I didn’t exactly find it offensive, but I understand what you’re saying. I’ve not had breast cancer, but if I did I don’t think I’d want the focus to be on my boobs. I’d want it to be on treatment and wellness and how I can work with my doctor to survive something that would undoubtedly be devastating.

I disagree with you on this one. I actually found it fairly effective. The chest shots are in no way sexualized – they’re ordinary looking women in tasteful clothes. And then it switches to faces & shots of the complete women. The effect of that switch is moving decisively away from BC being about only breasts to being about the full woman. To me, the most memorable thing about the vid is that change in focus to the whole person.

Definitely made me uncomfortable. And by uncomfortable I mean irritated. Did they tap some resources at Komen and the I{heart}Boobies foundation to write this? All about breasts? Really? Are they all about ovaries? A nice video shot at hip level? And is their campaign regarding penile and testicular cancers equally focused on the body parts and not the lives attached to them?

It’s NOT okay to look at a woman’s chest exclusively. Sorry; it’s just not. And the pan out at the end does not fix that gaff.

Thanks for writing about this, Nancy.

When I saw the video I was not uncomfortable really. More like disappointed and annoyed. While I agree with Julie above that there is a shift from chest level to person at one point in the video, the focus is clearly about the breasts, both visually and in terms of the accompanying script. It’s sexualized in the same way as many of the boobie campaigns but it is objectifying women with a focus on what is culturally a most prized body part. If you look at the images in the Breast Cancer Consortium’s work, the trends are really obvious. Here is the link. [http://breastcancerconsortium.net/resources/beyond-awareness-workbook/trends-in-awareness-campaigns/sexual-objectification/].

I also worry about the message that being alive is somehow “proof of beating breast cancer.” It’s really not. It’s just being alive. Too many people who are alive at the 5-year mark, for example, end up having recurrences 10 or 15 years down the road. When they happen, the chances of dealing with a metastatic form increases. And metastatic (stage 4) breast cancer is terminal.

I know the ACS want to focus on those birthdays, but it’s really a lot more complicated than that.

Thanks for discussing it.

Gayle Sulik

Watching this for the first time – I wanted to scream “I am living proof that breast cancer can be a vicious monster!”
I have had yearly mammos for about 8 yrs and I still was dx with stage IV from the beginning.
Maybe if the ACS wanted the focus to be about the breast, perhaps they should provide pics of the breasts that have been removed and are lying in a dish in the lab waiting to be biopsied! That’s the reality of it isn’t it? There is nothing sexy about bc and the scars it brings with it, both inside and out.

I’m with you on this one, Nancy…I was furious when I saw this, tho admittedly I settled down a bit when they FINALLY got to some faces. However, as a woman who was diagnosed at Stage II well before mammography typically kicks in, and ended up mets nearly 10 years later, the message to me personal was clear: YOU FAILED. Well, I didn’t fail…science and the breast cancer industry has failed ME. I agree with you…I expect more from ACS.

Thanks for addressing this…I haven’t had it in me! XOX

I must say, I’m surprised by this video. The tone of it in particular doesn’t fit with an organisation which should be informing people about BC, not making light of it. It’s not something that should be made light of…people still live with it, and die of it. I’m quite shocked that the ACS thinks it’s alright to trivialise. Instead, they perpetuate myths about early detection and all that jazz, which aren’t helpful.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Nancy. I’m off to wonder what the world is coming to.

Take care, my friend.

Casey

I, too, was dissappointed in this video. Maybe the month of October should be called “Saving Your Life Awareness” instead. I was diagnosed 3 years ago in Dec and don’t consider myself a survivor-just someone who did what the doctor said would be best. I,for one, am tired of the whole breast cancer awareness month. Who doesn’t know about cancer? If The American Cancer Society isn’t just about breast cancer but all cancers, I would like to see them do “awareness” on penile/testicular cancer with the video shot just of a mans
groin, but I highly doubt THAT would ever happen. Can’t we please just have “awareness” about ALL cancers and not just the sexy body part ones. This and other reasons is why I do not donate money to any cause-if you want to “feel good” about giving to cancer awareness, do something for someone in your local area who actually does have cancer. I would have loved for someone to go the grocery store or drive my daughter to an activity or mow my lawn while I was receiving treatments. That is where help is needed most. There will never be a cure for cancer,but maybe a way to prevent it in the first place. Only you can save your life, not a campaign of awareness.

Nancy, I was disappointed because the way it completely insults the metastatic community and while many breast cancer “survivors” may now show NED (no evidence of disease), we do not know if they are part of the 25-30% that will become MBC. What’s so disappointing is that the ACS does so many great things for cancer like giving free rides to appointments and having places for people to stay like the Hope Lodge in Nashville when people live far away from where they can get treatment, as they also give free rides to the treatment. They are such a wonderful organization that I was proud to volunteer with. We need to let their marketing department know that this is not acceptable and sends the wrong message. I think whoever made it just did not know the real facts and thought they were being “creative” by focusing on the breasts. What a shame. They are such a great organization. How do we let them know this video is not acceptable?

I watch a video like this and honestly I want to see their faces, because as we’ve noted time and again, breast cancer isn’t about the boobs – it’s about the lives of women. (I’m missing one breast, but I don’t imagine that makes me 50% less involved in this issue.) I love a fun campaign, but also appreciate when women are honoured and not just their chests. Their ‘here’s to more birthdays’ idea was really great, it’s a shame it couldn’t have been a greater focus – it’s an idea with hope. ~Catherine

Making Strides……really? And we’re staring at women’ s chests. Wow. They blew this one. Not funny at all.
jms

I agree Nancy. I really appreciate what ACS does, help with my cancer centers booth at the Relay for Life, and am a Reach to Recovery volunteer. But this video made me very uncomfortable, maybe they are just jumping on the “boob” bandwagon, but I felt very disappointed with them. It’s not all about the breast, it’s about the women. We aren’t our breasts, we aren’t our cancer. It didn’t offend me, like the sexualized promos do, but it did make me uncomfortable and sad. It kind of goes back to the awareness thing, we’re all aware, but that doesn’t always help us. I went in two years before diagnosis with a large lump and was told, “no problem, just dense breasts, with a sly smile I was then told, you just have young breasts”. Well two years later when I went back, to different doctors, I was told “why did you wait so long?”

And next the statement by the women that was cured – hmmmmmm. I wish I had that confidence. I’m 2 1/2 years post diagnosis now, I was told my chance of recurrence was moderately low, but that until you die of something else we don’t know that you are cured of BC. Yesterday I went in for a biopsy of a skin rash on my mastectomy site.

Maybe the reason that this video made me upset and sad is because of the biopsy yesterday, but I don’t think so. Until it’s about the women, I’m not sure we’re really going to get rid of breast cancer.

Thank you Nancy, and I think that I’ll send a note to ACS voicing my opinion.

Thank you so very much for your blog, though I am having some difficulty responding b/c unfortunately there is a column asking me to “like”, “tweet” etc., as an advertisement and it is covering up a quarter of what I am typing in this response and there is no way to “x” it out, so I apologize for any typos as I cannot see a quarter of what I am typing.
I, too, am tired of breast cancer being sexualized. Much of this advertising seems to be made for a straight-male audience and not women themselves! I recently saw an event in my town that posts a woman with large breast implants and cleavage that reads, “Tits for Tits”, and I felt disgusted. Cancer is not sexy. Furthermore, more women die from lung cancer than any other cancer. There are so many types of cancer out there and illnesses that need attention as well. Right now, my husband has a football game on and pink is everywhere. In a sport that is extremely macho and excludes women this all feels very sexist and patronizing. It is so obviously a marketing ploy and they think women are so stupid that we’ll fall for it! With all the products out there and pink everywhere, if the money was really going toward a cure, wouldn’t it be cured by now? And how much goes toward treatment for women who are suffering? What percentage? Men get prostate cancer and we don’t see, “Save the balls” or “save the dicks” or some other equivalent to save the boobies. It’s just sick and wrong.

Women are made into sex objects in movies, tv shows, video games, etc, and now even through disease. Nothing is sacred in the name of sex, sexism and money.

Maybe they should focus instead on full heads of hair (because it will be lost through chemo) or a woman’s actively moving arms (no longer functioning due to lymphedema). This commercial says “your breasts are the only thing you risk losing,”from cancer — when that is far from the truth.

Nancy,
Wow, where do I start? The ACS commercial didn’t have the desired effect on me they hoped it would. I found myself wondering what the women looked like: Were they simply models or real women who’d had breast cancer; why didn’t the cameraperson tell her she needed to clip that hangnail? or why did they begin with the tattooed woman? The video was three-quarters of the way over before I realized I hadn’t been paying attention.

Also, I agree with you about “I defeated breast cancer.” Really? The American Cancer Society knows better than that! That’s just plain irresponsible.

BTW, I just learned you’re blogging for Huff Post. That’s huge! Congrats, girlfriend!

XOXOXO,
Brenda

It’s “undignified” for an organization like ACS to do this type of campaign. I think that’s the first thing that troubles me. They are the AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY for goodness sake… yes, disappointed. The words at the end are what I find extremely offensive. How convenient the speaker was just past that magical 5 year marker that so many want to parade around as THE benchmark. Personally, I’m more scared now, at the 5 1/2 year mark.

Keep sharing… and yes, I’m loving the Huff Post thing, too!

xoxox

Though not as offensive as many awareness videos/slogans out there, this one is still off the mark. I appreciate that they use a variety of women and body types in the video, but there is plenty of misleading information. My concern with the magical 5-year mark is that many don’t realize it is nothing more than a statistical reference point. Whether 2 years out, 5 years out, or 10 or more years out, breast cancer patients need to be vigilant about changes in their bodies. My fear is that some women may feel they are “out of the woods” after 5 years and then end up missing a warning sign, thereby giving a new cancer or a metastasis more time to take hold. “Defeating cancer” is complicated. That is why we need more focus on the right things. I expected better from the ACS.

I watched it a couple of times.. Bottom line it is a big deal because IMO it paints cancer as so many of us have had to deal with.

Quit your Bitchin it’s only Breast Cancer.

Breast Cancer is NOT being defeated, defeated means when it is totally eradicated. No evidence of the disease. But we all know it’s still there lurking somewhere we just don’t know when it’s going to rear it’s ugly mug again.

Sad that lies permeate the video…

Love Alli…XX