NARRATIVE EMPATHY THROUGH FILM: A CASE OF CANCER AND GENDER IN ORDINARY LOVE (2019)
Keywords:
empathy, narrative empathy, film, gender, illness narrativeAbstract
This research aims to investigate Ordinary Love (2019), the film directed by Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn through the narrative empathy framework. The research hopes to understand the mediation of illness experiences in relation to gender issues as well as the strategies employed to evoke audience empathy. It is found that the film recounts the breast cancer experiences of the protagonist including the physical and mental effects of diagnosis, medical treatment and chemotherapy. In the light of gender, the protagonist encounters an intersection between wifehood and her own patient identity. The gender aspects are, at last, minimized. The film presents the building of empathic communities among cancer patients and those surrounding them by means of bounded strategic empathy, which eventually contributes to the broadcast strategic empathy. Furthermore, the film challenges the representation of cancer in the Hollywood tradition focusing on individualism, the dramatic transformation and excessive glorification of human experiences. By understatement, the film positions illness as a part of common human experiences along with love, hope, and bereavement. The research thus asserts the potential of filmic texts for enhancing empathy; it can be further advanced in the context of medical education.
Downloads
References
Ahmadzadeh, Azin et al. (2019). Does Watching a Movie Improve Empathy? A Cluster Randomized
Controlled Trial. Canadian Medical Education Journal. 10(4): e4-e12.
Arnott, Robert et al. (2001). Proposal for an Academic Association for Medical Humanities. Medical Humanities. (27): 104-105.
Blasco, Pablo Gonzalez; & Moreto, Graziela. (2012). Teaching Empathy through Movies: Reaching Learners’ Affective Domain in Medical Education. Journal of Education and Learning. 1(1): 22-34.
Clark, Robert A. (1999). Reel Oncology: How Hollywood Films Portray Cancer. Cancer Control. 6(5): 1-6.
De Fiore, Luciano et al. (2014). Cancer on the Big Screen. How and When Movies Deal with Oncological Diseases. Recenti Prog Med. (105): 198-209.
DeShazer, Mary K. (2013). Mammographies: The Cultural Discourses of Breast Cancer Narratives. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Ellwood, Amy; Lenahan, Patricia; & Pavlov, Anna. (2005). A Life Cycle Approach to Sexuality. In Alexander, Matthew; Lenahan, Patricia; & Pavlov, Anna (Eds.). Cinemeducation: A Comprehensive Guide to Using Film in Medical Education. pp. 43-57. Oxford: Radcliffe Publishing.
Fernández-Morales, Marta. (2009). Illness, Genre, and Gender in Contemporary Television Fiction: Representations of Female Cancer in Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives. Women’s Studies. (38): 670–691.
Frank, Arthur W. (2013). The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.
Gallagher, Mark. (2009). Be Patient, Dear Mother…Wait For Me. Feminist Media Studies. 9(2): 209-225.
Jenkins, Catherine. (2018). Medical Imaging and Intrusive Gaze. In Scholl, Lesa (Ed.). Medicine, Health and
Being Human. pp. 162-176. Oxford: Routledge.
Karpinski, Eva C. (2013). Onco-Filmographics: The Politics and Affects of the Canadian Breast Cancer Documentary. Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature. 32/33(2/1): 163-187.
Keen, Suzanne. (2015). Narrative Form. 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mara, Miriam O’Kane. (2009). Reproductive Cancer: Female Autonomy and Border Crossing in Medical
Discourse and Fiction. Irish Studies Review. 17(4): 467-483.
Mathieson, Cynthia M.; & Stam, Hendaikns J. (1995). Renegotiating Identity: Cancer Narratives. Sociology
of Health & Illness. 17(3): 283-306.
Ristovski-Slijepcevic, Svetlana. (2013). The Dying Mother. Feminist Media Studies. 13(4): 629-642.
Selles, Johanna M. (2011). Empathic Communities: Educating for Justice. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stocks.
Sung, Hyuna et al. (2021). Global Cancer Statistics 2020: GLOBOCAN Estimates of Incidence and Mortality
Worldwide for 36 Cancers in 185 Countries. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. 71(3): 209-249.
Tracy, Tony. (2020). Ordinary Love. Estudios Irlandeses. (15): 305-308.
VandenBosch, Jim. (2020). Ordinary Love. Gerontologist. 60(6): 1182–1183.
Zeiger, Melissa F. (2013). “Less Than Perfect”: Negotiating Breast Cancer in Popular Romance Novels. Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature. 32/33(2/1): 107–128.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
บทความทุกบทความที่ได้รับการตีพิมพ์ถือเป็นลิขสิทธิ์ของวารสารสถาบันวัฒนธรรมและศิลปะ มหาวิทยาลัยศรีนครินทรวิโรฒ
