Geoffrey Gorer was an English anthropologist writing in the first half of the 20th century. One of his essays “The Pornography of Death” argued that death had become culture’s new sex- taboo, unspoken, out of cultural zeitgeist.
“The Pornography of Death” was published in 1955. More than 50 years later we are even further in denial of our own mortality. Death is not sex. It is not mainstreamed. It is used sparingly in media and entertainment as a shock tactic. People are murdered (looking at you horror, CSI, zombies) but they don’t die as people actually die.
“Death has become more and more ‘unmentionable’ as a natural process… The natural process of corruption and decay have become disgusting… the art of the embalmers is an art of complete denial.”
