What is the value of the 2011 film 50/50? Despite leading a profoundly healthy lifestyle, which includes no smoking, no drinking, no drugs and not even possessing a driver’s license to partake in what he considers the associated perilous activity, twenty-seven-year-old Seattle Public Radio journalist Adam Lerner, in the 2011 film, 50/50, is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. After getting over the initial shock of the diagnosis upon which he could not fixate on the word “cancer”, Adam reads online about his specific type of cancer – schwannoma neurofibrosarcoma – the article he reads which reports a 50% survival rate.
His primary medical doctor, Dr. Ross, prescribes a course of chemotherapy to shrink the tumor afore they can even contemplate the risk taking surgery to abstract the remnant of the cancer which is located on his spine. Beyond the variety of emotions Adam goes through related to his diagnosis and his treatment, he additionally goes through a range of emotions in understanding to the use and support provided by the sundry people in his life.
They include: Diane Lerner, his overbearing mother who he believes has become even more overbearing with this news, especially as her life is spent solely dealing with Adam’s father’s Alzheimer’s; Rachael, his girlfriend, who must decide whether to stay with him as they were just at a good place of taking their relationship to that next level or calling it quits when Adam was first diagnosed; Kyle, his SPR colleague and best friend, who aims to cheer Adam up by the positive, mostly in that Adam can get laid by anyone he wants by playing the sympathy card (and in turn Kyle can get his fair portion riding on Adam’s coattails); Alan Lombardo and Mitch Barnett, two older fellow chemo patients who become the human faces of cancer to Adam; and Katherine McKay, a twenty four year old Ph. D. candidate who is assigned his psychological therapist, he who is only her third such patient which shows in her sometimes inelegant but well-meaning textbook actions.
The values that people will take away from the film are First, just because someone is a great person, does not indicate anything awful will ever happen to them. Secondly, the way of how someone deals with the diagnosis of a disease will either make them more strong or bitter. Third, the knowledge that someone ill learn in dealing with the disease will avail them throughout their lifetime, conclusively, the greatest value people will take away from this movie is no one should never wait until they are diagnosed with a disease to live their life to the fullest.
First, in the film 50/50, Adam Lerner endeavors to be the impeccable guy. He follows all the rules and never complains about anything. Such as in scene 1, he decides to go for a morning run. When he gets to the pedestrian sign that says not to cross. He ceases, but then someone else decides to cross because there were no cars passing. He decides to still wait until the light says that he can cross and then crosses the street. In scene 5, Adam and Kyle are heading into work and they are a minute or two late. Adam apologizes to their boss and tells him that it will not happen again.
His boss doesn’t think it’s a big deal, but Adam does. In the same scene, Adam tells his boss that the volcano piece he is doing for the radio is virtually done, but he is having a difficult time with a guy that he interviewed. The guy keeps clearing his throat and talking an extravagant amount of time in the interview and never takes pauses. His boss tells him that it is fine and walks away. Kyle tells Adam no one is going to care about the imperfections in the interview that someone is only going to listen to for one or two seconds while they are stuck at a red light. Kyle’s demeanor is kindred to the fable “The tortoise and The Hare”. The tortoise took his time in racing the hare.
The tortoise was slow and steady and ascertained he did everything right. The tortoise did not want to rush through anything to just be done and beat the hare. Adam takes his time and ascertains he does everything accurately. He doesn’t want to rush through anything thing just to be done with it. Second, the way that people handle a situation when they are given a pernicious diagnoses will either make a more sufficient person or a bitter person. In the 50/50, when Adam is told by Dr. Ross that he has a rare form of cancer, Adam tries to deduce how this happned. He considers himself an exceptional person. He does not drink, smoke and even recycles.
He takes the news of his cancer remotely fine. When he gets home, he looks up the cancer that he has on a medical website called WebMD. He then tells his girlfriend Rachel and even offers her an out in their relationship. He does not want her to be compelled to deal with his illness, but he honestly does not want her to leave either. She tells him no, that she will stay and they will get through this. Next Adam tells his friend Kyle, and his reaction to the news is what someone would have expected from Adam. Kyle asks Adam what type of cancer he has. Adam tells him the type and then Kyle asks, what are the chances of him surviving this type of cancer?
And Adam responds saying it is a 50/50 chance. Kyle then asks Adam when he is going to tell his Mom. Adam tells him that he is not going to because she would lose her mind if she knew he had cancer. In the textbook “Life Span Development a Topical Approach”, chapter 4, “Health and Wellness”, talks about defensive coping. Defensive coping is defined as insensate strategies that divert or gainsay the true nature of a situation. For example, this is what Adam is doing. He did not to make his cancer an immensely big deal because he did not want to worry anybody, but in my opinion, Adam did not want to not make is cancer into a huge deal because he did not want to deal with it.
The lesson someone learns in the midst of dealing with a pernicious disease will last a lifetime. Such as when Adam received his cancer diagnosis. Adam learned who his true friends were and how consequential family is. Before his cancer diagnosis Adam did not have an exorbitant amount of communication with his mother. Whenever she endeavored to call him, he would not pick up the phone or when she left a message, he would not call her back. This transmuted on the morning Adam was having his surgery. His mother and father were by his side as the doctors were getting ready to take him in for his surgery. When his Mom reached down to give him a hug, he embraced her tightly and told her that he was scared.
She told him everything was going to be alright and it was. This is reminiscent to the article “Parents if you want to be Right, Prover yourself wrong”. The parents in this article thought that integrating speed bumps to the roads in their neighborhood would obviate people from speeding, but once they did their researched they learned that speed bumps do more harm than good. The most consequential vale people will take away from the 2011 film 50/50 is that they should not wait until they are diagnosed with a terrible disease in order to live their life to the fullest, such as when Adam didn’t really live his life until he was given a terrible diagnosis.
People should live their lives each day like it is their last day on earth. Before Adam’s cancer diagnosis, he just went through life without authentically “living” it. All in all, the values that people will take away from the film are, just because someone is a great person, does not mean anything awful will ever transpire to them, the way someone deals with the diagnosis of a disease will either make them strong or angry, the lessons that someone will learn in dealing with the disease will last throughout their lifetime, conclusively, the greatest value people will take away from this movie is no one should never wait until they are diagnosed with a disease to live their life to the fullest.
