Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Corpse-gate reaches conclusion in Ohio

Hamilton County in Ohio recently reached a settlement with 532 families and will pay them $8 million to settle a lawsuit over unauthorized photos taken of posed bodies in the county's morgue, according to the Associated Press.

Apparently, the photographer took the photos as part of an artistic project regarding the cycle of life from birth to death. He posed the bodies with props including pieces of fruit and doll house furniture, according to the story.

Doll house furniture?

When I read this, I couldn't help but think about a movie from the early 1980s called "Night Shift," which starred Michael Keaton and Henry Winkler. It was directed by Ron Howard.

In the film, Keaton and Winkler turned a morgue into a house of prostitution, and as the saying goes, wackiness ensued.

Obviously, what happened in Ohio was not quite the same thing, but I guess the moral of the story is that morgues can be unusual. Or maybe posing a dead body with fruit is more normal than I realized.

3 comments:

Joltin' Django said...

"[T]he photographer took the photos as part of an artistic project regarding the cycle of life from birth to death. He posed the bodies with props including pieces of fruit and doll house furniture, according to the story."

The only thing that will make that story worse is if its learned that the photog received a government grant to do his birth-to-death "project."

Anonymous said...

This story is flat-out odd. However, my favorite part about reading your post today is the labels you've attached:

"Labels: corpses, Michael Keaton, Ron Howard"

Anonymous said...

Posing a dead body with fruit, or posing a dead body with A fruit? ...