific and technological progress thanks to the register of movement, when cinema took over fiction, it became interested in the literary stories of mad scientists, who chose to transgress the ethical codes of their field in the name of creating a perfect humanity. Artificial genetic creation laboratories are a reality close to home today, with the insertion of human cells into animal embryos. From Dr. Moreau to contemporary research, the cinematic imagination allows us to examine the fantasies of omnipotence that easily seize researchers, and confront them with the destructive consequences of their megalomania.
"Scientific Peep Show" The Human Body in Contemporary Science Museums
In Nuncius 26 (1), pp. 159-184 , 2011
The essay focuses on the discourse about the human body developed by contemporary science museums with educational and instructive purposes directed at the general public. These museums aim mostly at mediating concepts such as health and prevention. The current scenario is linked with two examples of past museums: the popular anatomical museums which emerged during the 19th century and the health museums thrived between 1910 and 1940. On the museological path about the human body self-care we went from the emotionally involving anatomical Venuses to the inexpressive Transparent Man, from anatomical specimens of ill organs and deformed subjects to the mechanical and electronic models of the healthy body. Today the body is made transparent by the new medical diagnostics and by the latest discoveries of endoscopy. The way museums and science centers presently display the human body involves computers, 3D animation, digital technologies, hands-on models of large size human parts.
Contexts, 2007
Bodies...The Exhibition "Bodies...The Exhibition" is the quintessential blockbuster museum show: a multicity traveling operation (with long runs in Atlanta, London, New York, Tampa, and at the Tropicana in Las Vegas), organized by Premier Exhibitions, Inc., with a hefty advertising budget, and even a rival show entitled "Body Worlds." According to ads, "real human bodies" are "preserved through an innovative process and then respectfully presented." By injecting polymers into individual parts, scientists have found a way to distinguish body parts clearly from each other. The technology could make dissection in medical and dental schools obsolete. Meanwhile, it's rocking the science museum world. I went to the show in both New York and Atlanta. "Bodies...The Exhibition" uses dissected human specimens to provide you with a visual textbook of your own body," the introductory text states. Enormous letters on one wall in the first room proclaim, "Bodies Never Lie." (I don't know about yours, but mine lies constantly.) I enter ready to be annoyed and amused at the reduction of humanity to complicated body parts. I am not disappointed. It is something of an upscale freak show: lurid science hawking a look
Honours Thesis UTAS, 2012
Within La Specola Museum in Florence, Italy, there are several rooms dedicated to the study of human anatomy as understood by the scientific community at the latter end of the 1700s. The anatomical wax figures were created by artisans working for the museum and amongst them are female anatomical sculptural figures, often referred to as Anatomical Venuses, which provide a substantial survey of the maternal body describing the chronology of gestation and birth. Traditional feminist response has highlighted the eroticism of these Anatomical Venuses and the inferior position of woman as the passive object of the male gaze. However, when viewed in vivo, it is evident that the artefacts are much more than objects for male voyeurism. Within the context of the museum, the figures provide detailed observation of the reproductive cycle and reference contemporaneous imagery. Furthermore, female and male figures are similarly presented, supine, in glass cases on silk beds, aestheticized and beautiful. This research thus questions the adequacy of the feminist approach as a means of evaluating the Anatomical Venuses or similar contemporary works which reference this genre.