About the Author
As someone who spends a questionable amount of time looking through the documentary section of Netflix, a few years ago I stumbled upon the documentary Pink Ribbons, Inc. The documentary looks at how the pink ribbon has transformed into a means by which for-profit businesses can make more money in the name of breast cancer awareness, while doing little to actually help the cause. It's really interesting and you should totally watch it, but it's also like, really sad. Anyways, I watched it, thought it was relatively interesting, and then promplty forgot about it.
Then a few years ago, my mom was diagnosed with beast cancer (she’s fine now, this isn’t going to be a sob story). But before my mom had cancer, when my closest association to cancer was the mom of a kid I went to school with, I was very into the pink ribbon. I did the 5Ks, wore pink to the designated football game each year, and somehow thought that my buying paper towels with a pink ribbon on the packaging was changing the world. But once my mom got sick, I got over the color pink very quickly.
When your mom is sick, or any loved one is sick, people bring dinner. But people also know that a lot of other people are bringing you dinner, so they start bringing you other stuff to try and stand out from the crowd. We were given chocolates, tea, lotion, lip balm, blankets, and pretty much every other semi-comforting product that can be bought at Target (and Edible Arrangements…so many Edible Arrangements). But these weren’t just normal gifts, they were blankets with sayings like “survivor” stitched on them, and pink chocolates, and lip balms with pink ribbons on the tube. I get why people do it- it seems thoughtful. They’re not just bringing you lotion, they’re bringing you lotion that is marketed to your exact situation. I can’t speak for my mom, but for me it felt a little patronizing. Like we can’t have normal things anymore, we have to have pink things that are specifically associated with breast cancer.
The documentary came back into my mind, and made me feel a little better about hating that damn ribbon so much. A few semesters of school and a communications degree later, I decided to take a deeper dive into the pink ribbon, if for no other reason than to justify my hatred for pink things that were somehow supposed to make me feel better during the worst year of my life.
I hope you enjoyed the project, and enjoy these pictures of awkward middle school me at the exact kind of event this project is railing against.
-Katie Stathulis
