A small controversy in the cancer community:
The Madison, Wisconsin branch of the national organization "Gilda's Club" is changing its name to Cancer Support Community Southwest Wisconsin.
Gilda's Club provides services to cancer patients of all ages and their families, free of charge. It is named, of course, for Gilda Radner, the very funny SNL alum who faced cancer with such humor and dignity. After she was diagnosed, she said, "Having cancer gave me membership in an elite club I’d rather not belong to." Her friends began Gilda's Club as a tribute to her memory.
The Madison branch realized that most of the people they were serving were born after Gilda had died, and had never heard of her. Since they rely on donations, and since people who need cancer support (especially young people) Google "cancer," they though they would be more easily found if they had the word "Cancer" in their name.
People are up in arms about this decision, and are flooding their Facebook page with comments. They see it as an insult to Radner.
In some ways, it isn't really a controversy. Radner herself got support from a place called The Wellness Community, and Gilda's Club merged with them a few years ago, creating a new group called Cancer Support Community. The local chapters had the option of choosing any of those three names, and some did change. So the Madison group isn't really doing anything radical -- they're just doing it a few years later than some other folks.
I can understand people being upset, though. For one thing, cancer patients like stability; we have enough change to worry about, and a change from something they see as positive is liable to upset them. For another thing: I think we all worry about being remembered, and it makes us sad to think that someone who was once so famous, and brought so much joy to so many people, is now so obscure that she's hurting the fundraising for the cause she cared about so much. That can't make any of us feel good to think about.
Her husband, lymphoma survivor and brilliant comic actor Gene Wilder, was asked what he thought about it, and he said he didn't like it, but he understood, and he offered an imaginary conversation between himself and Radner:
He said if he had to break the news to his late wife she might ask, “Do they have to throw me out?”
“I’d
say, ‘It’s not throwing you out, honey, it’s getting more money.’ And
she’d say, ‘OK, I guess if they have to, they have to,’” he said. “It’s
too bad. I wish it weren’t so. But I understand.”
So I guess we should understand, too. As long as all of those pictures of Gilda stay on the walls, and maybe if the rooms named after he various characters aren't changed, her memory will stay. And maybe some of those young folks will ask "Why the heck is this called the Roseanne Roseannadanna Room, anyway?"
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2 comments:
Hope that they can find a way to keep her name in there. Add "cancer", keep "Gilda".
Meanwhile, here's an appropriate comic.
Nice comic -- that certainly sums things up nicely.
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