If you’ve been following the recent series of deaths in the entertainment world, you likely noticed that both Alan Rickman and David Bowie died of cancer. What kind? The otherwise very specific obits did not mention that fact.
The Washington Post had an excellent article today examining the question of why the obits omitted the type of caner. Post obituary editor Adam Bernstein told reporter Ian Shapira:
“If we pus too much, it carries the risk of sound to the family like we have a lurid obsession. But ‘cancer’ is very general. It’s like saying someone died of a ‘disease.’ Well, what kind of disease?”
There can be a range of reasons someone wants to keep information about the type of cancer private – especially when the type might imply something negative about the person. For example, people with lung cancer are often blamed for their own death because they were smokers, or liver cancer because of alcohol or drug abuse.
I can understand that, but I also think that it is good for all of us to understand that these diseases are evil things and that we should not be blaming the patient for their own suffering. And, as a cancer survivor myself, I think it is essential we focus on the detection and treatment of cancer rather than looking for people to blame. (I had a stage 1 melenoma on my upper arm about 14 years ago.) I will also confess that as a journalist I am always curious as to why people die. I always look for cause of death in obits, and I’m always sorry when I don’t find it, especially for a younger person.
For the rest of you who think too much a about these sorts of things, I highly recommend Carl Hiaasen’s comic mystery novel Basket Case,
(If you go searching, you can find reports that Bowie died of pancreatic cancer or of liver cancer. None of this has been confirmed by multiple sources, at least as far as I can tell.)
As a fan and cancer survivor, I was curious which type of cancer he had. Not because I thought he might have had my own type — although men can and do get breast cancer — but because I felt a sort of kinship with Bowie as someone who also has cancer. I’m also curious what media dimension, model or theory this represents. Emotional? User Gratification? Which theory explains when viewers connect through shared experience with a mass communicator?