Glitzy fundraising for breast cancer charities can jar with sufferers writes Jane Hardy
It seems horribly ironic that Kylie Minogue, who has used her pop diva status to help breast cancer charities, should now be facing the big C herself. And I guess the fact that a young, attractive, high profile performer, will now be experiencing the disease and the difficult, cruelly demanding medical therapies associated with it, will help the cause even more.
But I have reservations about the recent trend towards celebrities raising consciousness about the disease and helping to increase funding for treatment. Glamour and charity are traditional bedfellows, so why not sexy T-shirts promoting breast cancer awareness? And breast cancer fun runs, where young women don decorated bras over their T-shirts like members of some new cult, to be sponsored by friends and family and raise money for an excellent cause. Why not? Because the emphasis on appearance is itself something women undergoing mastectomies and the hair loss and other side effects of chemotherapy can find very hard.
I remember discussing this with my late sister, who developed breast cancer in her 50s and died just over 60. She and I talked about the glamorous charity route to fundraising, the fashion spectaculars. And while we agreed that any money raised for research was good, we felt queasy at the image promotion.
Especially the focus on young, pert, healthy breasts. Somehow this was insulting to my sister, who eventually had a mastectomy and had to live with the knowledge that her hitherto OK and rather decent for her age body, was now permanently disfigured. Would the prostate cancer campaign promote decorated codpieces - I don't think so. My 27-year-old niece and her girlfriends have done the breast cancer fun run in London, the Race for Life, which they enjoyed and during which they raised a decent sum for a good cause. They put on the glitzy bras, then raced for life and in memory of the victims. But it's precisely this juxtaposition of youth and beauty with charities which can jar.
This emphasis on glamour and healthy chests simply reinforces the obsession with looks and a particular self-image in our stupidly superficial society. Which in turn reinforces the "normal/healthy is good" message. Which in turn can distress those facing illness, necessary medical mutilation and less than pretty side-effects from strong treatments and therapies. As a friend undergoing chemotherapy said recently, "I just want to get some hair back".
Lest we forget, this is an exceptionally unpleasant disease with unpleasant but necessary treatment. Not long after my sister died, I was hailed by a charity mugger raising money on a street for Cancer Research. He gaily and breezily asked me if I wanted to contribute. I said no, I'd just lost someone to the disease, had often contributed but didn't want to be addressed in a jolly twenty-something shout. Think before you speak, because most of us will be affected, directly or indirectly, by this disease at some stage in our lives. And think before you blithely fundraise too.
It is of course impressive when designers, models and actresses offer their skills to fight against what sometimes seems to be a breast cancer epidemic. Catherine Walker, herself a sufferer, is organising a spectacular charity event next month in London. This will undoubtedly major in serious frocks and pulchritude and could be construed as a kind of dancing in the face of death and disease. And it is also good that we are moving on from the notion exposed by Susan Sontag in Illness as Metaphor that disease, in particular cancer and Aids, is somehow a punishment or symbol of humanity's sinful status.
I wish Kylie Minogue well and am glad her disease has been discovered early. Maybe now that one of the cheerleaders will experience the other side of the breast cancer equation, we can adopt a different, more grown-up, more sensitive, tone.