Last year, I was watching a game, and the sportscaster mentioned the pink gear on the field. “Remember, it’s Breast Awareness Month.” His broadcast partner didn’t notice the gaffe, either.
Notice the Breasts!
Fight the Cancer!
:)
My wife is involved with an organization dominated by very nice, if occasionally dotty, older ladies. One Sunday a year, they hand out carnations at the church many of them attend in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness. One year, I was standing in the tiny foyer with two of them, feeding them bunches of flowers to hand out, and noticed as one of them, then, gradually, the other, slowly morphed their greeting to each congregant from “Breast Cancer Awareness” to simply “Breast Awareness.” My wife walked in, met my mortified gaze, relieved on of the lades, and gently reestablished the correct phrasing.
Wait, what did she do to the old ladies?
I’ve actually have not heard of “save the tatas.” Although I have heard of “save the hoo-hoos!”
Me too, if that wasn’t obvious before. Good for the Komen foundation and other groups for making their cancer the cute cancer, but other people need help, too. I’m tempted to ask if, once the NFL promotion is over, they are going to officially quit “raising awareness,” since that’s about as much awareness as you can get.
To be fair, there are some billboards and PSAs for prostate cancer screenings. Maybe not at the same prevalence, and there aren’t walks and ribbons for it as far as I know, but they do exist.
All the drug companies are doing that with their cancer drugs. While it’s worked in some cases, it’s generally not leading to huge improvements in survival time and it’s mostly a way of improving sales before patents expire, not opening up new avenues of research.
I appologize in advance if this gets long. First, I hope you are doing well in your recovery from lymphoma… and believe it or not, there are special colors to represent lymphoma. I don’t remember what it is right now, but my daughter has a bracelet with beads of different colors representing several different varieties of cancer. Our Oncologyst’s office has a chart showing all of the symbols/colors.
I have a son who was diagnosed with a lymphoma at the age of 8. It was a very rare version and I believe in the year prior to his diagnosis there were 40 some cases recorded world wide. He is (I suppose still is) part of a study and he is “patient 3”. We participate very actively in the Relay for Life which is the biggest fund raiser for the ACS so it is not “breed specific.” That aside I can’t fault a group that is making strides (pun intended) for their cause since I think any advances will likely have overlap into the other types. I doubt that I could get much momentum going for a cancer that affects 50 people a year even though that is the one that matters the most to me.
Now, to the OP. Humor is very important in this issue. Sometimes it is the only thing that makes it bearable. Sure, “Save the Ta Ta’s” may not be the classiest slogan, but it makes people think, and it makes some of us smile. Humor is critical in dealing with a serious situation. We had just finished telling my 8 year old son that he had cancer, and when he asked “will I die?” I had to honestly answer him “we will do everything we can so you don’t.” Later my wife quiped “well those talks about sex and drugs will seem like a piece of cake now.” We had a much needed laugh after too much time crying.
We all know that sex sells… so sell away. I have no problem getting more money into the pipeline to fight Breast Cancer and hope that the things they may learn there will help not only those people, but also those with other forms of the disease.
BTW… my son is now 13, athletic and healthy as can be. He had the H1N1 virus and fought it off with no problem even though he technically has a “compromised imune system.”
Last month, I attended a wonderful event (the first annual Denver Rare Beer Tasting) put on by “Pints for Prostates,” a group that’s using good beer to get men’s attention and then pass on the message about the importance of screenings.
Thank you. I am, indeed, doing well (clean for six years now). Good to hear about your son’s progress, too. It was five years after my treatment before my doctor said my immune system was back to normal.
Great to hear that… I seriously do know just how much that diagnosis can throw your life into a spin in a heartbeat.
It is good to look back and see how great things are now… my kid is a typical 13 year old boy… considered a bit of a Jock, but a truely nice and for the most part a very good kid. Sometimes though he thinks it is funny to play the “remember I’m the poor little sick kid” card. Like I said I think it is critical to keep a sense of humor even in the worst of times, and it is great to now be able to look back on things and laugh.
It seems the wife of someone here on the boards has or had another form of cancer, and they were somewhat bitter about the fact that she didn’t have the “good cancer,” where everyone was all sympathetic and rallied around them with ribbons and money. It truly changed the way I viewed all this “save the ta-tas” stuff, although I know quite a few women who have survived breast cancer and I am of course extremely sympathetic to the cause.
I think the awareness campaign started out of frustration that “women’s cancer” was being brushed off by the medical research establishment, and the community as a whole as not quite as important since, after all, it was only happening to women. (I am aware that it is rare but not unheard of for men to have breast cancer.) Another case of something experienced by only women to have second-class status. I’m not saying this was the case, but maybe merely the perception.
I guess this means that when one of my crew announced that she had to have a double mastectomy due to a recurrence of breast cancer, I should not have asked if she would donate her breasts for a fundraising auction to perverts on YouTube.
Or we shouldn’t have paddled about five kilometres out to a moored freighter so that another breast cancer survivor in the bow could jiggle her breasts and shout up “Hey, sailor, looking for a good time?”
And the eighty year old breast cancer survivor should not have danced in from the night into a dinner wearing only an orange negligee with prosthetic bras draped all over her, then danced out into the dark again.
I suppose I should not start our practices with one of the crew telling a joke, or when no one has a suitably offensive joke to tell, I should not simply ask everyone to laugh for a couple of minutes.
You know, surviving breast cancer is about life. Not just the fear, depression, serious and lasting side effects of treatment, physical disfigurement, and real risk of death. It is also about focusing on what is important in life, sharing love and laughter with family and friends, living life to the fullest regardless of how long of shot it may be, and supporting and lifting the sprits of others in their time of darkest need.
A slogan that raises an eyebrow or brings a chuckle? Why the hell not?
That should have been “regardless of how long or short it may be”
I suggest a brown ribbon for prostate cancer. If that isn’t sarcastic I don’t know what is.
Brown is already the ribbon color for ‘tobacco sucks’ and colorectal cancer awareness. And apparently it’s the alternate color for colon cancer. And George Carlin suggested an “eat shit” ribbon in one of his later HBO specials.Wikipedia’s list of awareness ribbons says more about the silliness of the ribbon thing than I possibly could.
Wow, it’s worse than I thought. How do you know what to be “aware” of when you see a ribbon with multiple meanings?
Then there’s this, from the discussion page,
Because it offends the very people it’s supposed to help. Because a lot of people know that, and thus think their being jerks. These people then go around telling everyone else about how jerky they are, and people have a tendency not to give away their money to jerks.
I don’t know how many people I’ve encountered that will no longer give money to this cause because they think the ads are jerkish.
And now let’s talk about lung cancer. Talk about the Rodney Dangerfield of carcinomas… Not everyone who gets lung CA smoked (and really, are we douchey enough to not sympathize with those who did smoke and now struggle for breath?). My FIL died of lung CA–not a smoker; he lived with one. Nice. He got the CA and the righteous BS (ok, not a lot, but really, any is too much).
I feel for those who don’t have the “popular” diseases that engender walks, and marathons and publicity ads. As sorry as I am to hear of anyone having breast CA, I must admit to a nauseated reaction at all that pink. There are plenty of soul sucking, horrible to live diseases that do not garner any sympathy or support whatsoever. And that truly sucks.
To get back to the OP, I also find “save the ta-ta’s” tacky and juvenile. I wish America was clever, like UK–they have PSA about testicular CA and doing monthly self checks that are not only amusing to watch, but also aren’t crude and patronizing. I don’t know if they feature PSAs re breast CA. (I can’t remember the name of the actress who did the testicular self exam ads. It was cheeky and fun, and it was posted here a few years back).
Just read some other comments. How does surviving cancer (or anything) suddenly give someone permission to act a fool? By all means, celebrate your life–but surely there are more productive (and just plain better) ways than exposing yourself to sailors? :dubious:
At least they have violet, indigo, periwinkle, and purple ribbons, so there’s a range of distinct colours. :rolleyes:
This is pretty much how I feel about it. If breast cancer did nothing more than disfigure or destroy the breasts then it would be a very unfortunate medical condition, but not worthy of the level of attention it receives. Breast cancer is a big deal because it is life-threatening, not merely breast-threatening.
I’m leaving out a long personal story about a close friend’s mother who died of breast cancer, but I think of her whenever I see one of those “Save the Ta-Tas” bumper stickers. This woman had a very dark and dirty sense of humor so I doubt she’d have been offended by the slogan, but I always think “No, I wish they had been able to save her. Her husband and children would have been happy to have her alive with or without her breasts.”
There are also plenty of women who have survived breast cancer thanks in part to mastectomies. This focus on the breasts rather than the person seems insensitive, even cruel, to these survivors. Should these women feel bad that they chose not to risk trying to save their breasts? Although this isn’t the intent, “Save the Ta-Tas” always strikes me as sounding like an anti-mastectomy slogan.
Like the OP I support breast cancer awareness but I hate the word “tatas”. I just do. It’s tacky. But apparently it works so oh well. A valid comparison would be a campaign for vaginal cancer called “Save your twat!” Attention grabbing, but still tacky. Especially in silver glitter across the chest.
In my most humble opinion, of course.