{"id":43,"date":"2010-08-16T10:03:47","date_gmt":"2010-08-16T10:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/08\/is-showtimes-big-c-an-honest-depiction-of-life-with-life-threatening-cancer.html"},"modified":"2010-08-16T10:03:47","modified_gmt":"2010-08-16T10:03:47","slug":"is-showtimes-big-c-an-honest-depiction-of-life-with-life-threatening-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/08\/is-showtimes-big-c-an-honest-depiction-of-life-with-life-threatening-cancer.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Showtime’s “Big C” an honest depiction of life with life-threatening cancer?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a YouTube edited version<\/a> of Showtime’s The Big C<\/a>, <\/i>officially premiering tonight at 10:30 PM ET.  The show stars Laura Linney as Cathy Jamison, a wife (actually estranged from her husband), mother and school teacher who, after being diagnosed with stage IV melanoma<\/a> decides to spend whatever time she has left (she’s uninterested in seeking treatment or even a second opinion) engaging in as much allegedly witty and snarky repartee as possible. <\/p>\n

Remarkably, despite her late stage diagnosis, her character seems virtually symptom free. <\/p>\n

While seeming to be intended as Emmy bait for Showtime, the whole exercise leaves me cold. The dialogue seems forced and any real sense of emotion kept at arm’s length. The physical side of the disease is virtually ignored yet we’re apparently supposed to consider the the show to be honest.  <\/i><\/p>\n

At one point, Linney’s character  makes reference to the Mel Gibson movie The Patriot <\/i>and describes the film as being at best about 20% accurate in its depiction of the American Revolution. I think that percentage would be generous regarding this show’s relationship to what real cancer patients actually go through.   <\/p>\n

Who knows where The Big C<\/i> is going (perhaps the smug writing will improve) but, for what it’s worth, my advice to the creative people at work here would be tone down the clever and tone up the real. Some snark-free depictions of honest human-to-human kindness and forgiveness might be a good start. <\/p>\n

Am I being too hard on the show? What’s your opinion?   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a YouTube edited version of Showtime’s The Big C, officially premiering tonight at 10:30 PM ET.  The show stars Laura Linney as Cathy Jamison, a wife (actually estranged from her husband), mother and school teacher who, after being diagnosed with stage IV melanoma decides to spend whatever time she has left (she’s uninterested in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-television"],"yoast_head":"\nIs Showtime's "Big C" an honest depiction of life with life-threatening cancer? - Catholics Media and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/08\/is-showtimes-big-c-an-honest-depiction-of-life-with-life-threatening-cancer.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Showtime's "Big C" an honest depiction of life with life-threatening cancer? - Catholics Media and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here’s a YouTube edited version of Showtime’s The Big C, officially premiering tonight at 10:30 PM ET.  The show stars Laura Linney as Cathy Jamison, a wife (actually estranged from her husband), mother and school teacher who, after being diagnosed with stage IV melanoma decides to spend whatever time she has left (she’s uninterested in…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/08\/is-showtimes-big-c-an-honest-depiction-of-life-with-life-threatening-cancer.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholics Media and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-08-16T10:03:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John W. Kennedy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is Showtime's \"Big C\" an honest depiction of life with life-threatening cancer? - Catholics Media and Culture","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/08\/is-showtimes-big-c-an-honest-depiction-of-life-with-life-threatening-cancer.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Is Showtime's \"Big C\" an honest depiction of life with life-threatening cancer? - Catholics Media and Culture","og_description":"Here’s a YouTube edited version of Showtime’s The Big C, officially premiering tonight at 10:30 PM ET.  The show stars Laura Linney as Cathy Jamison, a wife (actually estranged from her husband), mother and school teacher who, after being diagnosed with stage IV melanoma decides to spend whatever time she has left (she’s uninterested in…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/08\/is-showtimes-big-c-an-honest-depiction-of-life-with-life-threatening-cancer.html","og_site_name":"Catholics Media and Culture","article_published_time":"2010-08-16T10:03:47+00:00","author":"John W. 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Kennedy","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d80\/d801bc09698c0995d9ae402b4b55ab61x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d80\/d801bc09698c0995d9ae402b4b55ab61x96.jpg","caption":"John W. Kennedy"},"description":"John W. Kennedy is the founder and Dir. of Development of The Creative Universe Entertainment\u2122, a media consultation and development company focusing on the creation, development and support of high-quality mainstream entertainment that upholds positive timeless values, including trust in God. Current projects include \"Bryant Park\" (an uplifting romantic-comedy) and \"Photo Finish\" (an award-winning sci-fi TV pilot). He has written over 100 children's novels based on episodes of the Cartoon Network series \"Ben 10\", \"Ben 10: Alien Force\", \"Ben 10: Ultimate Alien\", \"Ben 10: Omniverse\" and \"Generator Rex\" among others. He also writes Beliefnet\u2019s \"Faith, Media & Culture\" blog. Previously, he has produced successful news and talk programming for CNN, Fox News, Pax TV and SiriusXM. Specialties: Script Writing, Movie\/TV Novelizations & Adaptations, TV Content Creation and Development, Creative Consultation, Producing and Booking News and Talk shows. 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