Pink Ribbons Inc.: A Documentary Review on Where Cancer Research Money Ends Up

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Lea Pool is a Montreal filmmaker who was tapped to do a documentary about how money is raised for breast cancer research. Pool wasn’t sure there was  story there until she jumped into the backstory on breast cancer awareness. Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy, is a revealing book written in 2006 by Samantha King, a professor of kinesiology and health studies at Queen’s University. The next stop on the road to information was the autobiographical piece, Welcome to Cancerland, a scathing 2001 feature article in Harper’s magazine by feminist writer Barbara Ehrenreich. After reading that, it became the impetus for Pool to make Pink Ribbons, Inc., which is a 97 minute documentary that Pool explains: “I needed to find a way to make (the fundraising issue) more attractive to a large audience,” so she worked some filmmaking magic tricks, she interviews people against a digitally animated background and has them speak directly to the camera. “It’s not a new idea, but it works well – it engages the viewer,” said Pool.

Instead of normal narration facts are typed on the screen for the view to read, and she uses pink–a lot of pink. But it’s not all nice colors and scary facts – there’s also controversy and hypocrisy. Pool brings these facts …

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Ukrainian Group Renting Out Topless Protests to Further Women’s Rights?

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Like it or not, topless women gathering en masse are going to garner some attention.  Whether meeting to fight for the right to gather topless en masse or trying to make a different point, it’s pretty much guaranteed to make the news.

Anna Gutsol of the feminist Ukrainian group Femen is speaking out on the necessity of such, uh, big measures in demonstrations on issues ranging from gender discrimination to prostitution legislation … as opposed to those who just “go out and demonstrate and set up tents”.

From Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty:

“Topless protests are probably the strongest and most effective form of peaceful and nonviolent protests to attract attention. You can throw a grenade, go on hunger strike, blow something up or shoot someone. Or you can go out topless,” Gutsol says.

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Charlie Sheen’s Disposable Goddesses

It’s wasn’t Charlie Sheen’s possibly deranged, potentially BS and certainly attention-seeking behavior that has disturbed me over the last week or so. It’s been the way in which this behavior has been greeted largely as a joke — with phrases like “winning” and “tiger’s blood” being used as punchlines and Sheen in general being greeted with smirks and a record number of Twitter followers. One man even immortalized Sheen’s insane media blitz with a particularly ugly tattoo which he said was the talk of the bar after he got it done. Perhaps more confusing and disappointing was Jezebel blogger Jessica Coen posting an article about how she “Played Phone Tag with Charlie Sheen,” pretending she was interested in a job as a “Goddess” at Sheen’s newly-christened Sober Valley Lodge, even sending a photo …

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New Hooters Campaign Kind of a Clever Ploy

Hooters Ad for Married Men

Let me just say that Hooters is taking its cold war with fidelity to a whole ‘nother level!

Okay, there’s very little argument that the main reason to hit up Hooters involves wings.  If my male friends are any indication, getting a pic with a big-breasted Hooters girl is kind of a rite of passage.  Plus, their wings are mediocre at best.

But back to the point, which is that a New York City Hooters restaurant is bringing the fight home … and directly to the wedding bed.

From Midtown Lunch:

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