6 November 2024

Museum of Pop Culture

The Museum of Pop Culture (or MoPOP, as they like to call themselves) in Seattle, Washington, where we found ourselves on an extended layover returning from Alaska. The museum was founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 2000, with the initial collection coming from Allen’s personal accumulation of random things that interested him. And it shows when walking through the museum. It felt very unfocused, with almost anything qualifying under the theme of “pop culture.”

The museum was originally known as Experience Music Project. Then the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. Then the EMP Museum. It’s like even they can’t figure out what they are all about.

The “Westerner Hat” worn by Seattle-native Jimi Hendrix on the cover of his 1968 greatest hits compilation Smash Hits, and also for live shows. Jimi added the pins and purple cord himself. The museum has the world’s largest collection of Hendrix artifacts.
Gown worn by Robin Wright as Princess Buttercup in The Princess Bride.

The museum is located in a 140,000 square-foot building designed by Frank O. Gehry, which is in of itself a site to behold (a positive or negative experience on viewing it is up to each individual, of course). Inside can be found exhibits themed around fantasy, horror cinema, stage and screen costumes, science fiction, and much more. One minute you’re looking at a fragment of Jimi Hendrix’s guitar, the next you’re looking at the Kardashians (<<shudder>>).

The museum was reasonably fun if pricey experience at $30 a pop. I found the exhibit on Nirvana (Dave Grohl, I’ll never forgive you) and the Seattle music scene interesting, having really fallen hard for grunge as a teen, but much of the museum was not focused on things I was especially interested in.

Display of items belonging to Prince: black hat and floral lace shirt, both worn during the Purple Rain tour; motorcycle jacket worn by Prince as “The Kid” in the movie Purple Rain; Cloud electric guitar.
Thrift-store cardigan worn by Kurt Cobain of Nirvana in the early 1990s.
Buddy Holly’s 44 Gibson J-45, c. 1953-1954.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience performed at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967. At the end of their cover of the Trogg’s “Wild Thing” Hendrix lit his painted Fender Stratocaster on fire and smashed it. “I decided to destroy my guitar at the end of a song as a sacrifice. You sacrifice the things you love. I love my guitar.”
Gryffindor student scarf from the later Harry Potter films. Year with a Yeti by Gilderoy Lockhart from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Above this was a sign about how MoPop stands in solidarity with non-conforming communities, but since the books and films were big pop culture hits, it’s okay to display them in the museum in spite of J.K. Rowling’s controversial comments. This is the same logic I used to justify going to Universal Studios, which is basically “but I want to!”
Univox Hi-Flyer guitar, smashed by Kurt Cobain at Evergreen State College in 1988. The sign says “this is the first guitar that Cobain demolished on stage” LOL. The museum has an unusually large collection of demolished guitars on display.
T-800 Endoskeleton from Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 1991.
Proton Pack, Parking Sign, and Ghost Trap from Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989).
Death Star II filming miniature used in the film Star Wars: Episode VI-Return of the Jedi, 1983.

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