But most importantly, how does she look?

When Angelina Jolie, a famous beauty icon in the modern media, made the choice to get a double mastectomy people in the public had a lot to say about her choices. A lot of the commentary about what she went through was inappropriate and insensitive to the seriousness of the situation.  

Jon Kopaloff/Film Magic

 The Daily Beast, a mostly gossip and news article cite,  posted an entire article about Angelina Jolie's double mastectomy. The article starts off by saying that, “There’s nothing sexy about a double mastectomy”. This article is instantly reducing the seriousness of a double mastectomy by sexualizing it. Not being “sexy” is far from the most important issue when one is dealing with a potential life threatening illness like cancer. The articles main purpose is to figure out whether or not Jolie's breasts will look normal again. They are only interested in the cosmetic aspect of the whole operation. They care little for her actual well-being and health.

            Media outlets such as this think it is okay to sexualize these cancer survivors because that is what people care about the most. People are more focused on beauty and appearance post cancer than they are with genuine emotional hardships and struggles with mortality that come with cancer. Focusing on appearance is a Band-Aid solution to a much deeper and sensitive topic that people do not want to have.

            Look Good Feel Better is a campaign that is built on helping cancer patients combat the appearance related side effects of cancer treatments. This program goes about helping individuals through makeup tutorials and demonstrations. The quick and easy fix to cancer is to put makeup on and feel better. Because if you look good, clearly nothing can be going below the surface.

This program is clearly not concerned with getting to the real conversations that could help. Not focused on why women are struggling so much or why cancer is so difficult to deal with. It is focused on fixing the surface level problems and making people seem happier and better. They could be encouraging conversations and discussions about how to feel good and confident despite maybe no longer fitting the “traditional beauty” standards. Instead, they push for conforming and ignoring what is really going on.

The Cancer Journals 

Audre Lorde, the black, feminist, lesbian, writes about her post mastectomy experience and how she felt the pressure from outside forces to cover up and move on. In her narrative about her experience, The Cancer Journals, Lorde writes that when leaving the hospital, the nurses strongly recommended that she wear the prosthesis given to her. Lorde did not feel comfortable or happy wearing the prosthesis but she did it anyways, because she did not feel like fighting it. Lorde realized that the prosthesis was pushed on her not necessarily for her own sake, but for others.

The nurse insisting that Lorde wear the prosthesis to keep up the appearance and moral of a breast cancer survivor is similar to what. Look Good, Feel Better is trying to do. The prosthesis just makes Lorde look “normal” to an outsider perspective, so no one has to know what she went through. But she will always know the difference and have to cope with it. Similarly, the Look Good, Feel Better campaign is about making women look and appear normal and healthy. Despite what they may have gone through all that matters is that they look normal to others.

It can be understood and respected that in fact some women do appreciate and enjoy campaigns such as the Look Good, Feel Better. For them, they may find comfort and solace in the connecting with their physical appearance post cancer. And there is nothing wrong with that. If it makes them feel good and better than that is great. However, the problem lies with when it becomes not about what the patient wants, but what other people want to see. People care what Angelina Jolie’s breasts are going to look like post mastectomy, not because they care that her decision makes her happy, but because it they want to still find her sexually attractive. If Jolie, a popular sex symbol, had decided not to go about implant reconstruction, people would have had things to say about it.

This all ties back to the obsession of the sexualization of women. Jolie is not the first or only women to experience being overly sexualized and be scrutinized post mastectomy. Women are constantly being forced to conform to beauty standards, even when they are dealing with life or death situations. They are encouraged to slap some makeup on and no one will know that they are suffering. No one will have to no what kind of pain they went through. All that matters is that they can still be traditionally attractive in the eyes of our society.

Sources

Lorde, Audre. The Cancer Journals. San Francisco, Aunt Lute Books, 1980.