Women and Gender

Shields: Mastectomy artwork promotes positive body image for breast cancer survivors

Artist AleXsandro Palombo has taken classic images of Disney princesses and turned them into a tool of positive body image. Palombo has drawn several princesses, including Tiana, Ariel and Jasmine with one or both of their breasts removed as if they’ve had a mastectomy. These images have recently gone viral and have been featured in publications such as The Daily Mail and Cosmopolitan.

Palombo’s artwork is excellent because it raises awareness about breast cancer while making the focus of this issue the woman, not her body parts. It also seeks to let survivors who have undergone mastectomies know that they are still beautiful, even if they did not “Save the Boobies” — a well-known breast cancer campaign. To me, Palombo’s project says: if Disney princesses, the untouchable, ultimate standard of beauty, can undergo a mastectomy and still maintain their beauty and self-love then any woman can.

This is the latest in Palombo’s artwork that seeks to portray a greater message and raise awareness of serious issues. His past work includes Disney princesses who are victims of domestic abuse and who have been cyber-bullied.

Palombo’s mastectomy project is a stark contrast to movements like Keep a Breast, that employed the popular slogan “I Love Boobies.” Those movements are great for raising awareness and support for breast cancer but they miss one big point: women are more than their breasts. The difference between these campaigns and Palombo’s art is that Palombo promotes that women are beautiful with or without their breasts and it’s OK if they cannot “keep a breast.” More campaigns should promote this when raising awareness about breast cancer and how to prevent it.

According to the Center for Disease Control, in the United States alone, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women and one of the most common killers of women. In 2011, 220,097 women were diagnosed with breast cancer and of those women, 40,931 died. With numbers like these, more people should take Palombo’s approach and highlight the beauty that can come from survivors who have undergone mastectomies.



Breast cancer, like other forms of cancer, should focus on the survivor and the strength that can be seen in their scars. Palombo’s project is more than a photo essay of mastectomy scars. By taking the image of Disney princesses — which are usually used to portray perfection — and giving them mastectomy scars, he has put them in a position that many women can relate to. Hopefully, other artists and campaigns will follow his lead.

Mandisa Shields is a sophomore newspaper and online journalism major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @mandisashields.





Top Stories