At the Vancouver French Film Festival last night, I was bombarded with two outrageous ads from the Canadian Cancer Society.
One appeared to offer support to those recently diagnosed with cancer by providing a free help line for questions. At first glance, pretty reasonable. At second, all I could see was a reinforcement of the stigma surrounding the issue: The scene showed a concerned friendly female doctor inform one of her patients she has cancer. Fair enough. Suddenly at diagnosis, the patient pales and all sound fades to a distant room as the message sinks in as if it were a death sentence. We glimpse the terror of death and the unknown that this poor woman must now face.
Now, I understand the mortality rates for cancer patients but to imply that this is the only reaction – the one every one will have is poor taste. This woman is your every day just middle aged educated western easy going socialite slash soccer mum. If blood drains from her face, her lips slightly part at the mention of cancer than it probably means that cancer is meant to be feared unconditionally. If you aren’t scared than you aren’t truely informed or cancer hasn’t touched your life. Let’s continue to spread the fear – great motivation for an ad campaign.
Well shot and cut with good actors.
The second was a blatant lie disguised as a courageous act: The ad likened a mammogram to a child and her mum looking under a bed to make sure there were no monsters hiding there. It can’t hurt to make sure, right? The small child is the patient locked in fear, and the mum is the educated friendly guide to help you overcome your fear. If this isn’t patronizing it’s certainly not accurate.
The fact that mammograms actually increase your rate of cancer by 2% is little known. The fact that doctors often refuse to treat patients unless they agree to regular mammograms displays an outrageous handling of medical procedure by the cancer industry. The ethics of proactive preventative diagnosis has not been adequately investigated.
Identifying cancerous cells is not as clear cut a process as we are led to believe. Different pathologists will diagnose differently. With the continued threat of malpractice suites, are these pathologists going to under-diagnose, or over-diagnose?
These ads are obviously targeting women, trying to instil in them a fear of cancer in order to support a secretly ethically dubious industry. Shocking stuff.
Tags: film
Thank you Richard for these comments.
I too would like to see a more positive approach to cancer, and all disease, for that matter. We have so much to learn about the healing process. And, for sure, positive energy, in whatever way we manage it, is essential for the healing process.
Whenever I hear about a cancer diagnosis I remeber something that I read by Dr Deepak Chopra.
To paraphrase his story: a surgeon friend of his had had a routine chest x-rayed and was told he had a spot on his lungs. He was told it was cancer. Deepak watched his friend become fearful and rapidly decline. Within 2 months the surgeion had died.
Deepak was amazed at the rapidity of the onset of the fatal illness When he reviewed his friend’s x-rays, he noted that the spot had actually appreared some years before, but it was only after he was told that he had cancer that he started to decline.
This observation was key in Deepak Chopra’s understanding of the role of emotions/energy (negative feelings, like fear) in the development of disease.
Having learned this myself, it has become more and more important to me, as my life moves on, to reach for and hold as much joy, appreciation, delight, gratitude, love, and fun in my life as possible -and let go of judgment, fears, hate, anger, contempt, disgust, annoyance (even with people who make ads like those you mention). Negative emotions eat away at me.
Over the years, I have collected a battery of tools to recognize , observe, deal with, and let negative thoughts and feelings go. And let positive thoughts and feeling take over.
Now, the real trick here is: how do we get THIS message out?