Pink Ribbons, Inc. (Léa Pool, 2011): Canada

Reviewed by Matilda Frid. Viewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival.

Women all over the world are coming together to beat a common enemy. Companies are donating money to research. Survivors are running through the streets to cheerful music and cure-cheerleaders. You can buy almost anything in pink and therefore support the fight against breast cancer. It sounds like everything is going really, really well. But is it really? Are we making progress or is this culture just being used to make money?

This documentary starts with one of the many events that are being held to raise money and awareness towards breast cancer. Avon is organizing a walk and everyone is dressed in pink, smiling and cheering. Slowly we get to see a new side of this. The breast cancer cause is actually being exploited by companies that just want to profit. But buying the pink teddy bears and blenders don’t generate that much money at all. In fact, if people just wrote a check they would probably contribute so much more. The documentary focuses on corporations that are labeling this as a dream cause, making tremendous amounts of money on tricking people into believing that they are contributing. The documentary is skeptical to the Pink Ribbon movement and blame capitalism for how the original idea of the ribbons were used and transformed into something pink, shiny and profitable. “Pink Ribbons, Inc.” show us a different side of the breast cancer movement.

I don’t have anyone in my family that have died from breast cancer. I don’t even know anyone that have been diagnosed with breast cancer. Yet I’m terrified of this disease, and I should be. As they mention in the beginning, the only really known risk factor is simply being a woman. I don’t know that much about documentaries, but I actually enjoyed this one. The subject is a very important woman’s issue that reaches out to everyone. Everyone is affected by breast cancer (or cancer in general). Whether you have had the disease, know someone who had it or maybe you just happen to belong to the female population that might get it. They presented many facts and ideas I have never thought about before. I realized that I was fooled by the Pink Ribbons just like so many other men and women who believe they’re doing the right thing.

Some scenes were very moving and really got to me. The stage 4 women, crying while they tell us there is no stage 5 gave this documentary a touch of sadness in the middle of all the fighting spirit and anger. Unfortunately, I felt like this documentary was about half an hour too long. For the first hour it was interesting and accessible, then they just went too far. There was too much information and instead of focusing on one issue they kind of spread out to squeeze in as much as possible. I also felt like they could have been more clear on that they were not against awareness and women with different experiences of cancer coming together. Someone could easily misinterpret their intentions as trying to undermine the commitment of all the women who are devoted to the breast cancer cause.

This was a controversial, thought-provoking documentary that I wish more people would see. I have learned a lot about something very important and I’m very glad I went to see this movie.