{"id":1308,"date":"2012-07-12T18:45:19","date_gmt":"2012-07-12T18:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=1308"},"modified":"2012-07-24T18:45:42","modified_gmt":"2012-07-24T18:45:42","slug":"the-tyranny-of-cheerfulness-samantha-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/the-tyranny-of-cheerfulness-samantha-king\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Tyranny of Cheerfulness\u201d Samantha King"},"content":{"rendered":"
PINK RIBBONs, INC., directed by L\u00e9a Pool, written by Patricia Kearns and L\u00e9a Pool; based on the book by Samantha King.<\/div>\n
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\"\"<\/a>Statistics state that every 23 seconds a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer and one dies every 69 seconds.<\/p>\n

The eye-opening Canadian documentary, \u201cPink Ribbons, Inc.,\u201d is aptly subtitled \u201cCapitalizing on Hope.\u201d\u00a0 Director L\u00e9a Pool filmed events in Susan G. Komen Walk-for-the-Cure during Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM), held in major locations around the world.\u00a0\u00a0 AstraZeneca, a corporation that produces cancer-causing chemicals and drugs, founded BCAM, which takes place annually in October.
\nWatching the film, the preponderance of hot-pink EVERYTHING got to me- from the twisted pink ribbon to pink flamingo glasses.\u00a0 Nowadays, you can\u2019t turn around without a proliferation of pink products being pushed at you.\u00a0\u00a0 As seen in the film, the Komen\u2019s \u201cwalk for the cure\u201d has spread globally.\u00a0 World leaders throw pink spotlights on monuments and\/or historic sites, like Niagara Falls, during BCAM, an activity akin to breaking a bottle of champagne on the hull of a ship.\u00a0 When interviewed, someone asked, \u201cWhat does lighting up Niagara Falls with pink lights mean?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s enough to make you gag.\u00a0\u00a0 Pool interviewed social commentator Barbara Ehrenreich.\u00a0 Diagnosed with breast cancer, she opted out of going pink, saying she was highly offended by the infantilizing of women; and how one was expected to be upbeat.\u00a0\u00a0 Anger is negative; the efforts to find a cure are made to be fun!\u00a0\u00a0 Still, I wondered, where would AIDS research and treatment be if it weren\u2019t for the anger of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) in the 1980s?
\nThe efforts to find a cure started in the 1940s.\u00a0 It was seen as a battle (Ehrenreich commented, \u201cI wasn\u2019t battling anything.\u00a0 I chose to live\u201d).\u00a0 During WWII, members of the American Cancer Society, marched in military uniforms to demonstrate the \u201cfight against\u201d cancer here at home while \u201cour boys\u201d fought the enemy overseas.\u00a0\u00a0 Back then, the ratio of breast cancer deaths was 1 in 22, now it\u2019s a shocking one in eight.\u00a0 Today, an astounding 59,000 women a year die of breast cancer.\u00a0 What is going on?\u00a0 Ronald Reagan had pledged to throw millions of dollars into finding a cure.\u00a0 It became a philanthropic endeavor and huge corporations came on board.\u00a0 Many wonder where all the money is going; there is very little to show for it.\u00a0 Philanthropic foundations believe that the solution is more money.\u00a0\u00a0 Yet there is no coordination between federal and\/or private foundation cancer research organizations.\u00a0 Andl only a tiny percentage of all the Komen funds go to research ( 15% last year, down from 20%.\u00a0 Komen has cut by nearly half the proportion of funds it spends on research grants).
\nIt has been noted that drug companies profit by making people terminally ill- a truly egregious cycle.\u00a0 Heads of pharmaceutical corporations must be rubbing their hands knowing that the more drugs they sell, the more people will develop cancer.\u00a0 Cancer is a disease with an indefinite remission or end-time, so corporations can sell their wares indefinitely.\u00a0\u00a0 Cancer surgeon, Dr. Susan Love feels that chemotherapy and radiation are poisons.\u00a0 She wants more research.\u00a0\u00a0 Yet few scientists are studying the effects of pesticides, toxins, and plastics in the environment- some plastic products disrupt hormones in all species.\u00a0 It is a known fact that certain plastics mimic female hormones, destroying endocrine functions.\u00a0\u00a0 Interestingly, so far, studies have included only white women, when an inordinate number of women of color, due to income disparities, live in environmentally compromised areas.\u00a0\u00a0 Yet Komen sponsors can\u2019t work with environmentalists because Komen has ties to companies whose products contain carcinogenic substances!\u00a0 Interestingly, no mention was made in the film concerning men with breast cancer.\u00a0 Perhaps Polo or some other male-oriented product will step up.\u00a0 Still, since 2009, men get their own week during BCAM
\nThe Komen \u201ccancer industry\u201d hooked up with corporations and evolved into selling their products.\u00a0 Yoplait, until it was discovered that its yogurt contained bovine growth hormone-\u00a0 the company has since stopped using it and iIt still supports Komen; Revlon and Est\u00e9e Lauder got on the pink bandwagon, both whose cosmetics contain carcinogenic chemicals-\u00a0 they promised to investigate.\u00a0 Avon\u2019s Avon Foundation for Women disassociated itself from Avon Products to protect them from liability from its cancer causing ingredients.\u00a0\u00a0 During one BCAM, Kentucky Fried Chicken sold its deep-fried chicken in pink buckets (a short film clip shows that Colonel Saunders had switched his trademark white suit to pink), creating controversy.\u00a0 The hypocrisy is stunning considering that these companies purport to fight cancer.
\nSports teams signed on to BCAM realizing they could profit.\u00a0 Since many NFL players were not nice guys, they joined the cause, and, in my eyes, made themselves ridiculous wearing pink laces in their cleats; pink ribbon logos on helmets and other equipment.\u00a0 After an influential breast cancer survivor ordered herself a white, pink- striped Mustang, Ford held raffles for a designer Mustang, proceeds to benefit Komen.\u00a0 Sadly, a dozen female Ford employees who had assembled the cars\u2019 plastic interiors, died from breast cancer.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWhen I see a pink ribbon,\u201d activist Judy Brady says, \u201cI see evil.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 That\u2019s how I felt each time, Nancy Brinker,\u00a0 Komen Foundation founder was interviewed in her blush, band-box pink jacket –\u00a0 her robotized voice and smooth, heavily made up face, and perfect hair.
\nPool interviewed a group of women with Stage IV, or end-stage- cancer, whose breast cancer metastasized.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re made to feel we didn\u2019t try hard enough,\u201d one said.\u00a0 Their doctors say that they can take drugs to prolong their lives.\u00a0 The women ask: \u201cBut what kind of life would we be living?\u201d Another said, “It’s like they’re using our disease to profit and that’s not OK.”
\nThe film was made before the Planned Parenthood controversy where Komen pulled its funding from that organization.\u00a0 Karen Handel, a Komen vice-president, and five other leaders have resigned, yet the flack continues.\u00a0 The pink ribbon hype is a total phenomenon.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Would that the hundreds of thousands of people who participate could realize that they are being exploited for corporate profit so that they\u2019ll get angry, organize, and speak out!\u00a0\u00a0 We need the energy of an ACT UP, the organization that propelled the eventual success of a viable AIDs treatment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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PINK RIBBONs, INC., directed by L\u00e9a Pool, written by Patricia Kearns and L\u00e9a Pool; based on the book by Samantha King. Statistics state that every 23 seconds a woman is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[837],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1308","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-joe-cillo"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"