Pink Ribbons, Inc. producer Ravida Din
Laying out the aims of the National Film Board of Canada in 2000, then-Minister Of Canadian Heritage Sheila Copps stated that the NFB’s purpose was to “produce and distribute audio-visual works which provoke discussion and debate on subjects of interest to Canadian audiences and foreign markets.” It’s hard to think of an NFB production that has met that mandate as clearly and elegantly as Pink Ribbons, Inc., which opens in limited release across Canada Feb. 3.
Léa Pool’s eye-opening doc about the machinations behind what the film terms the “breast cancer industry” is a thorough, sensitive analysis of how corporations have capitalized on the personal and social concerns of breast cancer. When the film premièred at TIFF last September, it drew packed crowds. And now that it’s entering a theatrical release, there are new opportunities to discuss the broad social issues the film sophisticatedly parses.
The A.V. Club spoke with the film’s executive producer, Ravida Din, about the film, its reception at festivals so far, and the diabolical industry of breast cancer awareness.
The A.V. Club: You’ve brought Pink Ribbons to a number of film festivals over the past few months. What has the response to the film been like so far?
Ravida Din: It’s been great. It’s been great to get women’s voices front and centre. And it’s another very political, social documentary from the NFB. The questions have been amazing. There have been very interesting, pointed questions. That was a nice surprise for me. Sometimes you have a screening and it’s hard to get into the discussion afterwards. Not in this case. I found that at the screenings I attended, people went right to the heart of the issues.
AVC: The film deals with very sensitive subject matter, basically saying that this well-meaning culture of breast cancer awareness is duplicitous. Do people ever bristle against this idea? It seems like you might get a lot of knee-jerk reactions.
RD: Yeah, and I expected that. But you know what? We didn’t get those reactions. I had a chance to go to Amsterdam for the European première, and the discussion there was even more hard-hitting. People really, really asked for accountability and challenged the speakers after the screening. The organizers had invited people from a local breast cancer organization that works around very similar ways of raising money through selling pink products. And the audience was fierce.
AVC: For men, testicular and colon cancer is undergoing a process similar to pink-washing. You see the necktie ribbon logo on a lot of products now. How have men in the audience responded to the film?
RD: It’s been a good mix. There are a lot of men at screenings, and a lot of men asking questions.
AVC: Well, now, with the necktie logo, it’s as if all these corporations have just discovered a whole other demographic. Maybe that just sounds cynical.
RD: No, definitely. I wondered if the death of Jack Layton and Movember would propel this idea to the same level.
AVC: It seems to be well on its way. Have there been any reactions from people inside what the film calls the “breast cancer industry” to the film?
RD: Not in a formal way. But I know they are responding to the press being generated, especially with the theatrical release coming up. But not in terms of getting in contact with me as the producer.
RD: In a lot of ways, I don’t think the role of the Film Board has changed over the years. It’s taken different approaches, and we’re always looking at different genres—but I think the social mandate has remained the same. It’s about tapping into a public consciousness: What are Canadians talking about? And more importantly, what should we be talking about? Certainly, that social mandate remains strong.
AVC: A documentary like this seems so comprehensive and definitive, but the issues around it are changing all the time. Is there anything that’s cropped up since the making of the film that you wish you’d addressed?
RD: Hmm ... You know what I’m constantly surprised with? I’m always reading about the research and how governments should be taking more responsibility. And I’m not really seeing anything new.
I also look at the issues’ very personal perspective, as someone who has been treated for breast cancer. And since the film has started screening, the news has been more alarming. In September there was a report that talked about a 3 percent annual increase for breast cancer, and a 1 percent increase globally for ovarian cancer. Another article I was shocked to read was that in recent years so many big drug companies have gutted their research departments because they’ve failed to come out with a big, blockbuster drug. That was shocking to read. ... Unfortunately it is all about big business.
AVC: As someone who was diagnosed with breast cancer, were these subjects on your radar before you began developing the film?
RD: No, I became more familiar once the project began. As I went through my treatment, I was just coping with my own situation and trying to find the best answers. But what did shock me, when I talked to doctors, was that, at the end of the day, you’re left to making hard decisions on your own. There’s no clear answer. It’s presented as a very individual disease, once you have it. But I’ve learned a lot of things. And I continue to.
AVC: One of the most pointed arguments in Pink Ribbons is that the “breast cancer industry” managed to essentially defuse a feminist movement that was mobilizing around the disease in the late ’80s and early ’90s, which you never hear that much about.
RD: The whole rise of subsidized philanthropy and cause marketing coincided with an anti-feminist backlash in the early ’90s. It became a lot more about personal goodwill than any kind of real activism.
AVC: The film suggests that the “breast cancer industry” really responds to this culture of loneliness and personal goodwill, and even preys on it. But a film like this can make the breast cancer community seem a bit corporate and insidious by awakening people affected by the disease to all the issues at play.
RD: I hope that comes through. The breast cancer industry has really made [breast cancer] a personal problem and not a social issue. And when you make it a social issue, one where people actually do need to come together and have a collective response, it’s going to [be] very hard to try and ignore it.
