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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To find this advert really quite offensive?

64 replies

JuanPotatoTwo · 11/09/2015 15:38

Or perhaps I'm just being sensitive considering the circumstances.

The advert is a cancer related one which says something like "more people survive cancer now than die from it".

The circumstances are that my friend lost her 21 yr old son to cancer on Monday. Although, tragically he is just one of several people in my life who have been taken by it. And nearly everyone I know has lost someone to cancer.

So what message are all the people who are currently suffering, with no hope of recovery, meant to take from this advert? To me it seems like a sort of "oh well, they don't matter, they're going to die anyway"

Does anyone else find this ad insensitive and upsetting? I know I haven't articulated what I mean very well - I can't find the words. But interested if anyone else has had the same reaction?

OP posts:
msrisotto · 11/09/2015 15:40

Is the ad saying that thanks to fundraising donations, we're beating cancer more often than not? Isn't it more about encouragement and inspiration? Sorry for your loss.

WhatTheJeffHasGoneOnHere · 11/09/2015 15:43

I don't find it offensive and my Dad died of cancer. I think given the circumstances you're being over sensitive.
Sorry for your loss FlowersFlowers

Butteredparsnips · 11/09/2015 15:45

no not unreasonable. And I am really sorry to hear about your Friend's son.
There was a thread a while back about "fighting cancer" . These messages can have unintended consequences. It can sometimes sound as if people who don't get better were somehow doing it wrong.

MrsDeVere · 11/09/2015 15:46

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

GoringBit · 11/09/2015 15:46

I think you're taking it in a way that it wasn't intended to be. My DF died of cancer too young, my DM has never been the same since, and years later it still hurts, but I feel positive about the advert; progress is happening, cancer can be beaten. Not by everyone, and I can't imagine what you and your friend are going through and have gone through, but more than ever, science is helping more and more people survive.

Flowers
OneBreathAfterAnother · 11/09/2015 15:47

It's supposed to be motivating and inspiring, although there is no way for an advert to motivate or inspire someone who has cancer at all, let alone someone with terminal cancer.

It's not saying that people with terminal cancer don't matter, but that we are winning the fight against cancer in general. We have reached the stage where more people survive than die. It keeps people inspired and passionate and motivated, which keeps them fundraising, which hopefully means even more people survive.

You aren't unreasonable, you're just in a sensitive situation and therefore this is too close to home for you right now.

EatShitDerek · 11/09/2015 15:47

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

hellhasnofurylikeahungrywoman · 11/09/2015 15:48

To me it is saying it is a fight we need to keep fighting because research and science are helping to prevent deaths from cancer but we need money to keep the help and research going.

PurpleDaisies · 11/09/2015 15:48

I think you probably are being a bit sensitive (which is totally understandable-sorry for your loss Flowers). It's just a statement of fact and meant to encourage people that treatments are getting better so it is worth donating to cancer charities.

I think some of the language around cancer is really unhelpful- I don't like the "they lost their fight against cancer" line which makes it sound like the person did something wrong or could have done more. You don't tend to hear it with pneumonia or other illnesses. And not all cancers are the same in terms of survivability anyway.

weebarra · 11/09/2015 15:49

It's true though. Even people with many types of stage 4 cancer are actually more likely to die with it than of it, as therapies make it more likely that one can die after a long time. I'm hoping that applies to me - two years post diagnosis with one of the breast cancers with a not so great survival rate.

GoringBit · 11/09/2015 15:50

I meant to say that I'm not trying to invalidate your feelings, and your OP, also Buttered and MrsDV's comments are food for thought.

RainbowFlutterby · 11/09/2015 15:50

I must admit I can totally sympathise with you OP.

I do find myself yelling "and what about those that don't, that can't beat it."

Almost like they're weaker people. I know it's irrational but it still makes me angry.

Hellocampers · 11/09/2015 15:50

Sorry for your loss and we lost our lovely mil a few years ago to cancer.

I don't find the advert bad but do see your point.

What concerns me is the general talk of loosing the fight or bravely fighting or beating cancer this all seems to paint the picture of heroic people fighting and beating cancer while this is so not true.

All the people I know with cancer (and I was a nurse for years) were bloody scared and just got through treatments needed as they had no choice. It makes sick people feel they need to appear tough and brave as that's what relatives/friends expect and this puts another pressure on already terrified people.

Cancer is a bastard and whether you survive it or not is pure luck. It's not brave to survive and it's certainly not giving in or loosing to die. Just the luck of the draw and early diagnosis and good care.

PurpleDaisies · 11/09/2015 15:51

Cross posted with you buttered parsnips-I'm a slow typer.

Original poster
JuanPotatoTwo · 11/09/2015 15:52

Thank you msrisotto. In all honesty I can't remember how the rest of the ad goes - I hear that opening line and get so incensed I don't listen properly. So you may well may be right.

OP posts:
Badders123 · 11/09/2015 15:53

Yanbu.
My aunt was the most brave stoic woman I've ever known.
She was riddled with cancer, but they didn't know where it started.
It didn't "beat" her.
Why is it we use these phrases for cancer?
People aren't "beaten" by Alzheimer's or MS are they?
It's lazy and offensive.

Original poster
JuanPotatoTwo · 11/09/2015 15:53

Oh I'm sorry, lots of other posts -was busy arguing about this with my dm!

OP posts:
MyFavouriteClintonisGeorge · 11/09/2015 15:53

I think the ad is just trying to say that donations work, there has been progress with cancer treatments, please donate so the progress continues. Nothing wrong with that.

It's all the rhetoric about 'battling' cancer that irritates me.

MrsDeVere · 11/09/2015 15:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

blibblobblub · 11/09/2015 15:56

I hate it too OP.

I hate all the adverts like that.

I know they've got to raise money somehow, but every time I see something like that it makes me cringe.

Shortly after my grandad died of bowel cancer, a fundraiser from the British Heart Foundation came to my door telling me all self righteously how heart disease kills more people than cancer, blah blah. I don't even think he was right anyway - and obviously he didn't know my grandad had just died - but I felt like punching him in his stupid face. There are surely more sensitive ways of doing these things.

(And actually, thinking about it, around the same time there were some Marie Curie people in the supermarket catching people as they went past. I had a chat with them and mentioned my grandad and I did sign up to donate, but I'm sure the man asked me "are you sure?", as in, encouraging me to consider if it was the grief making me sign up. That seems more sensitive for sure.)

Playdoughcaterpillar · 11/09/2015 15:59

But it doesn't say more people are beating cancer. It says more people are surviving than dying. I find it an uplifting thought but I understand why those so close to it recently might not. Flowers

TenForward82 · 11/09/2015 16:03

The point behind it is: the money people are donating is ACTUALLY making a difference because, statistically, more people are surviving cancer and less are dying from it. Of course it's awful if you know someone who is dying from it, but they're trying to make the point that donations ARE helping, so keep donating. In the hopes that one day, as the ad says, EVERYONE will survive cancer. It doesn't at all mean "forget about the ones who aren't surviving". I think you need to listen, properly, to the whole advert.

Spartans · 11/09/2015 16:06

The advert running at the moment says that the figures still aren't good enough and more needs to be done. Don't think its the same one but part of the same campaign. In that one they make a big deal about survival rates not being good enough.

I can see why you have found it upsetting. However you are taking it the wrong way. It's talking about the improvements in survival figures to show donations really do help people.

It's in no way saying more people survive so that's enough. The adverts are to get people to donate. People wouldn't donate if that was what the advert a saying.

Spartans · 11/09/2015 16:09

Also, I don't like the adverts in general though.

Just after we lost my auntie, there was one with a boy looking in the mirror and his mum was fastening his coat up. Then on the wide shot it showed she wasn't really there. My auntie had a boy a similar age and that advert used to tear us all apart everytime. Her husband would just sob and their son would too.

Not sure what the answer is.

Bambambini · 11/09/2015 16:16

Spartans - that's heartbreaking, don't even want to imagine how awful that made them feel.