some observations about WAD
I know I'm pretty late in making these observations, but I've got a little free time and I need something to focus my brain right now.
Friday night, for World AIDS Day, I went to JWU for a presentation. They showed the movie Philadelphia, and then I spoke for a while. It wasn't my standard presentation at all, but it was something that fit after watching that movie together. So here are my thoughts, that I've been carrying around all weekend:
Friday night, for World AIDS Day, I went to JWU for a presentation. They showed the movie Philadelphia, and then I spoke for a while. It wasn't my standard presentation at all, but it was something that fit after watching that movie together. So here are my thoughts, that I've been carrying around all weekend:
- Yeah, it's outdated, but in more ways than I realized. Every once in a while I think it's still probably a good idea to look back and see where we've been, just so we can appreciate how far we've come.
- It was hard to watch, and not for the reasons I expected it to be hard. Seeing Andrew (I think that was his name) get that sick (and predictably die) was hard, because watching his family be all awkward around him reminded me of the feelings I had watching Kevin die last year. But talking about death was not hard at all.
- One of the things that really bugs me is the whole association that I grew up with, that GAY = AIDS and AIDS = GAY and the two are (in the mass consciousness) interchangeable. That was never completely true, although many of the new cases in the eighties were gay men (in the US anyway), and it's definitely not true today. The latest statistic that I've heard that addresses that: 47% of the new infections in the US in 2004 were women. We've made at least a little progress in changing the public perception on that issue, and while it often doesn't seem that way, it seems like the stereotype that just won't die, seeing the movie and seeing just how entrenched it was (and the judgment that went along with that notion too) was startling.
- We've also come a long way in terms of public perception of gay. Sure, we still have a long way to go, but some of the underlying and unchallenged assumptions that the movie (and the characters within the movie) got away with were, again, startling. And the movie isn't even all that old, in the grand scheme of things; 1993 was only 13 years ago. True, we've got a lot more states in the US with hateful amendments in their constitutions, but overall I think that the public perception has started to shift. (I also find it interesting that those laws don't necessarily reflect the shift that's taking place, and that's why I don't think they'll matter in the end.) We don't still automatically have to apologize for being gay and wanting to be ourselves. It's not a given that people think that we deserve AIDS because we "insist" on being gay. (Remember that, anyone?) Overall, I don't see the gay community at large as being as defensive as the movie portrays, as we were a decade ago. It's just not as big a deal anymore to be gay.
- Maybe my take on the last point has more to do with my own growth, and the fact that I'm living in a more liberal part of the US, than any actual shift.
- I really wish that we had a different movie to show than Philadelphia to explain the reality of HIV and AIDS to people, especially students. I spent most of my time explaining how things are different now.