For any artists who need to brush up on their anatomy...

[Quirkafleeg]

That mad german 'Plastinator' anatomist bloke is gonna be do a live disection/autopcy on a human cadaver that is open to the paying general public.

Unfortunatly it is already a sell-out but C4 are going to be broadcasting at 11:45pm tonite (Wednesday).

I was a bit stunned by the news of this (on the ever reliable Richard and Judy) and I'm too sure if I'm gonna even try to watch a unique broadcasting event... assuming it's not pulled or it's a stunt of some kind.

[Adrian Bamforth]

I was hoping they would somehow merge the concept with Celebrity Big Brother, also tomorrow, to create a new show: Celebrity Autopsy.

We're coming for you, Jim Davidson!

ADE

[almighty mat]

I'll give it a watch, it sounds like a *real* Faces of Death, altho I'm not sure if that's necessarily a good thing.

mat

[2000AD Online]

i think i'll watch it too i know i'm totally sick but hey if it was good enough for the victorians...

[DavidXBrunt]

Ewmind me to hide from the telly when it comes on. I'll never sleep again.

[Mk13]

That's if it happens. The government seem to be determined to stop it going ahead, though the Met police are being cagey about stopping it in a "we're not going to do anything about it until the government force us to, so they look like the bad guys for once, not us" sorta way.

[moly]

just a test mail

[Quirkafleeg]

Well I've just seen it and it was, well, very strange, unlike anything I've ever seen on the telly. Very very hastily and badly edited. Seemed rushed. Lots of cutaways to the audience. Kind of like a Christmas lecture meets Your Life In Their Hands meets Silent Witness.

Learnt a few interesting things, though I knew a fair bit about autopsies anyway (I've had medical friends plus I?ve read an essay on the internet about them aimed at writers)

Nothing too gory, see worse on other documentaries, and I don't think it's gonna stop me sleeping (unlike certain things I've see on the internet...)

Best bit: bloke shouting out from the audience "Arn't you gonna take your hat off!"

[paulvonscott]

I'll wait till it happens as a documentary rather than a stunt/entertainment show.  As I am interested, but not titilated by the prospect.  Personally I don't mind taboo's being broken down, as long as it's not to aid the ever increasingly (and far surpassing channel 5) desperate Channel 4's advertising.

[2000AD Online]

i missed it dammit

[El Spurioso]

I'm not entirely sure what to think about this little stunt...

On the one hand, I wholeheartedly applaud the idea of breaking-down the taboos surrounding death: I think the world would be a very different - possibly even better - place if everyone was aware-of and comfortable with their own mortality.  That's a way-off yet, but this show was certainly a step on that path.

On the other hand, there has to be a way of acheiving that same goal - demystifying death - without turning it into an edutainment sensation.  I'm semi-thinking that *any* attempt to face death head-on would be regarded as sensational in the current media-circus world, but I think PVS has a point: presenting an autopsy as an observational documentary, with none of the trappings of a west-end show, or the morbid relish the mad-scientist guy has for his subject, would probably start the ball rolling equally as well with none of the adverse publicity.

Dunno.  Thoughts, anyone?

[Jayzus B. Christ]

I watched it too, and I'm still not sure. I can't say it affected me too profoundly; I do think however that death is so big a taboo that we are not equipped to face its inevitability, so if the banal reality of death is exposed by any means at all, then so much the better. I suppose I don't think it was morally wrong to publicly dissect the bloke (he himelf is hardly going to care what happens his body now, and his family obviously consented), so really I don't object.  If the criticism of using the dissection of dead bodies as entertainment is the outstanding one, I don't think it's close to as bad as the (esp. tabloid) media's destruction of living people, nor actual government-sanctioned taking of lives by war and the death penalty.
I am reminded of a quote I saw from a Vietnam vet, who was asked how he coped with the sight of so many dead bodies: 'Well, how do you cope with seeing dead dogs?'

[JimBob]

 As part of my work I've sat in on a few Autopsies and been the first on the scene after bodies turn up, some times months old. Personally I'm anti using this as entertainment, but then again I've always thought silent witness and it's ilk are necroporn.
 One of the big problems with our society is we don't see enough of death to respect life properly, when you've seen your 3rd car crash fataltiy you stop whining about getting the odd speeding ticket, and violence would be a lot less prevalent if people were forced to confront the results. It's obviously very subjective but I know seeing death close up has had a profound influence on me.

[Jayzus B. Christ]

'One of the big problems with our society is we don't see enough of death to respect life properly'
True. The amount of people that die on roads is absolutely ridiculous (mainly due to speeding and drink-driving from stubborn drivers); although an explicitly violent TV ad campaign has recently brought it down slightly.  No matter how traumatic the experience of watching these ads during pre-watershed hours is, I'd imagine it's not a patch on losing a friend or loved one in an road accident. Maybe a more honest and realistic approach to death is the only way society will realise how easily it happens.

[Queen Firey-Bou]

yeah its a tricky one, But i think seeing death in its real context & seeing it as art or entertainment are very different things, are minds are designed to deal with death & disaster in a certain way, when its real & first hand. ( I'm a {auxilary} fire fighter..car crashes etc) We're either trained to handle it or we've got some emotional tag to pop on the experience. But the likes of this autopsy thing is titilating superficial stuff, not so much a breaking of taboos for any useful purpose just further media de-humanising.

But then I'm old fashioned.