Jan Haaken and Denise Morris discuss Pink Ribbons, Inc, a documentary exposing the hypocrisy and corporate interests behind the pink ribbon campaign ostensibly in support of women with breast cancer. The film includes interviews with many smart women, including Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Welcome to Cancerland, activists with Breast Cancer Action, and a group of stage-4 breast cancer patients, as well as participants in Race for the Cure events. Although the film highlights the contrast between early feminist activism grounded in anger about environmental toxins and other political dimensions of breast cancer, and, on the other hand, the more recent infantilizing and sentimentalizing culture of the pink ribbons campaign, it may be complicit in the latter by downplaying the ambivalence of women participating in the pink ribbon campaigns. The film plays at Cinema 21 though Thursday 5 July.
- KBOO