Story
When sarcastic teen, Alex, is “broken up with” by her oncologists who can’t wait to get rid of her, she’s ripped out of the chaotic hospital life she finds cozy, and sent back home to her multicultural family. Despite trying to pick up where she left off one year ago, her overbearing immigrant parents, hypochondriac sister, and MIA best friend have all moved on.
This is remission. But Alex doesn’t ring a bell to celebrate, throw on a cancer ribbon t-shirt, or organize a multi-million dollar fundraiser. Instead, she begs for her daily morphine drip, clings to her radiation mask as a safety blanket, reminisces about gory hospital stories, and plays heart monitor beeps in her headphones to fall asleep. Despite everyone’s high expectations of her, she can’t get herself to play the part of the inspirational survivor.
She’s a bad survivor and everybody knows it.
It's time to flip the script on how young cancer patients are portrayed on TV.
You're brave and angelic, they say. Certainly, the most popular boy in school will fall in love with us just before we ever so gently and beautifully pass away. Or, better yet, we're the side character, the distant friend, the one whose illness and subsequent death affects the main character's journey to becoming a better person.
But what about us? What about the balding weirdo whose personality hasn't completely gone to mush because a piece of paper says we have a tumor the size of a grapefruit in our chest, when we were just trying to lose our virginity, or at the very least make it through finals.
Alex Dvorak is the writer, co-director, executive producer, and lead actor of BAD SURVIVOR, which was inspired by the true events of her very first day in cancer remission at 19-years-old.
