to think taking photos of someone in a coffin is the height of disrespect?

Finally, American tv and film always show a perfect looking, embalmed body (a live actor)...we don't usually embalm in the UK

It’s a broadly similar percentage of around 50%-60% in both countries - it’s very slightly higher in the US due to a higher population of predominantly Catholic Hispanics and Italian Americans who tend towards long wake periods, for which embalming is necessary, but we absolutely embalm in the U.K.

Yes, they absolutely are embalmed. Where I work, the embalmer comes to the funeral home every Tuesday afternoon and does all the bodies that need to be done that week. It’s fascinating to watch.

we don't usually embalm in the UK, the toxic chemical

Every funeral I’ve ever been to except one has been an open coffin, of course bodies are embalmed in the UK!

I can't understand why it's shameful or "cultural" - what does that even mean?

I'm in the UK, older, and have no problem with photos of the dead. When my father died I took a photo when I viewed the body laid out in the coffin, it was the last time I ever saw him and still have the picture.

Such pictures can be a comfort and a reassurance in the face of death, there's nothing disrespectful about it.

Not sure about posting everything on social media but that's a different issue.

I grew up in northern Europe, up until recently years it was normal for a family to take photos of themselves standing next to the deceased during the vigil. I think it's not a done thing anymore there but older generations still might do it

I think the Mexican 'Day of the Dead' sometimes has, or had, similar gruesome (to us) practices. But it's all just cultural norms.

We in the UK have a problem in my view with death..and I speak as someone who works for a funeral director and someone who is going to the funeral of a close family member this week.

Firstly, we do not discuss it, ever, I've tried broaching the subject of what she would like at her funeral with mil who is 94...she refuses to tell us.
We don't have discussions about what we want at the funeral after a person has died, I've lost count of the number of funerals where the family suddenly want to carry the coffin or can't decide who walks behind it or even who is travelling in what car. I know that they are grieving but these days it's 3 weeks or more after the death.secondly

Secondly, the fact that there are delays and funerals often happen weeks after the death. They are meant to be part of the grieving process and these delays often make the while whole situation much worse.

Finally, American tv and film always show a perfect looking, embalmed body (a live actor)...we don't usually embalm in the UK, the toxic chemical, especially in the more usual cremation, are not good. So if you do see your loved one, especially after a couple of weeks they don't look like they did (death removed the spark, the soul if you will of who they were leaving an empty vessel).

're photos, the strangest thing I have experienced is the person filming us removing their grandmother from the bed she died in right up to us closing the ambulance door...I was creeped out

I don't know. I wouldn't take a photo of a stranger, but it's normal in some countries to take photographs of a family funeral/the coffin and put it in the family photo album.

In Victorian time they would have photos taken with the family often the dead person propped up as if stlll alive

Some with drawn on eyes

it's cultural

I literally just replied saying the same thing! What a pointless task. 😅

Also, it takes up space to bury someone

So they queued to look at a wooden box? Even weirder!

Same difference anyway, so they went to look at her corpse in a box!

Queuing to look at a closed coffin would be even weirder!

They've got to be disposed of in some way, a lot of us don't have money for a burial.

They only got to look at the coffin, the lid was on.

They didn’t, she had a closed coffin.

It was beyond weird when people queued for hours to look at the Queens corpse....

Yeah there was a programme on Netflix where somewhere in Asia they embalm their relatives then once a year, bring them out and clean them, dress them up nice and give them gifts. They spend time with them before they bury them again as well.

I've seen this (not in reality but online)....I find it fascinating.

You wouldn't have coped well in the Victorian era then....

I don't see the harm whatsoever, everyone copes with grief in their own way.

Yes, in some places 'extreme embalming' is a thing. The deceased are not in a coffin, they are on motorbikes or "playing" a piano.

Urgh

It's bizarre - but I think queueing up to see a dead body is bizarre too.

I think every going past taking photos and stretching arms up above the crowd to get a good picture is very disrespectful. I can fully understand Catholics wanting to go and pay their respects but that can be done without photos.