I thought it was just me. That some irritable, pessimistic aspect of myself had fixated on a probably erroneous idea. But then my youngest son asked me, “What’s up with all these movies making being sick look so glamorous?” A day later, his brother leveled a similar charge; “Why are they making movies that make it seem like people with horrible illnesses don’t have any bad effects from it?”
Really?? Because I was just asking myself the same, the very same, question. Then, while browsing my facebook page, I found that a very dear friend of mine posted a picture of a woman’s skeleton, damaged due to the corsets she wore, so popular in the 1800s. Women often had fainting spells back then. A practice that was portrayed quite delicately and prettily, the lady in question would wilt with one lovely hand to her perfect forehead. And sometimes the portrayal had to be taken with a grain of salt. It was often a given that the lass was not seriously ill, or that she may even be overdoing it, playacting in the attempt to gain attention. But even if the female in question was truly ill (think Beth in Little Women) she was still entirely palatable. At any rate, the fainting phenomenon, along with a variety of other ailments including breathing problems, severe damage to the ribcage and displacement of the uterus, was a result of the corset and very real.
I took this as A Sign, because the corset and its attendant problems was the very reference I’d made when thinking about the possible roots of palatable, or glamorized, disease. One pictures the elegant female, softly fainting without making a single clumsy move or wrinkling her dress. While underneath, the truth at its source is quite horrifying.
Remember Love Story? Okay, not everyone does, but those that didn’t experience it can google it. Wiki will feature the assertion that the American Film Institute decreed it the “most romantic movie of all time.” But that doesn’t do the real deal justice. It was a watershed film. It was 1970, and I was at a perfectly impressionable age for the sort of hype dished out for this movie. It was meant to be “real,” and daring; it portrayed a “real” live sick person. Who falls in love. It was groundbreaking. It had taken a tremendous leap and talked about a painful part of life that people must sometimes endure.
Except when you get to the movie itself, you are given such an innocent version of what “being sick” looks like, the notion itself, of being ill, is very nearly irresistibly attractive. Though chronically, lethally, ill, the female (Ali MacGraw) star’s hair shines like the sun on the water, her complexion remains porcelain, she’s already stick thin, so that doesn’t change, and nothing ugly ever happens. Until she very prettily dies.
Because, as those of us with chronic illnesses and/or physical disabilities know, the single ugly point in that movie is in reality just one aspect of a whole spectrum of unpleasant truths. Dying happens, but it isn’t all that happens. There’s a whole bunch of unsavory stuff in between. It can be ugly, overwhelmingly undignified, inconvenient, irritating, tiresome, draining and frightening. And I guess that’s all I’m saying. If you want to lay the claim that you are portraying it, then portray it accurately, all of it.
I guess I just feel that if you are in any position where a seriousness illness has touched your life, it’s going to be awfully hard to feel an affinity for the glammed up version the media and “polite society” might present. 40 + years later, we’re still getting Love Story (The Fault in Our Stars). But movies like 50/50, that show throwing up and hair loss and scars (big scars) that aren’t yet healed, don’t seem to get nearly as much attention. And even there, the star gets better, has a successful surgery, goes into remission and gets the girl. None of this ongoing muck that can last for years before the afflicted finally dies, nothing that represents the never ending tedium that goes hand in hand with chronic illness. In general, we get watered down painted up versions that bear little recognition to the real thing.
The whole of this thorn in my side may not be as significant as I think it is. But I just think it’s an awful lot to have to live up to. And more’s the pity for people who think that the ill person in their life, particularly if they are female, is going to be a delicate willowy lily, gently and prettily fading in the sunlight. In the interest of accuracy, you’re metaphorically more likely to get a sturdy stubborn vine with than one or two gashes in it, any maybe a few leaves missing. Because most of the sick people I know, including myself, are tough, resilient and strong willed. And most of us bear some manner or other of evidence of our struggle, whether it be our hair falling out, a physical device to accommodate a disability or an actual scar. Not to mention, for some of us, the puking.
So, the next time someone tries to spotlight something that for a great many of us has nothing to do with anything weak or pretty, throw your proverbial popcorn at the screen, boo and hiss. Let them know it’s unacceptable, and that their efforts have helped no real person in any real way. I don’t have the energy to try to look pretty all the time when in the midst of my disease and disability, and I resent the implication that I should. This is not to say I’ve stopped being a girly girl. I still love my cosmetics and hair jewelry and things that smell good. Just don’t expect me to be too pretty when I’m feeling pretty sick. Because if you do, you’re in for a bit of a shock.
The Boundless Scribe 