The can is emphatically pink, as are so many things this month. It's Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup festooned with a pink ribbon. Or is it Chick Noodle Soup?
The can looks like an Andy Warhol on an estrogen bender.
We're supposed to buy a can of this so some of the proceeds go to "Breast Cancer Awareness," so that patients become healthier. But can buying soup with 890 milligrams of sodium be healthy? There's murky logic in this, fighting cancer while jeopardizing the health of your heart. M'm! M'm! Good!
Hardly matters. Proceeds collected are solely through Kroger-owned supermarkets on 7 million cans of pink tomato and chicken noodle soup, 31/2 cents per can, with a cap of $250,000, going to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and local charities in Kroger markets. Campbell's has headquarters in Camden, but there are no Kroger stores around here.
If the hepatitis C ads went too far when they showed people's faces hideously disfigured to represent diseased livers - the publicity campaign created by Hoffmann-La Roche Inc., which The Philadelphia Inquirer's John Sullivan reports controls 60 percent of the hepatitis-therapy market - the breast cancer awareness folks have gone too far in the opposite direction.
Their goal isn't to repulse or shock, it's to lull consumers into a boudoir of quaint and sweet, tied up in an "I feel pretty" bow. The month's been transformed into Octoberose.
Breast cancer, or rather the "awareness" of it, notice the linguistic dodging of pain and radiation, has been pinked and feminized to the point where it's the Barbie of serious illness.
And how do charitable leaders think we should respond? By shopping.
Pink ribbons have been fetishized to the point where they mean little anymore. Now the publicity about corporate largesse overshadows altruism. Reporters' e-mail boxes are bombarded by businesses trumpeting their contributions, when what they're really urging is that we acquire their products: "See, I really care," now buy some stuff.
What other charity believes shopping is the best way to make a contribution? Isn't it insulting, demeaning, and more than a bit sexist to make a disease that overwhelmingly affects women focus on accessorizing for a cure?
Imagine diabetes jewelry or lung-cancer umbrellas. Who expects a gift when donating to a charity providing domestic or international relief? The desire is to get as much money as possible to the people who need it most, not to score a pretty prize for doing good.
Shopping isn't the answer to cancer any more than it is to fighting terrorism or remedying national fears.
If the point is education, get women to regular screenings and disseminate crucial information at registration sites, rather than gussying up cancer with the Estée Lauder Pink Ribbon Collection.
For research, encourage donations to medical centers and foundations, not purchasing $130 KitchenAid Cook for the Cure® Edition pink blenders - only $10 going to the Komen Foundation.
If the aim is to deliver care and support for people with breast cancer, fund charities where all proceeds go toward women who need help the most.
I'm not buying that shopping builds "awareness." And I'm not buying the stuff they're selling. It's a bunch of hooey, a load of sodium, too much pink, and self-aggrandizement for corporations, which could do plenty more without going all public about their goodness and 31/2 cents on the can for charity (but not in the home region).
We don't need soup, lipstick, pink truffles, pink blenders, and more pink jewelry than can be good for anyone, plus the bombardment of costly publicity adding to overhead while reducing donations, so we can be aware of breast cancer.
We're plenty aware.
Stop making cancer pretty. Give more, accessorize less, and stop the spectacle.
It's not becoming.
