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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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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:

KanyeWestPresidentForLife · 11/09/2015 16:18

I don't mind that advert. What I really hate is all the 'Let's kick cancer's butt' or 'Cancer we're coming to get you' or 'Kick out cancer'. Anything which gives the idea that cancer can be beaten by running around a park in a sparkly bra and fairy wings, or that cancer can be 'beaten' if you just make enough effort to battle hard enough. That grinds my gears because I have seen very much loved relatives battle very hard and lose.

I guess partly that advert doesn't bother me that much as both mine and my husband's family have genetic risk factors for cancer and so for me, the advert is quite a comfort that when our and our children's turn comes we have a fighting chance. Both of us remember what a cancer diagnosis was like in the 80s where you would be given horrible aggressive treatment that made you very sick then you died anyway, so we know what they're getting at.

I think anybody who has a loss to cancer or is suffering is going to struggle to some extent or another with the advertising as there is so much of it.

Original poster

JuanPotatoTwo · 11/09/2015 16:18

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, and heartfelt condolences to those who have lost loved ones.

I get the argument that they need to inspire people and continue to raise money, I just don't feel this is a sensitive well thought out way to go about it. But I also realise that this loss is very fresh and I'm probably not thinking to logically. I'm pleased to see that I'm not totally alone in thinking this way - but I'm very sad to hear that those of you who think the same way as me do so because of a tragic loss.

OP posts:

weebarra · 11/09/2015 16:22

I agree Kanye. I have three children under 8 and the BRCA2 gene. I'm very glad that by the time my children are old enough to be tested for a gene they have a 50% chance of having, it's not an automatic diagnosis of cancer.

Hoppipolar · 11/09/2015 16:25

Straight after it says that it says "we know that's not good enough". It's encouraging people to continue donating and fundraising and showing what it can do.
Sorry for your losses but I think you're taking the wrong message from it.

TenForward82 · 11/09/2015 16:26

that cancer can be beaten by running around a park in a sparkly bra and fairy wings

Again it comes back to money - people are sponsored to run, so the cancer charity gets donations, donations fund research, research cures cancer.

The upshot is that cancer is a sensitive subject and there's no way to advertise it that isn't going to upset somebody. It's important to take the whole message though and not just focus on one bit.

Hellocampers · 11/09/2015 16:37

I also hate the bucket list thing too. My mil just wanted to survive and stay with her family not kayak down a sodding rapids. It's akin to people asking parents of aspergers kids what is he good at?

It's the forced positivity that annoys me. Cancer and diseases like it are bastards and people with them need to be supported and listened to as they need not have to make society or friends/family feel better
By having to appear brave or positive all the time.

Hate the analogy to battles and winning or loosing. Bloody stupid and insensitive.

My mil was brave and stoical and she was consumed by cancer. It didn't best her it devoured her.

CrohnicallyAspie · 11/09/2015 16:38

I don't like the Macmillan adverts (nobody should face cancer alone). I went to them for support when a close family member was diagnosed with cancer, I was turned away because of my autism. So do they mean 'no NT person should face cancer alone'?

Hellocampers · 11/09/2015 16:38

But of course Ten your post is true.

MrsDeVere · 11/09/2015 16:39

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Boobz · 11/09/2015 17:02

I have breast cancer - am going through chemo now and will have surgery in a couple of months when I am well enough. I have the nastier, more aggressive version of BC so my prognosis is not as good as others with a different type, but I still have more chance of surviving another 10 years than dying from it.

And with that perspective, I think the advert is trying to do its best, and it doesn't offend me, but can understand why the OP is bothered by it. I'm sure if I come out of the wrong side of the stats, DH will be pretty upset by adverts like that too.

Pranmasghost · 11/09/2015 17:08

I too have had cancer and have lost many relatives to it. Right now there is a beautiful 7 year old girl , dd of a mumsnetter who is unlikely to survive .
It isn't a battle.
It isn't a journey. It is a f***g horrible disease but anything that raises awareness and persuades people to donate has some merit I guess.

elizadolittlechoc · 11/09/2015 17:14

I'm going to be really controversial here and say I find the use of the colour pink and the 'feminisation of Breast Cancer' offensive. My young mum dead of ovarian cancer; no less distressing or 'demonising'. It was not girly or pink or fluffy. You can't wear underwear to show you have or had ovaries. I guess it's just aVVU reaction to my grief.

mileend2bermondsey · 11/09/2015 17:15

Sorry but I think YABU OP. It's an advert to encourage people to donate, spurring them on by the fact that due to past donations more people are surviving cancer. It doesn't ignore the fact that people do still die from cancer.

MrsDeVere · 11/09/2015 17:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TheoriginalLEM · 11/09/2015 17:40

I understand where you are coming from OP. I don't like emotive advertising myself, however i can see their view.

As an ex biochemist i can tell you that research costs millions of pounds. The good news is that the advert is right, that this research IS saving lives but so much more needs to be learnt and the research needs to be built upon. Funding for medical research, including cancer research is sooo much more difficult to come by these days (one of the reasons i am an ex scientist - not by choice). The number of successful grant applications made by researchers is dwindling and i can see why so many are losing heart. There are many forms of cancers and many many approaches in combating it - prevention, treatment, cure.

What they are trying to say is that actually, research is moving on really quickly, there are cures and treatments and preventative medicines out there waiting to be discovered, just like the ones that have been. It is desperately sad for those who die from this evil disease (i lost my father) but this makes me want a cure for future generations even more. I don't want anyone to go through what my father went through. Realistically, the day when all cancer is no longer a life limiting disease is years on the future but there are break throughs every day, but even more breakthroughs sitting on the back burner because the money just isnt there.

Spartans, those adverts were just awful (i had a cancer scare last year and those adverts played on my mind so much)- i much prefer the new ones, more positive.

I think we all agree that cancer is a bastard and needs to fuck the fuck off.

Andrewofgg · 11/09/2015 17:51

Survivor of cancer here. I like the advert: because it gives the message that cancer research is not a lost cause. The cancer which I survived me would have been fatal twenty years earlier; we make progress.

to all now going through the mill. See you on the other side.

MrsGentlyBenevolent · 11/09/2015 18:12

I don't blame you OP, cancer adverts piss me off. As with everyone else, I've lost people to cancer. It's an undiscriminating bastard of a diseases, but sadly so are many others. You can't say cancer is the one we must fight against, no one person is braver or better at battling it than others. I can understand the sentiment, that there's a chance, and raising money helps. But then you compare that to the adverts for dementia, I feel like there is always a defeatist attitude towards an illness such as that. I wish they could be as bloody perky and upbeat about beating Alzheimer's, would make me personally feel a lot better, running around some park, hoping to God that I'm enough of a 'fighter' for that nasty disease not to get me to as it's done others in my family....

Sallystyle · 11/09/2015 18:16

When my children's dad died of cancer 22 months ago I was very sensitive over everything and yes, that advert would have offended me then.

It does not offend me now, but talk about surviving cancer, and people who survive cancer are strong rile me up and offend and hurt me.

So YANBU to feel the way you do. A lot of the adverts piss me off, but that one doesn't.

to you.

vestandknickers · 11/09/2015 18:20

I actually don't have a problem with this advert OP, but do sympathise.

As others have said, I HATE all the let's beat cancer, we'll kick cancer's arse rhetoric. It makes me feel my brother, who died of cancer age 35, just didn't try hard enough in some people's eyes.

Its not a battle/fight/whatever - its a bloody awful disease that some survive and some don't. It has nothing to do with the character of the patient which group they fall in to.

daiseehope · 11/09/2015 18:20

Me too, my mum died last year and it makes me want to scream no bloody use to her!

PieceOfTheMoon · 11/09/2015 18:30

I totally get all the logical reasons why it's a positive advert, but my emotional response is to want to scream at the TV. If all these people are now surviving, why couldn't my poor DB be one of them? I want to shout "it's not fair!". Totally illogical (but it's not fair...)

I also have to switch off any stories about break throughs in curing brain tumours. Too late for DB. Too painful.

PieceOfTheMoon · 11/09/2015 18:34

Oh yeah, and MacMillan are fucking useless, but I don't feel I can express this in the face of the relentless positivity and bloody coffee mornings and bastarding cakes sales which infest my work place

Andrewofgg · 11/09/2015 18:37

MacMillan made the last weeks of a good friend of mine and his family better than they would have been without and I hate to hear a word against them.

Original poster

JuanPotatoTwo · 11/09/2015 19:05

It's so sad that so many of us, if not all, have experienced losses due to cancer. So, yes, of course, we need to raise awareness and therefore funding.

But I think this advert gets me particularly because my friend's son never stood a chance. His cancer is/was so rare it doesn't have a name so all these positive messages we've been hearing didn't apply and meant nothing to us all. Just felt like salt being rubbed in the wound. For the year since he was diagnosed we've heard about the improvements, knowing that he wasn't going to be one of them :(

As a pp said, cancer is such an emotive, insidious and widespread disease that, whatever advert they come up with, someone will be upset or offended, and for me, it's this particular one. Someone up thread said I needed to listen properly to the whole ad? The point is - I can't. That opener just gets me every time.

Whoever the mnetter is with the young dd - I'm so so sorry :( Sometimes life is just crap and there's no more to be said.

Thanks again all for participating in a potentially upsetting thread.

OP posts:

AnnieNon · 11/09/2015 19:22

I don't find the advert offensive but I really dislike it. I dislike a lot of charity adverts. The overly emotive crap doesn't work on me. I'd prefer a straightforward request for money with clear details about what the money is going to be used for.

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