My objective review

I think the first word that comes to mind after watching "Crazy Sexy Cancer" is "solipsistic." I love that word. It sounds like the word is eating itself, collapsing in on itself and its preoccupied self-centered little world. It's hard for me to believe that for four years, the star of the documentary wrote about herself, filmed herself, and talked about herself - and pretty much did nothing else. Well, besides attending alternative health fairs and healing resorts. I suppose keeping this blog is talking about myself too, but it's pretty benign and doesn't take up too much of my day. This girl, Kris, is OBSESSED with cancer. Maybe because her rare kind of cancer is untreatable, she took matters into her own hands and made food her treatment. I can understand that. I have put all sorts of food restrictions on myself at various times. No dairy, no meat, all veggies. That didn't last long. And now that I'm chemo, I sometimes feel like I can have whatever I want, and the chemo will take care of anything bad. In fact, in some warped way, sometimes I think that it's GOOD if I eat chocolate and cheese and other 'bad' things because that will make the cancer cells grow faster, and then the chemo will work better. I know that's insane and unfounded. It's just a thought I sometimes have. I'm sharing.

Anyway, there is a point in the documentary when she questions why and how she got cancer - was it in the water? was it from drinking alcohol? was it from breathing second-hand smoke? Anyone with cancer wonders this. (Well, maybe lifelong smokers who end up with lung cancer don't wonder; or at least, they shouldn't. They probably do anyway.) The documentary was so simplistic and dull, and didn't really take it to the next step or think about cancer on a more philosophical level. Not like LeRoy Sievers, who blogs for NPR. It was just all about her. Sure, she reached out to other women with cancer. Other "celebrity cancer" patients, women who are connected and important, just like her. The more I think about it and write about, the more she annoys me. She talks about how cancer is a "catalyst" for change, but other than changing her diet, I'm not sure how she changed. She doesn't really talk about it.

And besides, I don't think that's how we should view cancer. I don't think I've changed that much because of cancer. I never needed the wake-up call that cancer gives. But it's changed my life, for sure. I wouldn't have LympheDIVAs without it -- but I'm sure I'd be doing something equally interesting and meaningful. I didn't need cancer to invest my life with meaning. It seems like the documentarian did.