save women. save men. save their children, parents, siblings, friends, and all loved ones from a loss due to breast cancer- but don't make light of the disease for the sake of branding.
breast cancer is not a distant disease. it will, directly or indirectly, affect every american during our lifetimes. i'm all for measures that will increase donations to research organizations but i am completely tired of efforts to politicize, sexualize, commercialize, or otherwise degrade the cause.
there are a few attempts at punny wordplay around testicular cancer awareness, which have not (thank god) taken off with the same gusto as the distasteful breast cancer counterparts. but save for these two varieties, it seems that other cancers don't have to resort to such cheap measures to raise funding or awareness. are we so immature as a society that we can't support disease research without tactlessly referencing when it effects our girl- or boy-parts?
i'm willing to concede that the high instances and early awareness of breast cancer are probably causes of the pervasiveness of such offending efforts: breast cancer has been an established villain for longer than many other specific types of cancer, which translates to a longer history of targeted fundraising efforts. its high diagnosis rates and research opportunities also drive the need for significant funding, which then creates the demand for mass amounts of marketing. there's no way to avoid some crap campaigns when you consider the sheer volume of fundraising that has been necessary for so many years. it's also understandable that some of the first awareness campaigns may have felt the need to use bad entendre as a way to break taboo in publicly discussing a modest body part. but snooki is a household name now, so let's drop the pretense of societal morality.
i desperately need to believe that broad contempt would befall someone who tried to promote ovarian cancer awareness with rejected apatow-factory jokes like 'battle for the baby-makers!' so why do breasts get such tasteless treatment? forget the slogans- donate, simply because you fucking should.
