Griffith

Alison Griffith's two chapters from Wondrous Differencestake a detailed look at how two different venues display and promote ethnographic exhibits. The first chapter addresses museums, specifically focusing on the American Museum of Natural History. Griffith writes about early anthropological exhibitions and the various ways in which ethnographic findings were presented. The museum itself wished to promote exhibits that would inform as well as entertain; however, as Griffith describes, there seemed to be a struggle in finding that balance. Some curators and anthropologists believed that the displays, whether they be tableaux-vivants, taxidermied animals or a diorama, should be completely realistic, creating a perfect illusion. Others argue that simply because of the setting – the museum – the exhibits cannot be made too real. The surroundings of the museum spoil the intended effect of transporting viewers into another life. Another concern of this latter group is that by vivifying a culture, the scientific value of the exhibit is lost. The attempt to find the middle ground between entertainment and education of an exhibition is addressed further in the second chapter which focuses on world fairs. At the world fairs, the displays and performances of the so called native people also tread a fine line between informative and carnivalesque. Oftentimes the anthropologists who arrange the displays discovered the unusual and bizarre aspects of a culture's life created the biggest draw. These types of displays were engaging but also lacked a realistic depiction of everyday life of that society. Finding an equilibrium that would attract a crowd and was accurate was the main issue of these two chapters. As a reader, I wonder how modern day museums solve this problem or if they even encounter anything of this nature today. Griffith also writes about early anthropological films that were mostly spectacle and inaccurate, leading me to question whether the films of present day have improved in this way at all. Are they still merely spectacle, meant to solely entertain, or can we really walk away with a greater knowledge than we started?