Author: dlende

When Pink Ribbons Are No Comfort: On Humor and Breast Cancer

By Casey Bouskill and Daniel Lende

In June, Jan Hoffman of the New York Times wrote “When Thumbs Up Is No Comfort,” reflecting on Ted Kennedy’s diagnosis with cancer and the ways in which the public obliges cancer patients to remain hopeful and strong while they ‘battle’ the ubiquitous and relentless disease.

Senator Kennedy presented an unfailingly upbeat attitude throughout his bout with a brain tumor, aided by such media images of him flashing a ‘thumbs-up’ to a crowd after a recent sailing race.

“Whether you’re a celebrity or an ordinary person, it’s obligatory, no matter how badly you’re feeling about it, to display optimism publicly,” said Dr. Barron H. Lerner, the author of “When Illness Goes Public.”

That optimism reassures anxious relatives, the public and doctors, regardless of whether it accurately reflects the patient’s emotional state. “If Ted Kennedy wanted to stick up his middle finger,” Dr. Lerner added, “that would be the more appropriate finger, but he’s doing what he is supposed to.”

Our ethnographic research with breast cancer patients here in South Bend, Indiana suggests that women are also fighting back against this so-called tyranny of optimism. Not by flashing the middle finger but by laughing!

Ostensibly, this humor seems to reflect that patients are cheerful and hopeful, just as the public obliges for women ‘battling’ breast cancer. But after thirty interviews and multiple participant observation sessions, we discovered that the use of humor among breast cancer patients extends far deeper. Essentially it is a covert rejection of these cheerful expectations ascribed to breast cancer patients.

In fact, these ‘bad gals’ of breast cancer described how personalized and often crude humor, relating to everything from hair loss to hot flashes to breast reconstruction, is a proud way of asserting one’s individuality and personality. It also forces others to acknowledge that cancer is a painful reality, and one that deserves recognition.

Breast cancer patients arguably have to deal with the expectation of cheeriness more than any other group. For the last fifteen years, it has been virtually impossible not to drive a car, enter a supermarket, or live through the month of October without feeling entangled in a web of pink ribbons. The arsenal of the pink ribbon acts as the unanimous symbol of support, as unwavering as the marches and speeches that go along with it. And this pink ribbon campaign consistently portrays the image of a middle-aged, white, beautiful woman whose life has been tragically put on hiatus while she valiantly fights the disease.

Somewhere between the ribbons on yogurt lids and rear bumpers of cars, society has lost touch with the reality of breast cancer and who suffers from it. In the United States breast cancer is affecting women (and men!) of all races, ages, socioeconomic statuses, and sexual orientations, leaving the many who do not fit the pink ribbon mold to have to reassert their personal identities and disavow themselves from society’s false pretenses.

How does humor act to reverse this growing trend?

Continue reading “When Pink Ribbons Are No Comfort: On Humor and Breast Cancer”

Video Game Round Up

On Games

Tom Chatfield, Rage Against the Machines
Do games stunt minds and create addictions? Good overview of what people really do when they sit down to play. “Games are human products, and lie within our control.” See readers’ comments here.

Eric Sofge, Video Games (Finally) Grow Up
Esquire article covers how video games have matured—storytelling, moral complexity, artistry and more

Rob Fahey, It’s Inevitable: Soon We Will All Be Gamers
Video games out of teenagers’ rooms and into everyday life

Louis Bedigian, Professor James Paul Gee Shows the World the Importance of Video Games
Learning doesn’t just happen in school, and that’s a good thing. Or, trying to understand why people put so much effort into mastering a game

Vaio at VG Chartz, Why We Game
Worth it for the starting photo alone. Illuminating discussion by gamers about why they do it

Criticisms

Susan Greenfield, Modern Technology Is Changing The Way Our Brains Work
Neuroscientist presents a critical take—games and pharmaceuticals are changing brain function and creating unhealthy dependencies. For more on Greenfield and her views, click here.

Etelmik, Self-Abuse in Game Play
“We talk about games being therapeutic, educational, beautiful, aesthetic, or enlightening. We also talk of them as being cheap, derivative, or boring. But it occurred to me in the last two weeks that sometimes they can be devastating, depressing, destructive and discouraging.”

Stephen Totilo, Are Games Our Fantasies?
“Let’s talk, finally, about what that means.” Racial imagery, murderous violence, and the debate between “it shouldn’t matter” and “it does matter”

Mike Smith, New Startup Tackles Stereotypes
Gaming just for boys? Here’s a company run by women! “Worldwide Biggies spans the gender gap”

Continue reading “Video Game Round Up”

Darwin Does Encephalon

In honor of the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s presentation of the theory of natural selection before the Linnean Society, and the 4th of July, Neuroscientifically Challenged has given us Encephalon #49 Celebrates Indepedence (from Lamarckism).

Given the evolution theme, we have Brain Stimulant discusses gene therapy in psychiatry, Cognitive Daily on attractive voices, Neurophilosophy on the brain’s adaptability (in this case, re-organizing after a stroke), Sharp Brains on something Darwin would have loved–walking book clubs, and the Winding Path on the co-evolution of brain and culture with some complex social interaction added.

And even more than that, so check it out! It might even help you evolve.

Grand Rounds

I’ve just discovered an exciting carnival, Grand Rounds, that brings the best and brightest of health-related blogging to us on a weekly basis. Grand Rounds was started back in 2004, and has continued in force since then. It was created by Nicholas Genes, who runs blogborygmi, covering life in the emergency room and other assorted affairs, such as competitive eating and medical advertising and ethics.

The latest Grand Rounds was hosted at Covert Rationing. A Fourth of the July theme, in the sense of independence, basic rights, limits to government, grievances, and even Tories!

Before that Shrink Rap hosted the iPhone 3G Grand Rounds. An equally impressive execution of a theme, and a great collection.

If you are interested in submitting to Grand Rounds, here are the submission instructions. You can find the upcoming schedule and archives here.

Erkan Saka and Media Anthropology

Erkan Saka has a great round up entitled, “Media Anthropology, Fifteen Years On.” His blog, Erkan Saka’s Field Diary, covers Turkey, the European Union, and cultural anthropology, as well as providing consistently good round ups of the anthro blogosphere (here’s one, another, and a third).

Open Anthropology has provided a good summary of what Erkan does, if you want another perspective on his work. Also check out Erkan’s online paper on Blogging as a Research Tool. Finally, this post gives me the chance to wish Erkan good luck with his dissertation defense—only 157 days to go!