Inspired by the Italian-speaking site maintained by a friend of ours, we question a long-established practice in the use – or rather, the NON-use – of words. Why is saying “incurable disease” wrong? The Agony Ass investigates.
The Agony Ass: incurable
Watch out for position of words because “The Agony Ass: incurable,” and “The agony: incurable ass” are definitely different things.
By the way, let’s get serious again. We are referring to the expression “an incurable disease” often used by journalists when a celebrity dies.
The term is generally associated to a malignant cancer, almost as if you could set free from its presence just by avoiding its name; this way of talking has often been present in families especially among the elderly but started spreading in media communication as well, and not just due to privacy issues.
Words matter
Our blog has been stating this since its beginning. Words are important and things should be called by their own names, including illness and death, because avoiding mentioning them does not serve to exorcise, rather it makes them invisible with all the consequences this can bring to people. It applies to “incurable disease” and likewise to the various unfortunate expressions referred to homosexuality or drugs:
- he shoots up
- he is high
- he’s a user
- he’s out of it
- he’s hooked
- “he’s a bit fruity” (to indicate a gay man)
- “he’s not quite right in the head” …
Or even for pregnancy: “she has bun in the oven”, “she eats for two”. Curiously, in Italian language we say “she’s in an interesting state” or “she’s sweetly expecting” – assuming that a pregnancy always means happiness. Or in the “interesting state” expression, it implicitly means “she had sex” referring to the discussions which could come after that: “with whom”?
Beating around the bush always brings up the opposite effect: how often do you pay more attention if someone is speaking softly? Or just saying “you know this happened but I can’t tell you more”, this behaviour is enough to cause interest; curiosity is awake at that point, especially for celebrities. The more you try to escape reporters, the more they chase you.
So although they know that “incurable or sudden illness” means everything and nothing, media keep on using these terms to search for sensationalism and who cares if someone really living with a disease, feels ashamed of their condition due to the bad habit of never finding it mentioned anywhere.
Incurable?
Saying “incurable disease” we are making a judgment that is not our business. did the guy die of cancer? Who guarantees us that the situation was irreversible from the beginning? How many times must someone have surgery, months or even years go by, then when time comes it is too late because the disease has been faster than doctors?
In one such case, not rare to hear about, the “incurable” state is caused by someone who couldn’t perform the right treatment at the right moment, for any reason.
We must be precise, however: media cannot and should not divulge someone’s health without the consent of the family members, and we would not want to force the spreading of sensitive data; what we are asking is to focus on people rather than on easy sensationalism and money. So, “he died after a period of illness” is more than enough! A short illness? A long one? From the outside, a few weeks or months is “a short illness,” but if you put yourself in the shoes of a caregiver, even three days can be a long time.
We should ask ourselves a fundamental question before publishing a news story: what information is really relevant? Is their illness relevant to the role they played in life? Why should we know that Mary died of breast cancer rather than anything else?
If she was sick a month, a year, three years, why should our readers know? “They died after being a period of illness!” That’s it!
Then it’s true, talking about health would become crucial if the person who died was a politician who was opposed to LGBT+ rights and only started antiviral treatment at a very advanced AIDS stage; in this specific case, what prevented him from dealing with HIV properly would have been his stigma-bearing political positions, and talking about it should have the sole purpose of denouncing that discrimination and homophobia bring to death.
HIV and unspoken words
Enzo Avallone, Italian dancer who was famous on TV in the early 1980s and died of AIDS in 1997, is an example of what we mean.
We report a quote from news published on January 4, 1997, the day after his death.
Dancer Enzo Avallone, better known by the nickname “Truciolo,” died yesterday at the age of 39 in Salerno “San Giovanni di Dio e Ruggi d’Aragona” hospital, where he had been admitted to the infectious diseases ward for several days. On the cause of death, doctors said nothing, entrenching themselves behind professional secrecy.
Other newspapers have been explicit about his disease, we care about pointing this out; but the matter remains unchanged: if you talk to me about death in the infectious diseases ward and hide behind professional secrecy, I immediately understand that you do not want to mention AIDS! This is called hypocrisy and it’s the main cause of stigma. True, that was 1997 with less awareness about correct words, but even now we are struggling to inform journalists about how to deal with this topic properly.
Paradoxically media don’t mention the virus when they should, then they talk about it (too much and badly) if the news is about sex abusers or criminal people in general, as if HIV could be a crime itself even where being on antiviral therapy eliminates the possibility of spreading it.
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