Pink Ribbons, Inc.

[Mtngrl]

Today I discovered that the movie Pink Ribbons, Inc. is available to stream instantly on Netflix. I didn't check, but you might also be able to stream it from Amazon.

I watched it in honor of Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day. It is extremely well done, thought-provoking, and informative. The movie doesn't explicitly find fault with "pink ribbon culture" per se, nor does it demonize anyone, but it raises some important issues about public policy, "pinkwashing," and the effectiveness of current efforts to deal with the breast cancer epidemic.

The movie features some beautiful, articulate members of a Stage IV support group. I know how much I love my group, and I wish every woman with Stage IV cancer had that, (ours is open to women with any kind of cancer, though most of us have breast cancer), even though it's hard when friends from the group get to the end of their journey. At least we don't have to do it alone.

I recommend this movie. If you want to dig even deeper into the politics of it all, I also recommend the book.

[Laurel]

I have not seen the movie, Amy, but will try to get it and watch. I will say this for all the Pink in October: it gets your attention. I listened to an interview with Evelyn Lauder of Este Lauder cosmetics. She was a huge advocate for breast cancer having gotten involved with "Look Good, Feel Good" through the Am. Cancer Society back in the 80s. Estee Lauder now DIRECTLY funds breast cancer research. She recounted statistics of what BC treatment and screening involved just a few short years ago. One item she mentioned is that mammogram machines were not standardized until '96. As she recounted all the innovations that we today accept as the norm I realized it was women like Evelyn who placed breast cancer on the front burner. Maybe Pink-isms are annoying and suspect, but they have brought breast cancer to the forefront where it is now a battle for our daughters, mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmas. Twenty years ago BC was still a hush-hush illness in the U.S. Brave Mary Tyler Moore did the TV movie "First You Cry" about a women dx'd with BC and it was positively groundbreaking here in the USA. Thank you, Mary.

I will take the Pink (and I hate the color of peptobismol pink we use for BC awareness) I will thank God it is big-business in the US and only a fraction of its fundraising ever reaches researchers, because unlike the seventies where my dear Aunt Olive died of metastatic breast cancer that was whispered about in the family, BC is now "out there" as it should be.