The internet is all in a tizzy today over the Susan G. Komen Foundation cutting off a grant to Planned Parenthood. I don’t know why everyone is so shocked that an organization founded by a major GOP supporter would have an agenda around not supporting a pro-choice organization. It’s not like Komen CEO Nancy G. Brinker has exactly been hiding her GOP light under a faux-liberal bushel or anything.

Thankfully, Planned Parenthood has already very nearly made up what they lost from the grant, which came from an organization they shouldn’t have been working with to begin with. And frankly I think it’s better in the long run that people support the work Planned Parenthood does directly anyhow; donate directly to the causes you support, and know what they stand for.

But if you are pro-choice and you’ve been donating to Komen because you think that organization is all about being pro-woman? Do your research, and then donate your time and money elsewhere. And while you’re at it, take all the money you’d have spent on glittery feather boas and pink cowboy hats and hot pink leggings and what have you, and donate THAT directly to an organization involved in researching something useful, like the environmental causes of breast cancer. Or directly to your local Gilda’s Club. Or to your local hospital’s support group for Stage 4 breast cancer patients.

In the wake of all this brouhaha over Komen, though, I thought it might be interesting to revisit the film Pink Ribbons, Inc., which I saw at Toronto last year. In case you missed it then, here’s an email interview I did as a follow-up to that film with breast cancer activist Barbara Brenner, who was not what we might call a fan of the pink ribbon to begin with. She had some fascinating things to say; here’s an excerpt:

What you found about Komen’s focus of grant funding reflects who they are, and have always been. They have not funded environmental research. They recently gave a grant to the federal Institute of Medicine to review the information on environmental links, but that is basically a literature review, not new research. And the information Komen provides about environmental links on their website is often flat out wrong. Komen can’t get involved in environmental research in a serious way, in my view, because they are partnered with so many companies that are part of the problem. That they don’t tell anyone how they decide what to fund is a sad commentary on breast cancer research.

You can read the full interview with Barbara Brenner right here.

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And here’s the review of Pink Ribbons, Inc. that I wrote from TIFF:

Pink Ribbons, Inc.

This weekend, my neighborhood was filled with a parade of women (and a few men), bedecked in pink, cheerily walking for hours and hours in support of breast cancer research. At rest stations along the way, husbands banged on pink tambourines while wearing coconut bras, while moms and preschoolers waved posters bearing motivational slogans (“Go, walkers! You are the BREAST!” and “Hakuna My Ta-tas!” and the like).

Even the police bikes accompanying the walkers were covered in pink streamers, and many of the walkers were dressed in cutesy “team” outfits — hot pink ballet tutus and bike shorts and leggings, socks, custom-printed t-shirts, fairy wings, butterfly wings, hats, wigs, alien antennae headbands. You name it, someone was probably wearing it. And every single one of them, I have no doubt, had nothing but the best of intentions, and was participating because they either have a friend or relative who’s dealt with breast cancer, or they’re a breast cancer survivor, or they’ve just decided to support this particular cause.

And up until last week, I would have seen these walkers and thought little of it other than, “Oh, this must be the weekend for the big breast cancer march,” and maybe I would have tooted my horn in support or something. If someone I’d known had asked, I probably would have agreed to pledge on their behalf. But then last week at TIFF, I saw a documentary called Pink Ribbons, Inc., that completely changed my perspective and opened my eyes to the way in which corporations have co-opted meaningful causes like breast cancer research and turned them into opportunities to engage in “cause marketing,” whereby they make money themselves by donating a fraction of a product’s cost to a cause that can be seen as important.

One of the points driven home in the film, for instance, is that if you participated in the Yoplait Yogurt “save the pink top and send it in” campaign, and you ate a participating yogurt every single day of their campaign and paid for the postage to sent it in, you’d be “donating” about $30 to the actual cause while putting significantly more than that into a corporate pocket. Or, you could just take all the money you’d spend on buying yogurt and paying postage, and make a donation directly to a non-profit that has a record of funneling most of their income directly into research grants, and make a greater net impact.

Director Léa Pool skewers this issue, taking a controversial stand that a lot of people are probably not going to want to hear, because it makes them feel unappreciated for supporting a cause they believe in, or because they think she and the breast cancer advocates on her side of the argument are uncaring for saying, hey, we really need to think about what this is really about, who’s promoting it, and what the actual benefit to this important cause is.

The thing is, it’s hard to argue against a cause that people feel such powerful emotions about, without sounding like you’re somehow against women with breast cancer. And of course, no one in the film is against women with cancer of any kind; what they are against is the idea of selling people on the idea that they’re making a difference without quantifying that they actually are. The breast cancer rate has skyrocketed in the past few decades; what research is being done, the movie asks, to explore why this is, to look for the cause of the increase in cancer to begin with, rather than a cure once it’s already happened? What progress has been made, through all these campaigns, toward increasing the actual survival rates of women with aggressive forms of breast cancer? In other words, what Pink Ribbons, Inc. questions is whether all these pink ribbons and marches and rallies are actually accomplishing anything at all, other than making people feel better because they think they’re marching for a cause.

More to the point, it raises the question of whether the effect of putting a pink, cheery face on the issue, and promoting the idea of “positive” fundraising walks as opposed to telling women yes, you should be getting angry and marching and protesting and demanding more support for research for a cancer whose primary risk factor is being born female, is more detrimental to actual progress than people think.

As I passed by the scores of breast cancer walkers this weekend after seeing this film, here’s what I thought: Pink wig? About $30 at Display and Costume. Pink tutu? Probably at least $25. Those hot pink leggings and bike shorts? Probably $20-40 a pop. A pink feather boa? Maybe $15-20. Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. If every single person marching had taken the money they spent on cutesy costumes, donated that cash instead directly to a foundation supporting research into causes as well as cures, and then emailed everyone they knew asking them to do the same, how much more money could have gone into the actual cause for which they were marching, than into how they looked while doing it? Now multiply that times the tens of thousands of people who participate in these fundraising walks. It’s a tough question, but one that deserves the serious consideration.

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