5 New representations and new taboos (S. 143-144)

In the previous chapter I closely examined the different aesthetic techniques used by the media for the representation of corpses in a documentary TV show and in a fictional TV show. The most striking difference in the documentary was a representation consisting of (1) examiners moving (2) an old decedent (3) on an untidy table.

In contrast, hardly any elderly decedents, untidy tables, or bodies in motion were observed in the fictional genre. In this chapter I will extend the examination and concentrate on these three particular findings. I will show that these specific constraints regarding the body’s corporality, including its condition and position, are actual manifestations of taboos, and contrast them with general representation restrictions such as race and gender. These taboos serve to protect the classical Western image of the silent sleeping beauty from any harm.

To scrutinise this hypothesis, I will again compare a nonfictional TV show with a fictional TV show. I therefore selected the black comedy/ drama Six Feet Under and the documentary soap Family Plots. As in the previous chapter the authentic documentary TV show serves as a contrast for the fictional TV show. I selected these TV shows because of their thematic similarities; both are about a funeral parlour. Yet, the docu-soap Family Plots seeks to reflect the daily routine of Poway Bernardo Mortuary in San Diego while Six Feet Under presents a fictional funeral parlour in Los Angeles.

To validate my findings, I will provide statistical research results about the TV shows. These results will provide all the necessary information about the distribution of those representation restrictions. The selection of the pictures shown in this chapter serves, however, only to exemplify the results. Before I will present these results I want to introduce the research background regarding death and taboo. Afterwards I will disclose first general representation restrictions in these TV shows and then the specific representation taboos regarding the dead body as mentioned above. I will finish the chapter with an excursus on hospital autopsies and the conclusion drawn from the results.

5.1. Taboo and death

In 1955, Geoffrey Gorer published the article “Pornography of Death” in which he argued that contemporary society was suppressing death as a topic in the manner of the Victorians and sexuality. According to Gorer the topic of death has been tabooed and, “[…] can be vented only in fantasy ‘charged with pleasurable guilt or guilty pleasure’–the distinctive mark of pornography. If we make death unmentionable in polite society–‘not before the children’–we almost ensure the continuation of the ‘horror comics’” (Gorer, 1955, p. 175).

Gorer, not without criticism, referred to publications such as horror comics in order to display that a taboo topic does not simply disappear. According to him, the taboo subject re-appears again as pornography charged with that pleasurable guilt. Since the beginning of the 21st century, representations of dead bodies in the pathology department have found their way into the media and, therefore, into the public discourse. During prime time, these representations became ordinary media elements, along with others. Is death still a taboo then?