Hi,
Following on from some of the threads about celebrities and portrayals of BC in reality, I’ve just seen on AOL that there’s an interview with Kylie in June’s issue of Elle magazine. There is a small snipet on celebrity.aol.co.uk for those who aren’t with AOL.
In it (and this is what grabbed my attention), she says no-one understands what she went through with the bc treatment or how gruelling it was. Part of me is glad that she has said this as I think most of us will answer ‘fine’ when people ask us how we are or how we cope with the treatment but a very small part thinks what about all those women in the world who do go through it - I’m sure they understand !
I think it is great that a celebrity can now speak up and say it was gruelling to raise the profile a bit but accept it is a very difficult situation to get famous people to discuss the rubbish side of the illness at the time of treatment. I suppose they need their privacy at that time like any of us would and will be critised whatever they do.
Raising the awful side of bc treatment and side effects to a public level is a real dilemma for the media - do you show it as it is/can be in all its gory detail or do you keep it ‘nicer’ so you don’t frighten people off and make those who have worries go and see the GP ? Perhaps there is room for both but it has to be in the right type of programme. Personnally I thought Corrie did it really well and perhaps now we know Sally had been diagnosed in reality, we can understand more why. It’s all a real balancing trick.
Liz
I remember an interview with Kylie when she spoke about her experience of chemo. She said that she would set herself the task of walking to the corner of the street. And the next day she would try a little bit further and then a bit further. Eventually after a number of days she would make it to a little cafe and have something to drink.
She also spoke very candidly to Oprah in the US about her original misdiagnosis. I think she has always been very honest about her experience and rejected all the usual rubbish about being brave.
As with Jade Goody and cervical cancer, Kylie’s diagnosis prompted a lot of younger women to check their breasts. And maybe served as a reminder to medics that not all breast cancer patients are in their 60s.
The media’s role can be hugely valuable but I think they are guilty of peddling a LOT of nonsense and inaccurate information.
The peddling of a lot of nonsense and inaccurate information is standard media behaviour surely? A tremendous amount of good could be done but there appears to be a widespread media view that the public are only interested in being amused or entertained and that they don’t wish to be mentally challenged, educated or stimulated.
When I was researching magazines for freelance writing opportunities early this year, I discovered one startling fact - all magazines have items from freelancers, but the vast majority of magazines (from the cheaper weeklies to the most expensive glossies) only accept items from freelancers who are already known. So, publishers believe that unless you’re a celebrity (be it A-list or Z-list), the buying public aren’t interested in what you have to say. Therefore we are now in a position where we have to rely on celebrities being prepared to use their status to get serious subjects aired. Sadly, very few publications would want to publish a “hard” piece … in case it put off their readership. Something interesting, educational, useful or relevant isn’t being sought as its too risky, so this sort of story will struggle to get published.
Of course, in TV terms, Oprah is a well-known and notable exception to the media’s aversion to tough stuff. You’ll get lots of air time so long as you fit in with the stereotype the media wish to portray - like the Jade Goody coverage.
Debs x
How right you are Debs. As someone said here a while back - brain mets don’t make good copy. But I am a bit old school - I’d still like to believe that journalists should strive to get it right at least SOME of the time. Even if they are working for some grub-street tabloid.
I think this is actually part of a much larger problem than the “media” - way above and beyond individual commissioning editors and what shifts magazines.
Breast cancer (unlike any other cancer or illness) has acquired a deeply peculiar culture. The whole pinkification thing.
Is it down to the cultural obsession with breasts? Or is it because this is predominantly a female disease that they infantalise us with fluffy pink keyrings? (There is after all a reason they call it ‘GIRLY pink’.)
The money from ASDA’s fundraising is welcome. But “Tickled Pink”? Could there be a less accurate phrase than tickled pink to describe the experience of this disease. Tickled pink literally means to be so delighted that you glow with pleasure. What the hell have we got to be delighted about? Especially women whose cancer is terminal.
And they are the great unmentionable aren’t they - the women with advancing and advanced cancer. Death doesn’t have a place in this fluffy pink breast cancer world that has been created.
I guarantee that someone will now post and say that the pink thing doesn’t matter as long as it raises money and awareness.
I don’t agree - but that is a whole other conversation.
Msmolly, the world of charities is an odd one. I had a friend who used to get quite bolshy about children’s charities being “easy” for fund raising, whereas his preferred charity (lifeboats) weren’t (his opinion, not mine). Making charities - cancer ones in particular - marketable must require a fair bit of creative thinking on the part of the ad men and maybe the “pinkification” of breast cancer is a just (pretty) hook to hang it on.
One of the most unexpected things said to me since my diagnosis is “no-one dies of breast cancer” - not said by a medical professional but my best friend. Now she’s a very intelligent and articulate woman and someone who does her research. Her mother died of cancer and she’s not one to avoid the hard facts, so I don’t believe she will have made that statement lightly. But … is it an overly positive way of packaging the statistics? Or is it statistically correct? Or is it about the difference between primary and secondary? Or maybe its that most women want as much pinkness and fluffiness to surround this subject because our breasts are too much a symbol of our femaleness to face the reality head on … until and unless we have to?
Debs x
Hi debs and msmolly
you have kind of touched a nerve with me on the subject of charities. A ‘good’ friend told me a while ago that she had moved job from fund raising for cancer research to mencap because cancer is an old peoples disease and you have to die from something. Surprisingly I have not seen her since my diagnosis ( I am 38 ) but she sent a ‘nice’ text. D
Oh god Midge - some people. I am sure her absence from your life now is no great loss!
Other charities complain heartily about their lack of funding in comparison to the breast cancer charities. The pink thing is a huge international marketing success story - but I personally find it all extremely alienating.
Prostate cancer affects just as many men as breast cancer affects women. But you’d never know it if media coverage is anything to go by - and they get a fraction of the funding. And deeply unsexy conditions like dementia and Alzheimer’s - which affect millions of people - barely exist in the public consciousness and the press.
(All praise to Terry Pratchett for going public with his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.)
I once suggested that if it was ok for women to run around in flashing bras (Moonwalk) to raise money for bc, would men be expected to run around in flashing Y-fronts to raise money for prostate cancer? Someone told me that would be undignified. Oh really - and yet flashing bras aren’t? I am always made to feel like a killjoy for finding these things distasteful. But I don’t see why having breasts immediately means we have ro run around like a Benny Hill sketch.
It isn’t about breasts - it is about cancer.
Am I missing something here? How can anyone think that no-one dies of breast cancer? My original BCN told me that its ‘not a death sentence’ anymore, but I took that to mean that treatments have improved the survival rates. I think I read somewhere that still 12,000 women in the UK are killed by breast cancer every year.
Msmolly, I’m with you on the ‘Tickled Pink’ thing too, but there was another whole thread on this so I know that many people take the view that we can’t be precious or fussy about how funds are raised.
As for breast cancer versus prostate cancer or any other chronic degenrative disease, you hit the nail on the head when you called them unsexy. That’s definitely one of the reasons why breast cancer has this level of publicity.
E xx
As far as public figures who have had breast cancer go, I have a lot of time for Kylie. She has been reticient to discuss her treatment as she clearly feels it is a private issue, not something she needs or wants to share with the public. She avoided the press whilst under treatment and made no attempt to glam herself up even though she knew she would be photographed. She never made crass, hollow promises about how she is going to beat this disease and carry on as normal etc etc.
As Elsk says, there has been numerous debates on whether the pink campaign is good or not, so I am not about to raise that issue again, although I feel it is in terrible taste, but can understand why fundraisers have resorted to this dreadful campaign.
Fund raising for cancer is fraught with problems. Firstly, people bury their heads, hoping against hope it will never affect them. Secondly, I guess that many people believe that the government should be footing the bill for cancer treatment/research etc so dont feel they should have to contribute. Like MSMolly said, no-one wants to give to an unsexy charity, hence the flashing bras etc to sex breast cancer up.
I can see this from different angles & will willingly admit to having buried my head in the sand previously. For some reason I expected to live to a ripe old age, quite healthily as well. I wanted to be the woman in that John Lewis advert - still do.
There is another thread running about the NHS, & it is my feeling that it’s a pity funds for breast cancer have to be raised by charity at all while we have an NHS that all taxpayers contribute to.But if it’s needed doesn’t the end justify the pink & fluffy means.
However, we’re not the only ones to need fundraising - I believe that childrens’ hospices are completely funded by donations.
As far as mens’ prostrate cancer goes, well, unfortunately I do think men get a raw deal from the media etc. You only have to look at all the publicity that there is now aimed at helping women who suffer abuse, compared with the almost complete lack of it for abused men. I read some literature recently suggesting that as many as one third of all men suffer abuse & that most of us will have at least one male aquaintance who is a sufferer, yet there is very little help for them. Maybe we women are just viewed as more newsworthy for some reason ? Or sexier ?
Re Kylie, I think she’s lovely, & she gives me such hope, when I look at her & she’s just gorgeous.
Hi Ladies,
I just want to say what a pleasure it is to read such a considerate debate of different views with none of the sniping and sneering that so often appear. Thank you all.
I’m a ditherer on the charity funding issue. I think it is a necessary evil that shouldn’t really be necessary in a civilised democracy. On the other hand, some of the funds pay for things like financial advice, support and research that lie outside the remit of the NHS.
It does make me really angry when I read articles and hear interviews by celebrities that portray cancer treatment as an easy ride with an inevitably good outcome. I accept that everyone’s experience is different and people do need to hear positive stories but to ignore the hard realities is, I feel, demeaning to those who haven’t been so lucky.
Jan xx
Divvy - you are right. There are very few charities aimed solely at men. In fact, off the top of my head, I can’t think of one! How awful is that, yet I can think of quite a few for women’s problems and issues and lots for children. Men are certainly the hidden gender when it comes to giving, yet they suffer just the same?
To Jan, I don’t know why, but threads have become more interesting and the vast majority seem to be able to put their point across without causing offence. I for one am much more confident in joining in controversial debates knowing that I am not going to be shot down and there is such a lot of good information - just look at the NHS thread!
I do voluntary work in a homeless charity a few hours a week and trying to raise any money is soul destroying. As a one off gesture we are often asked to provide a very basic food and toiletry parcel if someone has gone into B and B or a hostel and is really desperate (they are often teenagers and single men). There is absolutely no budget for this and we rely on donated ambient food, but we have even been turned down by local supermarkets in the past. During the bad weather they appealed for second hand fleeces, jumpers and overcoats and some of the absolute dirty old tat we were given was shameful.
I’ve been asked if I want to take on the challenge of getting some kind of campaign together, but nobody wants to give to the sort of people we are involved with, so I think it would be a huge challenge. In contrast, I worked for 2 Royal Societies in the arts when I was down in London. Both had charitable status and people were falling over themselves to donate as they were seen as posh and good for networking opportunities!
That is appalling Cherub. Anything connected to the elderly never gets any attention either.
My primary concern as a breast cancer patient is where all these millions in donations are going.
Charities have become so corporate - so much money is wasted on absolute rubbish. My mother worked for one of the big disability charities for 30 years and I was regularly appalled by her tales of sheer pointless waste. I would imagine people running fetes and kids doing sponsored walks, raising £50 here and £100 there. Then my mother would tell me of the “management bonding weekends” that the top brass would enjoy at some 5-star resort, all expenses paid of course and my blood would boil.
At one stage they decided to change the logo - only a matter of months after it had already been changed. A pointless exercise which cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.
As a consequence I now tend to donate to smaller charities where there aren’t too many bureaucratic layers to divert money into.
The money wasted is terrible in some charities. I think one of the worst cases I have heard of recently is to do with something called the Pyjama Trust, which was set up to raise money for the sick children’s hospital in Edinburgh. At the moment everything is under investigation and people have been sacked because it would appear there were megabucks going out, but virtually nothing coming in. It also emerged recently that they didn’t fully check the background of the person who was taken on to head the operation and it appears this person left another fundraising job under a cloud and lied about it. Some reports have been saying a huge amount was spent on refitting offices.
Where I do voluntary work, we share the office with another organisation and we don’t get very much space sue to our budget - I have to hot desk as I haven’t got a seat half of the time. Somebody even had to beg the management for £10 a month so the volunteers could have tea and coffee! I’m having an intermittent clear out at home and in the attic and am donating all my unwanted household stuff as we help people to get flats and they have nothing. if it helps them get by until they can get something better I’m happy.