A Body on Display

The unfortunate circumstances of the Hottentot Venus, or Sara Bartman, were that of a women who was owned by others and was out on display for all to see her exposed and differently shaped body. In Clifton Crais and Pamela Scully's novel Sara Bartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography, as well as the film The Life and Times of Saara Bartman, Sara's life was explained in a narrative and focused on her origins as well as where she finally ended up. These biographies followed her from living at home as a young girl, so being married to a soldier, having three children, and leading up to her life as a sexual marvel in London as well as Paris. After her death, her genitals were cut off and have gone missing and have been missing ever since. Her body was eventually returned to her homeland where she had a proper burial...however wax figures of her body remain in European museums.

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Sara was known as the woman with the large genitals that were typical of the Khoi-khoi women from which she was from. This strange and foreign sexuality was put on display and was seen as wild and strange compared to the, as they said, 'sophisticated' Victorian women in London and Paris where she was put on display for money by her owners. Over time she did remain Sara Bartman - she was The Hottentot Venus. A woman from a far away place with a strange sexuality that should be stared at when on display. She belonged to public and her owners: her body was no longer her own. Even after her death, her body was made into a wax figure so people can still see her body. Though she is no longer with us, in a way, her body still belongs to the world.

In modern day, the concept of someone being on display would be obviously frowned upon. Even in public, it's rude to stare or as people questions about why they look a certain way or to point and say "Wow, look how different they look from me!". Also, Sara Bartman was not the only sexualized woman that was put on display for all to see: in fact, some are still doing it today. Just like Sara, the museums of Ripley's Believe It or Not contain thousands of examples of strange bodies that we would consider different from our own. Just like Sara's body was sexually objectified, there are other wax women who are experiencing the same afterlife she is: as a culturally different display.

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There are plenty of bodies in museums, especially Ripley's Believe It or Not that objectify the bodies of women from different cultures and make what they see as normal to their culture as strange and foreign. The following examples are of women who out brass rings around their necks and add one every year after getting it started (left), and African lip plates where an incision is made in their lip to make the plates fit and is seen as beautiful in that culture (right).

Even today, these women (well, their wax figures at least) are put on display and seen as 'strange' and bizarre, just like Sara's body was, and still is, in European museums. Even though they are gone, in a dark and, almost creepy sense, their bodies, including Sara's, still belong to us in some sense. I cannot help but wonder if the sexuality of women remains to be the thing that is the most 'display' worthy. In past articles, men's sexuality and orgasms have a dominant place over women's, so why are they not on display? I suppose it is only a matter of time until they are.

Text
(a) Clifton Crais and Pamela Scully. 2009. Sara Bartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography. Princeton University Press.
(b) (Film) The Life and Times of Saara Bartman. 2000. (53 min)
Images
(1) http://afrodiaspores.tumblr.com/post/52405147167/face-of-the-full-body-plaster-cast-made-from-the
(2) http://www.minitime.com/Ripley_s_Believe_it_or_Not_Museum-Ocean_City-MD-attraction-photos
(3) http://www.gregdemcydias.com/2012_08_01_archive.html