Prostate Cancer Awareness Month does ….religion. Just how odd is that?
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Here’s a random Prostate Cancer Awareness Month fact.
Prostate cancer risk is strongly related to age: very few cases are registered in men under 50 and around three-quarters of cases occur in men over 65 years. The largest number of cases is diagnosed in those aged 70-74.
And here, under my humming, is a YouTube film…. go and watch it and then pop back.
Dum de dum de daaahhh…. (that’s me, waiting for you)
Ah! Hello again. Welcome back.
Did thoughts of crucifixes, God or Jesus occur to you at all whilst watching? Or smiley happy people and a particular style of God bothering?
Obviously, it did to me.
I gave you a random fact at the start, in order to make sure you came across a true fact about prostate cancer in Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. You wouldn’t have even half a one if you had relied on the film to inform you.
I’m sure the film must be a donation to the charity. You won’t have paid for it, if you have donated, so don’t fret about the waste. It is someone else's, not yours. But it is an utterly weird product.
What do you now know about prostate cancer that you didn’t 40 seconds ago? Nothing. Nothing at all. That must rate as the oddest promotion of awareness of any cancer, ever.
It even excludes any trace of the men in the largest 'at risk' group, for whom awareness of prostate cancer may actually mean something shortly. Nuts!
It looks fresh and neat, like a slick promo re-edited from footage filmed for a born again Christian set up, with that hilariously imitable US veneer of vacuousness lacquered on top, with added Sunshine, Joy and Teeth. And some most un-British looking scenery.
And it was about prostate cancer remember. I'm still pondering what men of Jewish or Muslim backgrounds would make of the imagery?
And now here are your follow up questions.
Using only the information in the film, to what useful outcome do you think the phrase ‘I’m aware’ relates?
And to which audience is the film appealing?
Based on the information you have just seen in this film please answer the following questions:
- Who is at risk of prostate cancer?
- What are the risk factors for prostate cancer?
- How important is further research progress in tackling the absence of an effective screening test?
- How important is further research in separating out the common, less threatening prostate cancers from the faster, more lethal cancers due to the medical uncertainty on predicting correctly which will kill and which will not?
- What organisation in the UK might be doing something about it?
- And what is that arms thing all about, if not God?
I know the answer to the last one. I know the answer to all of them, come to that.... but the arms thing is all about a logo and increasing brand awareness. Not men. Not prostate cancer. If you’ve been here before you know that I think dimly of muddling health promotion with brand identity to raise income, but I’m not dwelling on that this time…..
Why are men aged over 65 (and I can only spot one who might, just possibly, be over 50) the ones who might actually benefit from being ‘aware’, missing from this film?
Answer: Derrr. No one is bothered about the over 50's are they? Beauty's where its at. All the particpants are unnaturally attractive and joy filled, so what’s the beef? And the film wasn’t written for any one likely to construct a critique based on any knowledge of prostate cancer. It’s just empty clanging rhetoric, wrapped up in expansive feelgood fluff that delights the director. You could swap the logo at the end for a US TV ad for a church, or a life insurance company and it would make as much sense.
Christlike poses and eyes lifted heavenwards with exclamations of ‘I’m aware’ are neither unfortunate, ambiguous nor strange imagery to use to promote awareness of prostate cancer. Discuss.
Answer: Where do I start?...........
Being aware of prostate cancer is health promotion, not a cult.
Discuss.
Answer: It is a cult. End of.
Describe how this film promotes a) the health of men b) UK’s current National Awareness and Early Detection Initiative in cancer.
Answer a) It doesn’t and it’s not intended to. Men’s health hasn’t much to do with prostate cancer nowadays. Prostate cancer awareness is about emulating breast cancer awareness and if you think breast cancer is about women you’re mistaking me for a cardboard cut out, or you need 3D glasses for your activities of daily living and b) it’s a nice film by creative types, it’s not actually about prostate cancer awareness, or part of any Initiative on Awareness even though it is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month AND the word ‘aware’ crops up in most frames.
This film could be a recruitment drive, a call to arms, to gather volunteers who are then made ‘aware’ with some facts that they can distribute in the usual ways, but why exclude the men most likely to have personal experience of the issue? Bonkers.
Who knew transformation by joy was the result of awareness of prostate cancer, as this film seems to suggest?
It's all gone a bit too Moonie for me.
