The Superstition exhibition functions as an ironic symbol of modern society’s hubris, and the chaos that arises at its opening vividly demonstrates the consequences of leveraging Institutional Prestige as a Veil for Dangerous Truths. The museum administrators view the exhibition as a commercial product, a “blockbuster” that produces “big money for the Museum” (42), even going so far as to disregard a string of violent murders in order to preserve the “optics” of providing the public with a much-anticipated social event. As they ignore the very dangers that they should be confronting, they also fail to apprehend the irony in the gala’s opening. The exhibition’s very purpose is to domesticate and package ancient fears for public consumption, reducing primal beliefs to a “spooky show” (54). However, this attempt to commercialize superstition becomes the stage for a real-world slaughter during the opening night gala, and the Mbwun figurine takes on a whole new level of significance as the creature itself eviscerates the audience that has come to gawk at the trappings of a different culture. The exhibition thus symbolizes the fatal hubris of a civilization that seeks to control and diminish the violence hidden just beneath the calm façade of modern civilization.