In recent years, public attention towards cancer has increased widely. More actors and film directors have also tried exploring and portraying the lives of the patients affected by a certain type of cancer and their families in the movies.
Movies that increase cancer awareness are an advantageous promotion. For one, it captures the attention of celebrities who in turn make huge donations to a rehabilitation center, hospitals and funds.
Some of them, including Jennifer Lawrence, George Clooney and Keanu Reeves, have also managed to set up and open their charity organizations.
Lawrence has her foundation supporting a wide range of charitable organizations to help fulfill the children’s important needs as well as encourage and promote arts awareness and participation.
On the other hand, George Clooney, another philanthropist and humanitarian celeb has 25 causes, including human rights, education and disaster relief. He and wife Amal Clooney co-founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice that focuses on Syrian refugees.
Mr. Clooney is also known for his passion to help in cancer research. In fact, he joined Stand Up to Cancer, which aimed at raising funds for innovative cancer research.
Keanu Reeves is another on the list of the most charitable Hollywood superstars known for donating to charity out of his heart’s kindness.
One of his activities is supporting children’s hospitals; an activity he kept a secret for years. He also founds and operates a private charitable foundation aimed at helping fund cancer research and children’s wards. [Reeves’ sister Kim was diagnosed with leukemia in the 90s.]
Movies that Promote Cancer Awareness
Stepmom
The movie is about a woman diagnosed with lymphoma – a terminal cancer. The patient, Jackie, played by Susan Sarandon, experiences a wide range of negative emotions. As a patient of a terminal cancer, she’s afraid that she won’t even get to see her children grow up. By the end, though, she accepted her fate and told her children that she’ll always be with them. This movie shows that cancer is a very painful disease for a patient, who then becomes so anxious about the future (death….), and that acceptance, at the end of the day, can set them free.
Dying Young
Julia Roberts plays the role of a companion/nurse to a 28-year old patient (Campbell Scott) with leukemia in Dying Young. The two fell in love but then the man decides to reject treatment to live his remaining days with her. This film portrays the side effects, including hair loss, appetite loss, severe vomiting and lethargy of what patients call “the poison” chemotherapy. It also tackles oncology issues, including anticancer diets, herbs and nutrition.
The Bucket List
The movie, starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, is about the things that the patients can accomplish despite cancer rather than any limitation that come with the disease and its diagnosis. Here, the two terminally ill patients escape from a cancer ward and wind up in huge adventures, learning about what humans are – strong and fallible – using their bucket list before they die.
Miss You Already
This movie is about friendship – with two women (Toni Collette and Drew Barrymore) in focus, featuring what they’ve been through together and exploring female friendships. Morwenna Banks, the screenplay writer, addresses life’s realities with breast cancer. It also tackles the issues after mastectomy in a relationship. For example, husbands might try to act normal with their wives after it, but then things are not that easy. In one intimate scene, the husband kisses his wife but then freezes when his hands land on the place where her breast was once. She leaves in tears with her self-conscious feelings about her changed body after the procedure.
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
This movie is an energized and slick movie, as described in reviews. It is about two terminally ill patients who break out the hospital for their final journey – to the sea. The two patients decide to spend the rest of their lives on how they want to live it rather than rotting in bed. It shows that some cancer patients do not want to undergo through the painful and tough treatments.
These stories about cancer can change the way that people think about cancer. They can have a huge impact to the patients, their families and all the rest of the world to know the realities of life to be diagnosed and to live with cancer.
The films can do a lot in the perspectives of people with cancer – finding reassurance and resolution in the insightful movies that tackle their disease. They also open the eyes of more people about what is life like not just for a patient but also for the people around them. They also show the side effects of the treatments – not only on the physical but also on the emotional aspects of life.
Definitely, movies about cancer are not only raising public awareness but also encouraging celebrities and philanthropists to do their part – raise funds for cancer research, build and open new cancer foundations and encourage people to become more aware and share their little acts of kindness to funding activities and movements for cancer.