Pink Ribbons, Inc. (***1/4)

You probably know the subject of this far-reaching documentary from the title. In just 20 years, the pink ribbon has become the symbol of a now-worldwide movement to raise breast-cancer awareness. If awareness is the measure, the movement has been a near-complete success. (In surveys, women routinely overestimate their risk of getting the disease.) If raising money is the measure, it’s also hard to argue with the approach taken by organizations like the Susan G. Komen Foundation and the Avon Foundation, which has been to partner with private companies and sponsor a variety of participatory activities such as the Race for the Cure. However, if reducing the loss of life to breast cancer is the goal, the success is more modest. Overall rates of cancer have increased in recent decades, and treatment gains have been modest.

This movie—financed by the Film Board of Canada, interestingly—is based on the book Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy by Samantha King. Boiled down, the film’s argument is that the emphasis on corporate-friendly fundraising and feel-good awareness events has been at the expense of research into the causes of breast cancer and to a more focused policy that would coordinate the efforts of dozens of governmental and scientific efforts. Although there is no time for deep epidemiology, the film gradually builds to the suggestion that environmental causes are an important, if not the most important, cause of breast cancer. Many of these environmental causes might implicate the companies that associate themselves with Komen et al. (Breast Cancer Awareness Month was actually cofounded by a drug company that stands to gain if women use its cancer drugs, but not from prevention.) Yet the film is not a polemic. The director, Léa Pool, has primarily directed narrative features, and she makes sure to include a variety of viewpoints as well as the usual colorful graphics and fun historical footage; she includes the surprising origin of the ribbon symbol.

Representatives from Komen (CEO Nancy Brinker, who resigned in 2012) and Avon get plenty of face time, and so do the many people volunteering their time and efforts. The film does not imply that they are insincere or claim that they have done no good at all, though it is possible that a couple of the women interviewed think that. These include Barbara Ehrenreich, the left-leaning social critic and ornery “survivor” of breast cancer who doesn’t care for the term; Barbara Brenner, longtime leader of the less-mainstream Breast Cancer Action; author King, who provides a lot of the historical critique; and a number of other activists, researchers, and stage-four patients. Given its breadth, the documentary is fairly successful at presenting its many viewpoints in an engrossing way. Ideally, it too will raise awareness that will translate into action.

IMDb link

viewed 8/2/12 7:20 pm at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 8/2/12