Movie: Tig

Brand new (July 2015) Netflix movie on standup comedian Tig Nataro, who most people may know from her periodic appearances on This American Life. In 2013 she collapsed on the set of the movie she was doing, was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with a potentially fatal intestinal infection called C-DIFF. Shortly after her successful treatment, her mother fell and hit her head. She claimed to be okay but died of a brain hemorrhage two days later. They had been really close, so this hit her really hard. During her grieving for her mother Tig was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer. She had to have an emergency double mastectomy, but it was successful and the cancer had not metastacized. She elected not to have any reconstructive surgery, so now her chest is just flat, with scars but no nipples.

Up to this point the movie reminded me a lot of Julia Sweeney's "God Said Ha!" described separately below. Lots of people get cancer, including standup comedians, so it's not so bizarre that two of them would develope routines about it.

But Tig's next move was risky. She decided, at age 42, that she wanted a baby. As a cancer survivor she was not allowed to bear a child herself, but she could donate eggs to a surrogate. Harvesting eggs requires the same sort of hormone therapy that makes getting pregnant so risky (cancer apparently loves estrogen) but Tig was determined to give it a try. She went through several weeks of self-injections, had 16 eggs harvested, nine of them became fertilized by her sperm donor (a childhood friend -- Tig is gay) and one of them began developing.

So she had the one viable embryo implanted into a surrogate she found in Seattle.

It didn't take.

So Tig and her partner are now looking to adopt.

The movie was filmed as events unfolded (dunno why she allowed that) and although it was about a comedian it was not about her act, or being funny. It's about dead serious stuff, and a very smart and determined person at the center of everything.

It was riveting. (Sorry I gave away the whole plot. You'd still enjoy watching it if you get a chance.)

Without meaning to be disparaging, I have never understood the attraction of books or movies of this type. It just seems to be random, boring voyeurism. Every damned one of us has personal problems, sometimes of a more extreme nature that what is displayed in some film.

"Sometimes of a more extreme nature than what is displayed in some film" but sometimes not.  It's like watching car crashes or people falling down.  We're entertained by other peoples' misfortunes, because we know there's only so much bad shit in the world and if somebody else has got it, that means we won't.  

Or as Tig says in the movie, "They always tell you God never gives you more than you can handle.  Does that mean he's sitting up there, rubbing his chin... and he says, "I think she can handle a little bit more. Here ya go.""