The one thing that’s so scary about FX’s “American Horror Story” is that it’s based on some level of realism. While the stories are a complete fabrication, they’re inspired by something much like Leatherface was inspired by Ed Gein.
Following an episode of the now-concluded “American Horror Story: Freak Show,” Philly Now made the connection between a real-life “freak show” museum and the one in the show.
“American Morbidity Museum,” which the show locates in Philadelphia, is clearly inspired by Philadelphia’s “Mütter Museum,” which displays the nation’s most famous collection of fascinating anatomical specimens.
The site was so curious that they contacted J. Nathan Bazzel, director of communications for the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, which owns the Mütter.
While Bazzel hasn’t seen the show himself, he acknowledges that “people really enjoy the program, and if it opens people’s minds to better understanding of what it means to be human, we certainly welcome that.” But he’s eager to stress that, unlike the grotesquerie portrayed on American Horror Story, the Mütter Museum is a place of education and, above all else, empathy for the human condition.
“All of the specimens from the collection have a very human story to them,” Bazzel says. “That was really one of Dr. Mütter‘s primary goals [when he gifted his collection to the college]: It was to better enable medical students to develop in the realm of compassion.”
Whereas American Horror Story‘s fictional Morbidity Museum might have acquired Ma Petite’s body through questionable means, the Mütter, of course, does not act like a plot point in a horror show. “One thing we do not — we do not — do is purchase specimens,” Bazzel stresses. “We don’t. We receive specimens from other institutions if they’re getting rid of them. For instance, we received approximately 670 brain slices and segments embedded in acrylic from St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York when they were shutting down. Other specimens we receive from private donations, such as doctors who may have various specimens from their teaching collections, and they’re retiring and decide to donate them to us. It’s very diverse.”
Celebrating the diversity of human physical existence, in fact, is a big part of the point. “The human form is not one specific form,” Bazzel says, “and that’s one of the things we hope that people understand when they come to the Mütter. It attracts people for many different reasons, but it doesn’t matter why they come. What does matter is that they walk away with an understanding of compassion, and we hope that visitors walk away with a better understanding of what it means to be human.”
Just browsing Google images you’ll find all sorts of connections to “American Horror Story”, just take a look above and below.
