“...
outright war on breast cancer, with your dollars are the ammunition.”
As an artist, I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating the
association between females and the colour pink, but these thoughts have never
strayed into the rich (literally) connection in breast cancer marketing. Sure,
I’d noticed some bizarre products like a pink plastic stapler resembling a
high-heeled shoe, but not the extent of this marketing extravaganza. Enter Samantha King, associate professor of
gender studies and kinesiology at Queen’s University, where she presented in
today’s MiniU conference.
In the introduction to her book, Pink Ribbons, Inc. (University of Minnesota Press, 2006), King ponders
what brought about the change in representations of breast cancer over time, by examining two New
York Times Magazine covers. A 1993 cover
with artist Matuschka revealing her mastectomy scar contains the
caption—incidentally, known in the publishing world as a ‘slug’—“You Can’t
Look Away Anymore. The Anguished Politics of Breast Cancer.” A 1996 cover,
meanwhile, features supermodel Linda Evangelista covering her breasts with her
arm and the caption, “This year’s hot charity.” Evangelista’s “hypernormal
femininity” (p. x) and chic portrayal of the disease were a sign of things to
come, but they weren’t the first in a series of marketing oddities.
Rewind to the early 1990s, when the pink ribbon originated.
It wasn’t always a pink ribbon. It was peach and it was the brainchild of
Charlette Hayley, who regarded it less as a brainchild and more as a sincere
gesture to bring attention to federal funding shortages for breast cancer
prevention in the US. When she declined an offer from Self magazine and Estée Lauder to partner with them in a
magazine issue devoted to breast cancer awareness, they appropriated it anyway.
Based on a lawyer’s advice, they changed the colour. “Colours are really
important,” King stresses, and focus groups revealed that pink denotes
qualities like lack of threat; certainly, it would be in corporations’ best
interests to avoid acknowledging the threat posed by breast cancer. King
thought at the time that “the pink ribbon would soon lose its lustre” but it seems
to have perpetuated this “insidiously gendered…cause-related marketing” (p.
xxiv). Pink is so closely linked with femininity (at least in the last 65 or so
years) that we are stopped in our tracks by breast cancer awareness campaigns
with slogans like, “Real men wear pink.” This particular slogan was used for a
partnership between the NFL and the Komen Foundation, which has notoriously flip-flopped its funding of Planned Parenthood (disturbingly since PP offers breast cancer screening). Men are generally excluded
from this pink marketing, which is problematic since they too are at risk of
getting breast cancer. King highlights the bizarreness of women receiving gifts
like pink bears when they are diagnosed, in contrast to men, who would not
receive, say, Matchbox cars when diagnosed with prostate cancer. Even products
that are associated with men can have a feminine version thanks to corporations
cashing in on the breast cancer awareness trend, most notably a handgun with an interchangeable pink grip. If you still don't think pink products are ubiquitous,
consider that the pink ribbon is featured on one of only two coloured Canadian
coins in history,
or that one of only two American stamps to be sold for higher than the letter
rate was part of a breast cancer awareness campaign. Since the
other Canadian coin commemorated war veterans and the other US stamp
commemorated 9/11, an outright war appears to be being waged on breast cancer, with your dollars
as the ammunition.
These marketing gimmicks wouldn’t be so perturbing if their
wording weren’t frequently misleading (noting, for example, that an unspecified
portion of proceeds goes to an unspecified charity); or if the same companies
didn’t put a cap on the money they donate to said charity; or if the dollar
amount donated per person weren’t so bleak. King gives the example of a yogurt
campaign that would require consumers to consume three large containers of
yogurt a day for four months to generate $36 in donations. Participating hardly seems
worthwhile, but who in the general population bothers to do the math?
It’s not just the products we buy that are pink. Coloured branding has
spread to our environment, with corporations competing over who will light up
the next major monument, be it a pyramid or the Eiffel Tower. Last year, I was
part of an art show called PINK that
involved local businesses in a small town outside Chicago creating pink window displays
simultaneously. It’s no wonder King has observed breast cancer patients
counting down the days on an online forum until the end of breast cancer month
(October) so they can escape the constant presence of pink and the
commoditization of their painful experience.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that the face of breast
cancer tends to be “youthful, ultra-feminine, and radiant with health” as well
as Caucasian. What, then, can we make of donut and fried chicken companies launching breast
cancer campaigns or cosmetics companies doing the same while continuing to
include known carcinogens in their products? They’ve been labeled ‘pink
washers’ by a San Francisco-based activist group.
If you think that participating in a walk-a-thon or
marathon is a better choice for helping in the fight against breast cancer,
you’ll be disappointed to hear that many of them have declared bankruptcy for
using phrasing trademarked by a major fundraising corporation. Or that in one
of the most high profile fundraisers with well-meaning participants celebrating
their own survival or honouring loved ones affected or killed by the disease, almost
one-third of the money raised was used for administration and marketing costs
as well as entertainment for the participants.
The film, Pink Ribbons, Inc. (2011, National Film Board of Canada) opens in the US on June 1st.
For a clip,
click here.
*a quarter, which was only distributed at a drugstore chain
