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Memes, Mammograms and Marketing

By Shaunak Sastry
Social network sites like Facebook and Twitter were abuzz with some users posting one-word status messages. Women (and some men) around the world had 'pink', 'green', 'wine', 'black' on as their statuses. As most of the uninitiated (men, for the most part) wondered what was going on, the social network etiquette site, Mashable, revealed the mystery.
These mysterious, singularly worded statuses were suspected to be part of a viral campaign to support the cause of breast cancer. Women across the world were putting up the colors of the bras they were sporting in seeming 'support' for breast cancer awareness. Quixotic, you say? Bizarre?
Amongst contemporary health campaigns, breast cancer is an interesting case study in how it aims to get rid of the stigma of mammograms, how it attempts to get women to self-examine, and how it seeks to enable conversations about breasts without embarrassment. However, the problem is that this liberal feminist stance; a stance that seemingly 'empowers' women by de-stigmatizing female breasts, works to commodify women's bodies in the same vein. Breast cancer awareness campaigns that have women go bare for the sake of 'awareness' also play into a commodification logic, where women's bodies become commodities that can be bought into. It becomes 'chic' to pose naked for Vogue, as long as it is for the breast cancer cause.
Coming back to Facebook, the connection between bra color and breast cancer awareness shares the same commodifying gesture. Amidst all the activity generated by this highly memetic campaign, amidst the various 'turqoise', 'sky blue', 'none', 'polka dots' status messages, a friend commented on how this was such a fantastic potential viral marketing campaign. She suggested that 'cancer' could be replaced with 'Victoria's Secret'. Why are women participating so readily in their own commodification? (and the fact that postcolonial Indian subjects are taking the baton up is a battle for another day)
The fact is that my friend's suggestion was right on the money. Too right on the money. The fact is that you can replace cancer with Victoria's secret. They're both brands. I would go so far as to say that cancer is much more a commodifiable brand today.


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