A Whale of an indictment

By Nellie Curtiss . . . .

Last week Thursday, I selected The Whale from Paramount Plus Showtime app.  I had been resisting it since it was released last year. Branden Frasier stars in and received the academy award for his portrayal of Charlie.

As a shut in too, I had a hard time watching the movie. I stopped and started it several times over a week. When I finally watched it, I wanted to cry for Charlie, the morbidly obese virtual English professor who was cut off from others.

Right away I noticed that besides the tug at our humanity in the story, the movie is also an indictment aimed at all of us for not caring enough and at our medical systems that let shut-ins drop through the cracks in the flooring of their own apartments, so to speak.

I can attest to that. While Charlie would not have any of the medical care because the cost was too great others in our society experience local and national hospital systems as rude, unsympathetic, and without empathy. Some hospital systems document and ding patients for not meeting appointments even though they accessed the portal and sent an appropriate message about their illness keeping them from the appointment. It’s not conducive to a publicity campaign (We care for you!) to tell the patient to keep the visit to one medical issue when she calls for the appointment, when she checks in and when she has her blood pressure, temperature and oxygen levels logged before seeing the medical provider. The system doesn’t qualify as caring in my journal. When I visit Jackie Bennett, she has open ears, welcoming heart and mind to hear and see my medical issues from ingrown toenails to chronic pain from my many diagnoses.

The movie also charged us as a society to be kind to one another.  Charlie wanted most of all to be kind to his students and his daughter and the delivery guy.  After seeing his daughter, he repeatedly told her that she was smart and a strong writer. He even told her that her essay from 8^th grade on Moby Dick was the most “honest” and best essay he had ever read. Sometimes, the human in us needs to be cherished, appreciated, and encouraged.

So, kindness that tumbles out is sometimes the most motivating. My friend Barbara Casados has been kind to me. Since the local agencies will not provide a housecleaning aid as they are tasked to do, Barbara has been visiting me once a week to help me with various chores as my medical condition limits my mobility and range of motion to complete simple jobs like washing dishes, vacuuming, changing bedding, and folding clothes. It is the caring that makes me cry in gratitude having been without this care three plus years now.

The movie also asks us to give time to what we value. Is a teacher or professor helping others when she or he is so overworked personal health has toppled over into illness? We learn in the movie, that Charlie teaches online, and he does so to his own detriment—i.e. weight gain, isolation, loss of self care. He enjoys others like his daughter when they reach outh. It is known but not always followed that we have to care for ourselves before we can be of service to others. The flight crew tell us over and over again, in an emergency, slip oxygen mask over your face first before placing them on the children.

When you can, see The Whale and embrace kindness and honesty.

— Nellie Curtiss is a retired college educator and long-time local columnist. Reach her at columnsbynellie.com or email her at columnsbynellie@gmail.com