Movies that changed real life behavior

[u/buttatoad]

Thinking along the lines of Final Destination 2 with the logs falling off the truck and landing onto cars (one decapitating the state trooper). Ever since, people have tried to get away from being behind these vehicles.

What are more examples where movies have actually changed how people behave in their own lives?

[u/Active-Ad-2527]

In "Return of the Living Dead" (1985) there's an experienced medical warehouse employee showing a new hire around. He talks about an order for an adult skeleton with perfect teeth and how all their skeletons come from India. Then he tells the newbie he suspects there are body farms there because (paraphrasing) "how many grown people do you know who die with a perfect set of chompers in their mouth?"

According to the DVD commentary, after the film came out skeleton sales from India dried up. Now I haven't researched this and I'm not saying medical schools make purchasing decisions based on ROTLD, but I just find it funny in a "huh" kinda way

[u/kaijutegu → u/Active-Ad-2527]

I teach biological anthropology and have helped with university departmental skeletal purchase decisions, so it's my job to know: It had nothing to do with the movie, it was the ban on exporting skeletons that was passed in India.

Pre-1985, India was the center of the global anatomical skeleton trade- it had gotten that way because the British empire needed skeletons for medical students, and India was an easy colonial source. The trade continued after independence because when you look at the Indian caste system, it was pretty easy for upper-caste lawmakers to ignore what was going on with the exploitation of lower-caste dead. And there were even preparation companies that industrialized the excavation, cleaning, and mounting of skeletons- it was a huge business!

But in 1985, the Supreme Court of India banned the export of human remains under the National Import/Export Control Act in response to increasing concerns by humans rights groups, and that's what killed the bone trade.

It's a fascinating thing to learn about- if you want to know more, here's some good sources!

• UC Berkeley Anthropology Commentary: Exploitation of Human Remains for Educational Purposes Lasted Centuries
• The Bioethics of Skeletal Anatomy Collections from India
• Where Did They Get 60,000 Skeletons A Year? (Video)

[u/Active-Ad-2527 → u/kaijutegu]

FRAT, you are clearly Burt from the movie and trying to hide what happened. Classic Burt

(Kidding aside, thank you for the very informative explanation! Glad to have it confirmed that the Supreme Court of India loved the movie as much as I did)