"Apple Cider Vinegar", Ableism & the Wellness Industry
[SPOILER ALERT: This piece contains spoilers for the Netflix series Apple Cider Vinegar.]
Disability and Determination is a weekly newsletter about my experience navigating life with a rare disability. If you like this post, feel free to give a click on the ❤️ symbol below. This will help me get discovered by others on Substack. To be notified of future posts, drop your email in the field at the bottom and click the Subscribe button. If you’d like to further contribute, I also offer a paid subscription option (that includes extra monthly content), or you can Buy Me a Coffee ☕ I’m glad you’re here ☺️
I got sucked into the latest Netflix series Apple Cider Vinegar last weekend. It’s based on the true story of Belle Gibson who faked cancer in order to launch a wellness empire. The absolute atrociousness of that aside, there’s one character in the show whose story really stood out to me. The whole series got me thinking a lot about ableism, medicine, the wellness industry, and how disability is perceived even in a progressive country like Australia, especially on the heels of my post last week.
In the show, one of the characters named Milla has aggressive cancerous tumors in her arm. Her medical team advises her that the only way to get rid of her cancer is by amputating that arm. Milla is a beautiful, successful young woman, and the idea of losing her arm is so frightening to her that she decides to try this institute in Mexico where they assert they can heal you from any kind of cancer with a method that uses coffee colonics and drinking juice for every meal for two years. Initially it seems like it works and Milla builds an entire empire on healing yourself naturally, but in actuality Milla’s is coming back even stronger than before, and she gets a terminal diagnosis.
Milla, though a fictional character in the show, is based on a real life person named Jessica Ainscough so their stories parallel each other in a lot of ways, including the deaths of their mothers after they were unsuccessful at beating cancer with the same alternative treatments their daughters tried. After an unsuccessful chemotherapy attempt, Jessica was told the only way to cure her rare cancer was by amputating her arm. None of us can know exactly what was going through Jessica’s head when she shunned her medical team’s advice and decided to try a method very similar to what Milla does in the show (called the Hirsch Method), and I don’t want to speculate or guess at what her reasons for her decision might have been. I’m going to focus on Milla’s storyline in the show only. Factually speaking though, the chances of Jessica’s survival were much higher if she had decided to have her arm amputated, but her cancer ultimately won, and she passed away at 30 years old.
There’s a scene in the show where Milla is at a retreat and sees someone else who lost their leg from the same kind of cancer she has. Milla looks at her with an expression of fear and even disgust at the thought of being like the other woman if she lost her arm. It’s gut-wrenching. I think it’s more than fair to be afraid of losing a limb or having your body change in such a massive way. It has to be a big adjustment going from not being disabled to being disabled.
Milla’s story is a testament to what kind of permanent impact ableism can have. It’s also a testament to how far society still has to go in the way it perceives people with disabilities. Milla is the victim of a society that told her that she wouldn’t be beautiful or worthy anymore if she lost one of her arms. No one should ever have to feel so scared at the thought of becoming disabled that they shun proven life-saving treatments.
The showrunner of Apple Cider Vinegar makes a very compelling point in why she wanted to tell Belle and Milla’s story and create this show. She sees it as:
a PSA about scammers in the wellness industry at a time when anti-vax sentiments and bogus COVID treatments became rampant at the height of the pandemic. She also hopes that the show will be a conversation starter about what might lead some patients to distrust doctors and put their faith in people like Gibson and alternative therapies. “There is absolutely a place for community and yoga and meditation. Drink your juice!” she says. “But listening to scientists and doctors doesn’t do us any disservice.”
I’ve certainly had my fair share of issues with Western medicine and I undoubtedly know more about my disability than any medical professional I’ve met in recent years. Ableism is certainly not absent in those settings either. Our health care system is very flawed in the United States. I’ve been trying to build my bone density back without medication too. I think natural and alternative treatments can be a great help alongside traditional medicine too. Doctors don’t always have all the answers and I think it’s more than reasonable to do your own research and ask questions. People of color and women also have to deal a lot more with not being believed by doctors and receiving inadequate (or even harmful) treatment so why would they put their faith in a system that often fails them? I do think doctors are the experts in a lot of cases though, at least in comparison to the internet or some random social media influencer. And if not them, the scientists who spent years and years tirelessly creating and testing the treatments we have available certainly are (as I wrote this, those people were almost all fired from one of the main federal governing medical bodies in the United States. I am terrified). There are way too many people out there like Belle Gibson and the people who created the bogus treatment that Jessica used that prey on people desperately looking for a cure for their own financial advantage.
There’s another scene in Apple Cider Vinegar where Belle has to deliver her baby that is no longer alive. As she passes the baby to her partner she says, “this was nature’s way of taking care of the fact that she wasn’t perfect”. Firstly…hello eugenics. I don’t know if the real life Belle ever said that, but it’s a gut-punch nonetheless. This is where it gets very tricky with some of the wellness stuff because a lot of it operates on the idea that if you get sick or you’re disabled, then it’s your fault. You did something wrong or your parents did something wrong when they were pregnant with you to render you with this “punishment” of having an illness or being disabled. And if you aren’t physically “perfect” then you weren’t worth being alive in the first place. This idea of wellness often operates on the idea that a) we need fixing and that b) the right combination of factors (getting vitamin D, eating well, etc.) will cure anything which is 100% not true. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be as healthy as you can and to look for whatever avenues might help with that, but when it starts to promote the idea that anyone who doesn’t fall into the “norm” needs fixing or healing, that’s when it becomes a problem.
Milla is a fictional character created for the show, but her story is a testament to how important it is to remove the stigma that being disabled has, especially for women. If women could be seen as beautiful regardless of if they’re missing an arm, a leg, have a limp, are in a wheelchair, are short statured, or Deaf, maybe the real life Millas could have been saved and gotten the treatment they needed before it was too late. Maybe there wouldn’t be so many hacks out there trying to take advantage of people and blaming them for their illness while not actually healing anyone.
February is Black History Month here in the States so I wanted to showcase a few great ways I’ve read to help and honor this important month (especially now).
Learn
Visit your local library. Ours has entire display up front dedicated to Black History Month
Check your public broadcasting channel lineups. PBS or anything related will often be airing important documentaries or series honoring Black History Month
Ways to Donate/Contribute
Find your local Black-owned bookstore and get books there (many ship too if you don’t have one close by)
Support local Black-owned businesses (not just in February but all year around)
❤️☮️
I literally stayed up all night to watch that series in one. So good. A dear, dear friend was diagnosed with rectal cancer. I was with her when the doctor told her the best course of action. It was early enough. Cut it all out, and go through a course of chemo, see where things stood from there. But she refused, because that would mean wearing a stoma. She couldn't bear that. Now, she was in her mid-70s, her husband had already passed away. She wasn't going to go to the beach in a bikini. But the standards of what's "beautiful" and "acceptable" -- even/especially personally -- are rooted deep. The cancer was more aggressive than thought, she ended up with the stoma, and 9 years of aggressive and experimental treatments that left her unable to walk for much of it. She lost her independence. Yes, she bought time. She also incurred great pain...agony, even. Broke my heart.
Coming from verbal/emotional abuse, I took Belle's "perfect" statement a little differently. Clive said, "She's perfect," and Belle wanted to hurt him (clearly, his attention was not on her). Not discounting your take at all. When that line was delivered, it was right out of my mother's playbook. Get the book THE WOMAN WHO FOOLED THE WORLD. It's really well done. So is this. Cheers, Jackie. xo
Thank you for this thoughtful piece! I think the show did such a great job exposing just how dangerous these wellness influencers and our ingrained ableism can be.
I find the fact that the character of Milla blamed herself for her cancer diagnosis to be both fascinating and disturbing. It's so sad that, especially for women, we have been conditioned to so often believe that we are in the wrong. That it's our fault we're not right or perfect. And why is chronic illness/disability thought of in this way? That you're somehow "bad" if you are disabled and it must be your fault. It's so sad that ableism is so deeply rooted that it can cause someone to believe that.