Film Diaries

Each day is a new opportunity to seize the day. In health, we strive to maintain equilibrium with our imperfect selves: salivating with each decision (and there are many to make), preparing ourselves for the week ahead. It is easy to forget the simple pleasures of life as we know it. I myself remain guilty of selfish patterns. Taking for granted that I even have the choice to decide this or that. Sometimes, life gives us limitations when we least expect them. In this case, Cathy is given a cancer diagnosis that brings her into a whirlwind of choice. I ask myself: is it free will or do we keep our hands tied behind our backs because we believe that we are making the right choice? Are we living life to our full potential? Are there things that are within our reach but we simply not taking action? These, I believe, are essential questions as it pertains to humanity.

When I first started watching The Big C, I wondered — what does the C even stand for? Within minutes, I understood completely. It was Cancer. As we arrive to the season of Summer, we are in Cancer season. June 21st marks the inception of this astrological shift, bringing about the emphasis of emotion, intuition, and home. Cathy Jamison is also a Cancer; steaming in her own despair as she navigates the news. She’s very intentional in her actions, deliberately keeping herself in a shell — as most Cancers do — withholding such a vital piece of information from her immediate family. At first, I believed that she was saving them from pain, keeping it for just herself. Then quickly, I realized that it didn’t feel right because it just seemed like an excuse for her to lose her morality. She soon began to make decisions based solely on the fact that she may very well die.

It’s interesting the way that a person can change their perspective on life when given a time frame of death. Suddenly, you ask yourself: have I done everything I’ve wanted to do? Do I feel happy where I am now? Where can I go? Why didn’t I take that trip to Italy? Why did I paint my living room such a distasteful beige color? I fucking hate this couch. A spiraling erosion peaks and there is no turning back. This is what happened to Cathy and she seemed to become self destructive. I admired her whimsical approach to life at this point. She was grabbing it by the balls and saying: This is what I’ve always wanted and I’m taking it. Still, it was destructive in every sense of the word.

I gained intense perspective on the notion of death. We don’t wake up thinking about dying because that’s not normal. I think it’s rather normal to consider death as an inevitable event, yet we must not consider it as a means for living. We must live in the present and do for the now. That’s what we’ve been told anyway. Dying is a taboo subject. I’ve read the Tibetan Book of The Dead and it does say that we should never be alone on that journey to the light. Cathy reminds us that as humans, it’s very possible to fall into the mundane: routines, acceptance, neglect. We let things happen and continue to because we believe that there is no point in changing them. Sometimes, in the routine, we do not wish to disrupt what has always been the norm. I say to hell with that! We cannot just accept things for what they are, even if they were just always been. I want to own my life in every way possible.

Cathy remains in this frame of mind: free will. She had recently told her husband that she wanted time apart, found out about her Cancer diagnosis and decided that she would keep it to herself. During this time, she is still employed as a high school teacher and meets a love interest, played by Idris Elba, who brings her into an aroused state. The complete opposite of her husband, he introduces her to an isolated sort of love affair that is unlike what she’s used to. She’s always been with Paul and this was not the sort of thing that ever occurred. I found it interesting that she would have such an affair, except it also made sense because she was such in a self destructive mode. In her mind, she was living as freely as possible. Taking life by the reigns and doing what she pleased. I believe that engaging in this made her think that she was not just a woman with Cancer, but one that was still attractive to someone. When she was with him, she wasn’t just a Cancer patient or someone who was dying, she was someone who was living.

Cancer as a medical condition, a disease, an illness. A tragedy that immerses itself in ways that make you want to sob. I cried a lot watching this show because there was a horror aspect to it. Something like that, you can’t always foresee it. There is an element of surprise: frightening, terrifying, saddening. At any moment, you can just find out that you may have Cancer. And then what? The choice presents itself of treatment or no treatment. Cathy chose to not undergo any because she wanted to enjoy the time that she had left. Some would call it selfish because of course, her family, if they knew, would advise that she should. They want to have her around for as long as they can. Yet, we have to consider how Cathy feels in this case. She wants to live her life on her own terms. Can we fault her for denying chemo therapy — becoming a debilitating sick person with hair that falls out and no energy to make dumb, last minute decisions? It’s like the right for a person to have a choice over their own body. Every individual should be able to make that choice even if it means that they are making a choice that others wouldn’t.

Cathy was dying and she decided that it was best not to tell her family. Her husband staying at his sister’s house, her son enthralled in her own shenanigans. She made a choice that would make any viewer question her integrity due to the extent and severity of the circumstances. I judged her in the beginning and I still sort of do, but I’ve begun to understand the nature of her choices because they were her own. It’s difficult to comprehend these sort of things when we are not experiencing them. I who have never known, may never truly grasp the emotions that could have been running through her mind as she withheld her diagnosis. This, of course, doesn’t excuse her erratic behavior and we can still hold her accountable. Her son, played by Gabriel Basso, was just a kid that was used to his dad being around. When he wasn’t, there was confusion. I think that as the show progresses, we can see that he begins to develop into maturity. Without a doubt, there are still many holes in his development, but that doesn’t mean that he did not grow to recognize what was going on around him.

I am currently on season 3 of this show and will return with more thoughts.