Pink Ribbons, Inc.

As the Founder and President of a non-profit organization which raises funds for breast cancer research I found Pink Ribbons, Inc. disturbing and unproductive. I was inclined to rattle off each offense and elaborate on why I disagree. After having settled down a bit I will, instead, express a concise reply.

I fear this film stigmatizes the business of raising funds for a worthy cause into something ugly and disingenuous. I fear movie viewers will be confused and demoralized by the film's ugly message. And, I fear past supporters may feel so degraded and shamed by this film that they will choose to direct their efforts and money elsewhere.

We at The Lynn Sage Foundation agree that a collaborative approach to medical research is ideal and that activism can be constructive. Transparency is essential. Research into environmental causes of cancer is also very welcome. Funding worthy projects is simply not possible without the aid of corporations and individuals. Government dollars are scarce and dwindling.

While their were some useful messages within the movie, the emphasis placed on sensationalism and inaccuracies is useless. We, and we presume many of our non-profits peers, would welcome the help of corporations, individuals and associates to collaborate on finding the causes, better treatments and a eventually a cure for this terrible disease.

Same old story: charities profiting from people's struggles with sickness. Whether it's big names like Ferragni and Balocco or small research institutions studying rare diseases, the scheme is always the same.

Does the cheerful image built around breast cancer really help ill women, or does it hide the harsh truth? We still don't know what causes it, treatments haven't changed in 50 years, and survival rates are the same. Where's the donated money going? How's it used? Before you join the next charity run, think about it. Donations often end up in basic science and flawed research models that don't help people. Big institutions, inclluding the health care industry, benefit, and those in it make a living from the funds. The main focus here seems more on cashing in for personal gain. The prevailing notion that a complex problem can be solved by simply pouring money into it is a quintessentially American capitalist mindset, albeit fundamentally flawed.

While I don't agree with some of the main points made by the documentary, I appreciate the film's honesty in discussing the corporate culture that has become pervasive in breast cancer fund-raising. I find it bizarre that there is this culture in the US that seems to think that throwing money at a cause with inevitably lead to solutions. The film makes a great point about holding the health and research industry more accountable. People are pouring money down the drain funding basic science research and incorrect mouse models that will never be translated into treatments for human beings. They are supporting monolithic institutions like the research and health care industries that have their own self-interests at heart. Researchers and medical professionals make their livelihood off of this funding. The majority of them don't have any real interest in finding a cure when they can milk the cash cow for their own benefit for years.

Only among the left-wing lunatics that make documentaries for the National Film Board of Canada could one find the kind of person who would complain that the experience of getting a deadly disease is made somehow less dignified because of its association with corporate giving. Author Barbara Ehrenreich, cancer survivor, complains about everything she can think of: that anti-cancer activists are annoyingly upbeat, that some of the products sold to support breast cancer research are cuddly or cute, that the grim, sad, angry sorts of cancer patients out there don't get enough airplay. This documentary remedies that with several wrenching interviews with weeping cancer patients suffering from end -stage cancer. See, audience? What do you think of those stupid little ribbons now, huh?

Samantha King even goes so far as to call an upbeat attitude in he face of the disease "tyranny." As in "tyranny of cheerfulness."

The Susan G. Komen Foundation ran afoul of feminists a few years back by daring not to support Planned Parenthood's abortion-on-demand factories. It seems Lea Pool and her backers at the National Film Board have fired a dark and angry salvo back at the "pink ribbon" industry that, if the film's subtext is anything to go by, is guilty mainly of making it more difficult to politicize the disease and make it the realm of angry feminists with anti- capitalist leanings.

Well-produced, but probably not a fair portrayal of mainstream and corporate anti-cancer efforts. Cynical and borderline juvenile in its contrarianism. C+.

[...]The film looks at the issue from many different aspects. It looks at the marketing of a disease, and what could be called the "breast cancer industrial complex," in which many corporations are profiting from women's pain. They, of course, look at the amount of money that Komen spends on marketing, legal battles, and executive salaries versus the comparatively small amount that it contributes to research. It also examines the environmental hypocrisies of the pink ribbon movement, including the fact that many of the corporate sponsors of the movement have historically used products linked to cancer, such as Yoplait using RBGH-containing dairy. It looks at the fact that so little funding is designated to examining potential environmental causes such as pollutants, and the clear conflict of interest that would involve given the industrial contributors to Komen.

The film also explores the problems with Komen's messaging. They speak to a support group of women living with stage four breast cancer, who talk about how it feels to have cancer paraded as something pink and pretty and normal. (The filmmakers typically juxtaposed these interviews with shots of people at Komen race events waving pink pompoms and streamers and cheering.) They spoke candidly about how they feel that there is not a place for them in the current dialogue surrounding cancer, as they are viewed as the "angel of death" in a typical group of people living with breast cancer. They also touch on the sexualization of the disease, speculating that one of the reasons that it receives so much media attention is that it affords people the opportunity to say "breast" on the news. All of these interviews were incredibly poignant, articulate, and at times heart-wrenching, and while in general I would have liked to have had interviews with more people overall, the subjects that were featured were chosen very wisely.

This is an exemplary work of activist documentary filmmaking. Unlike some other examples of the genre, it does not beat you over the head with emotional pleas (though some moments are incredibly emotional), but rather calmly lays all of the rational arguments out before the viewer. It is a difficult task to take down a giant like Komen, but this film firmly does so with elegance and grace.

Read the full review here: http://mattreviewsstuff.com/2012/04/28/pink-ribbons-inc/