Okay, if I hear or see another ad hyping some random pink-i-fied product I may just have to scream. Seriously. The ridiculous pinkwashing campaign spearheaded by the Susan G. Komen Foundation is now more than ever a meaningless marketing gimmick undertaken with cynical profit-hungry companies, foisted on gullible consumers eager to “make a difference” while they obliviously continue to do what Americans do best: shop shop shop.
There are plenty of sane people out there warning about the insulting stupidity of all this, but they seem to be unable to staunch the pink tide washing over ALL things.
This year, the collective outcry is first and foremost over the stupid Promise Me! perfume that Komen has commissioned, replete with toxic chemicals and fatuous hyperbole to describe how wonderful you will feel with a dash of pink behind your ears. It is nothing new, of course — last year, the outcry was over “pink” booze and the pink-i-fication of Kentucky Fried Chicken‘s offense against humanity, and before that it was the “pink” handgun and the “pink” yogurt made with bovine growth hormones (yes, one of Komen’s big sponsors is Eli Lilly, producer of lots of expensive breast cancer drugs, but also the only remaining producer of the rBGH that’s banned everywhere except in the 3rd world market of the US).
But just like international aid organizations reluctantly must confess that without the starving kids in Africa their polished fundraising machine would grind to a halt, so the Komen Foundation needs breast cancer to stick around to keep their $400 million budget afloat and growing. Sure, they spend some money supporting mainstream research and providing some edu-tainment about breast cancer, much of it of dubious value, and none of it particularly likely to genuinely address the pervasive problem of breast cancer. And absolutely none of it will highlight potential causes of breast cancer that might point the finger at Komen’s corporate sponsors. So we won’t hear about all the additives, the articifical flavors, and the fundamentally unhealthy (albeit temporarily “pink”) shit that is being promoted with stupid “Cure”-related gimmicks.
I know, it’s a free world — I don’t have to buy any of the pink crap, and, so, I don’t. But it is distasteful to see watch PR circus passed off as anything other than a self-serving and self-congratulatory exercise in futility and profits made from the gullibility and compassion of others.
Update: Nice. Just nice.
