[...]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/
