You see this in the movies all the time. But does it happen IRL?
I have the unfortunate distinction of having been in a hospital room on a couple of occasions when someone died, and not only did no one do this, but I think it would be quite distressing and shocking to the loved ones standing there for a nurse or doctor to pull the sheet up over the head of the person within minutes after they died. It seems insensitive and disrespectful. It can take weeks to fully absorb the fact of someone’s death, without having it shoved in your face like this.
I remember after my husband died, a friend emailed me a scan of his obituary a few days after it appeared in the paper. Of course, I had seen and in fact, had *written *it, but SEEING it suddenly on my computer screen was like being hit in the head with a board.
I’m not talking about (God forbid) an accident or foul play where a body is lying in the street, but in a hospital-like setting (home, nursing home, etc.).
IRL I’ve only ever seen it after they’ve moved the deceased to some sort of transport device to take them down to the morgue. Certainly, when mom died no one bothered to cover her face (she actually looked rather relaxed and peaceful - most dead people I’ve seen didn’t look nearly so composed).
With accident scenes I think it has a lot to do with shielding passers-by from gore and injury.
I don’t think that’s something that would be done while the family is still present. When I worked in a pediatric long-term care facility, we had a few deaths a year, so the odds were against my being there when one actually occurred. On the few occasions that it happened while I was there, the child was left in bed as though asleep until he/she was transported to the funeral home.
I was present for the deaths of my father-in-law and my mother, and they were also not covered up while we were there. I removed the IV and leads, etc. from my mom and made her “comfortable” before leaving.
Don’t know for real life, but I am in theatre, so I can tell you for sure that the practice is most assuredly to make life easier on the actor playing the “dead” person.
Doesn’t matter so much in movies, because they can have casts of bodies/faces (look up Dead Boromir for a really excellent example) or they can duplicate shots and cut-scenes if they have to, but in live theatre (and to an extent in TV shows because they’re on such a tight shooting schedule) you really don’t have the luxury of having your “dead” person out in the open drawing attention from the audience or god-forbid yawning or sneezing.
Main reason:
No one can hold perfectly still that long. Involuntary muscle movements happen.
Secondary reason:
The audience is going to stare at the dead guy’s face as long as that’s an option, hoping to see proof of the above point. This is taking their interest/focus away from the action or dialogue that they’re supposed to be paying attention to. If the face is covered, the attraction’s gone.
Tertiary reason:
It’s become a really well-known short-hand to show that “this person is a dead person” in scenes where that may not be immediately obvious, and you don’t want to waste time or dialogue or action on establishing that fact. Quick and easy is a bonus in the entertainment industry.
A few years back I saw a ‘patient’ in a room in a hospital as I walked by. The door was open but the lights were off, can’t remember what area of the hospital it was. Something between emergency medicine and people that have been admitted. I noticed that he had a toe tag, but no sheet over his head. I assume they dropped him that room en route to the morgue.
Later on I asked someone that I knew that worked at that hospital about that and he said that they don’t pull a sheet over the heads because it’s the sheet that makes people go “OMG dead body”, whereas just having someone rolled past you on a gurney isn’t something that most people give much thought to in a hospital. If you look closely you might wonder if they’re dead or asleep, but the sheet tells you for sure and might make the more squeemish uncomfortable.
When my husband died at home, the attendants made me leave the room while they moved him to the gurney, but they did not cover his head. Then I was allowed back in.
I remember becoming upset until they put a pillow under his head. And they did that for me.
I’d suggest that this is an ancient tradition (in addition to being a boon to actors and their uncooperative muscles.)
I think it may have something to do with the idea of encouraging the spirit to leave the body according to a quick google.
The google page also mentions funeral masks and closing the eyes of the dead. I couldn’t access any of the sites on that page for some reason unknown to me.
I also would be upset by having a dead loved one’s face covered in my presence. It almost seems like “out of sight; out of mind.” For cryin’ out loud, I didn’t even like to cover my living baby’s face when we took her out during a snowstorm.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen it done on TV in that context. I’ve only ever seen the white sheet come out if the scene was depicting an accident or crime scene, or a body transport. I can’t recall any TV scene where there was some sort of rush to cover the deceased if they died at home/in hospital with family present.
On tv and the movies that seem to do it immediately. Two examples spring to mind: I remember an orderly covering Richard Dreyfuss’ character in “Whose Life Is It Anyway” when he won his court case, and an ep of Buffy where they were talking near a corpse with a sheet covering it when you see the corpse begin to move underneath as it transitions to vampire. I think something similar happens in “The Thing.”