Queerty‘s Outfest coverage continues with We Were Here, a documentary about the summer of love in San Francisco, the resulting AIDS epidemic the followed after the death of Harvey Milk, and the creative infrastructure that the queer community cobbled together when faced with governmental silence.
WHAT’S IT ABOUT: The film interviews five different San Franciscans who lived in the city before and after the epidemic. It follows their “different vantage points as caregivers, activists, researchers, as friends and lovers of the afflicted, and as people with AIDS themselves as they highlight the [AIDS-related] political battles, sexual complexities, and terrible emotional toll.” Using old news footage, photographs, newspapers, and illustrative anecdotes, We Were Here manages to squeeze in over 20 years of history in just 90-minutes while still delivering a thorough, evenly-paced examination that honors its subjects well.
IS IT ANY GOOD: Absolutely. In fact, the film does an excellent job of condensing a very complicated political, medical, and community issue into its most human and emotional terms. There’s the story of an HIV-infected man who lost three young lovers to the virus, the ambitious immunologist who fell victim to one of the earliest experimental treatments, the nurse who crossed an ACT-UP picket line to get information from an AIDS conference, and countless queers who tried to provide food, comfort, and love to those that others would not touch.
RATING: Five out of five quilt patches – Even though this powerful historical document concentrates almost solely on young white men affected by AIDS during the 80s and 90s, it should still be required viewing for any student, any LGBT person, and any caretaker and government agent working in the medical community who wants to learn how to integrate the epidemic’s lessons into a more just, loving, and humane community today. The film provides laughter and hope with its well-spoken interviewees while still managing to draw tears from those who never experienced the epidemic and the groups of older adults who cried and held each other while watching in the Outfest auditorium.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
geoff
Queerty: Your first sentence in this “review” is all over the place historically/factually and grammatically. Summer of Love ’67 – H Milk dies ’78 – first aids cases reported ’81. There may well be a cinematic narrative thread that strings all these things together but your sentence reads as if they all happened within minutes of one another: “the summer of love…. the resulting aids epidemic the (sic) followed after the death of Harvey Milk…..” – and I’m a big fan – stood up for you re: E Hasselbeck(sp)! Keep up the good work! G
Steve
During the 1980’s and early 1990’s, I nursed and then buried my own lover, visited more than a hundred men in hospital, sat with several in hospice while they died, attended the funerals of dozens of my friends, facilitated a caregivers support group, organized the AIDS ministry for a large MCC church, and worked (usher, sound/light tech) at more than two hundred funerals. I still cannot bear to read books or watch movies about those events. I have no intention of watching that movie.
For younger people who did not have to live through it — Yes, by all means, they should watch it. The history lesson will be good. For those of us who survived that period, let the scares heal if they can.
TheRealMannequinAdam
Why should non-promiscuous gays care about this movie?
geoff
To Therealmannequinadam: FOR THE SAME REASON THAT ALL HISTORY IS IMPORTANT – I could go on but it would no doubt be over your head.
TomMc
@TheRealMannequinAdam: Er, clever hyperbole?
TheRealMannequinAdam
@geoff: *All* history isn’t important to *all* people.
So, again, I ask the question in post #3. And I’m not trying to be snarky. I’m trying to understand why the promiscuous lifestyle choices of some gay men, and their fall into disease and death, are somehow related to my own life, and why I should sympathize with them.
And I am totally aware that other people contract HIV and other STDs that aren’t promiscuous. But the spread of the disease through the gay community was fueled by unsafe sex and promiscuity.
geoff
To TRMA: Because every human life is or should be related to yours. Unless you are Michele Bachman or Jerry Falwell. And I can only ask that you might rise above your own self-involvement and what I presume is a youthful age and take into account that which you might not be able to imagine; the gay sexual revolution of the ”70’s and ’80’s. Promiscuous? Yes, well I guess so – but who are you to judge – and no one knew there was a virus that would come to be involved. Is it important that you sympathize? Probably not – but maybe a little empathy wouldn’t kill you. And as far as history concerns all people remember the words of Santayanna, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” How does this relate to your life – I don’t know… only history will tell.
lika
i saw this movie. it was unrelenting, all tears, all the time. Especially when they had photos of the ever vibrant, ebullient young men then juxtaposing that with their hospital bed pictures. bring a friend and hold each other at the end for a loooong time. that’s what we did. powerful film.
theo
@Steve:
I here you loud and clear. I am only 22 and sometimes I wish I had lived in those days.
robert
I also think “And the Band Played On” is a great movie. If you haven’t seen it, check it out.
geoff
theo: what a noble sentiment – but live in your days and seek out those that are still suffering and help where you can
TheRealMannequinAdam
@geoff: I understand all that concerning the gay sexual revolution. But that doesn’t mean identify with it. I think you’re failing to see the point I’m making.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@TheRealMannequinAdam: *that doesn’t mean I identify with it.
Larry-bob
@Steve I hope you will see it anyway (though with friends and with plans to spend time together afterwards.) I think the film has healing qualities as well as documenting the era.
edfu
@TheRealMannequinAdam: What a vile, hateful, cruel, mean, cold, heartless, selfish, pathetic, thoughtless, and despicable excuse for a human being you are. You are a disgrace to the human race, not to mention an evil representative of a gay man.
If you weren’t so stupid and refused to learn the history in this documentary you blithely disdain, you would know that all of the men who died in the early years of the epidemic were infected long before anyone knew there was a deadly virus circulating in the gay community. No one knew this virus was sexually transmitted or, indeed, exactly how it was transmitted.
I am trying to have some pity for you, with great difficulty, for you will never know love or truly be loved. You are incapable and unworthy of it. Your sad life will end with no affection or remorse from others. A worm has more affection and sympathy than you do.
“Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
TheRealMannequinAdam
@edfu: “…you would know that all of the men who died in the early years of the epidemic were infected long before anyone knew there was a deadly virus circulating in the gay community. No one knew this virus was sexually transmitted or, indeed, exactly how it was transmitted.”
That doesn’t change the fact that 1) promiscuity and unsafe sex were the cause of its rapid spread; 2) that they continued to become infected and die after knowing about the disease and how it was spread, and; 3) three decades later, HIV continues to afflict gay men disproportionately more than any other group of people on the planet, and promiscuity and unsafe sex are still rampant in the community. Nothing has changed since the 80s except that gays now have treatment. They’ve been enabled to live, but the very culture that led to the AIDS crisis has not changed one bit.
You expect to me have sympathy for people who still, to this day, have not learned from these mistakes and simply don’t care to. All your silly name-calling means nothing. You’ve failed to answer, even remotely, the question I asked in post #3.
And you should probably get some counseling.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@TheRealMannequinAdam: Correction: not on the planet, but in this country and other developed countries.
Xander
@TheRealMannequinAdam: Your initial question boils down to the question of “why would I care about anything else but me?” There are a lot of things people care about. They care about the Holocaust even when they are not Jews. They care about famines, say in Africa, even when they are not Africans. There seems only one explanation for your heartless lack of sympathy and its meaningless expression. Your judgments about people. I don’t know what kind of ideology is behind it but it’s not making you a good person. If you think you shouldn’t care about people who died of AIDS then why do you even bother posting some silly note? If this is a troll, then again, this does not make you a good person. Not at all, despite your belief in your righteousness. Hate has always an ugly and very recognizable face.
Oliver
@TheRealMannequinAdam: I think its really stupid to have that kind of attitude. You don’t have an adequate understanding of the context in which these people lived and died. What you’ve said is incredibly unkind and unthinking. It does clearly reflect your own personal contradictions, but there is no excuse for being so cruel to and about others.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@Xander: The difference between those events and the AIDS epidemic, is that they were actually victims of the circumstances that were beyond their control. It’s much easier to sympathize with those people.
I can’t see how AIDS victims – then and now – could not make changes to avoid disease and death. The more than obvious solution would be to stop fucking, or at the very least be completely safe while you’re doing it and avoid multiple partners. But what we had was a (very large) collection of gay men who were whoring around when other STDs were already very prominent, knowing the risks (as they do today), they catch something foreign, and now they want to see themselves as victims. Of course judgments are involved when the situation could have been avoided in the first place, and especially since the situation has not improved since then. Just because there is human suffering does not exempt them from judgment.
So, I still think my question is a valid one.
@Oliver: “You don’t have an adequate understanding of the context in which these people lived and died.”
Please explain what that has to do with anything.
jeff4justice
We’ve come a long way. Now magazine like Frontiers 4 Men (part of Frontiers LLC which publishes Frontiers LA full of cooperate ads, HIV pharmaceutical ads, and celeb features) unabashedly glorifies barebackers like Xtube’s Maverick Men.
I vlog about it: Gay Glorifying Of Bareback Sex
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VzaC5LgJEY
McGullen
@Steve: Thanks for sharing that. I think a lot of people reading this site were probably born in the late 80s or very early 90s, but it would be interesting to see how many older readers there are.
meego
@TheRealMannequinAdam: You obviously were not around back then. First of all, unsafe sex, in those days did not help to spread the disease because there was no such thing as unsafe sex in the days when the disease had not yet appeared. Nowadays, yes, but back then, no. Do you understand that? The very expression, “unsafe sex”, did not appear until after the epidemic started.
You really had to have lived through those days to understand why gay men were so promiscuous. Mind you, they still are today. But back then, the mindset, if you can call it that, was different. After decades, centuries of repression, the floodgates were suddenly opened. I won’t go into into lengthy details–read up on it yourself. I am part of that 1970’s generation. I have lived to tell the tale. It was incredible. Really, it was. You had to have been there. I will forgive your improper attitude because you did not live those days to understand why we were the way we were.
taeo
@TheRealMannequinAdam: It’s simple minded non-promiscuous people such as yourself that need to look a little bit deeper than the puddle that is your vapid, shallow, sense of self and attempt to be empathetic to others that came before you and lived through an epidemic that is still pertinent today. I think you would learn a lot from people living w/ HIV, educate yourself and get off of your high horse your apathy is showing and it’s not cute.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@meego: I’ve read a great deal about the period and yes, there was such a thing as unsafe sex. Several gay intellectuals actually encouraged gays to have unprotected sex and obtain venereal diseases as badges of honor, in rejection of heterosexuality and monogamy.
As for the period in question, there may have been the spirit of sexual revolution, which I understand, but if it’s so particular to that period, as you are claiming it to be, then why hasn’t the sexual situation and the spread of STDs improved since then?
@taeo: “I think you would learn a lot from people living w/ HIV, educate yourself and get off of your high horse your apathy is showing and it’s not cute.”
Why don’t you share some of those things that I could learn from them, that I wasn’t already aware of by the fact that they contracted HIV in the first place. What could they teach me? A bunch of things I already know, that they only recognized in hindsight, when it was too late?
Daniel Villarreal
@TheRealMannequinAdam: I won’t insult you for your question (though I do think it is myopic and judgmental). Unless all of your friends are asexual then you have reason to learn about HIV. Condoms fail, people lie, medical accidents occur and it is more likely then not that at some point before you die that someone you care deeply about will contract HIV.
Also so much of our queer cultural identity and politics stems directly from our response and blame for the AIDS epidemic. ACT-UP and Larry Kramer (who both forged an identity and purpose in the heat of the epidemic) were forebears of GetEqual and Dan Savage. AIDS has been used as a cudgel to demonize our community (including you) whether you’re promiscuous, infected or not.
No matter your status or sexual habits, I find value in learning more about the disease and our history because it wiped out an entire generation of influential queer artists, activists and thinkers and because the epidemic still rages on in our own community. As a blogger it behooves me to learn and know more about the disease. As a queer man I feel it is my duty to learn more about our past.
Not all queers are the same, but education and empathy cost nothing and are never bad things in my opinion.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@jeff4justice: Exactly. So the situation has not changed.
meego
@TheRealMannequinAdam: Your interpretation of what you have read is wrong. That’s not how it was at all. And it is a waste of time for anyone here to “educate” or “inform” you because your mind is already made up and closed. Good luck, buddy, you’ll need it.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@Daniel Villarreal: “Not all queers are the same, but education and empathy cost nothing and are never bad things in my opinion.”
They cost nothing, but they don’t necessarily go hand in hand.
That being said, I understand and accept the activism, identity, and other cultural consequences of the AIDS crisis. However unfortunate the association between AIDS and gays is, I see that it also had a positive political impact.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@meego: Oh, please. I understand perfectly what I read. There were many strains of gay liberation thought, and that was certainly one of them, and many, mnay gays bought into it, and still do. To deny that is completely disingenuous.
I also find it interesting that you refused to answer the second part of my post, where I asked an important question. Instead, you shut down the dialogue and retreat. And yet my mind is closed?
matt
@TheRealMannequinAdam: I think just the fact that you present “just stop having sex” as a solution shows how fundamentally different your worldview is than most people. I don’t speak for everyone but the vast majority of people would not just stop having sex because it’s risky. If straight sex was as effective at transmitting HIV as gay sex was, the same thing would have happened to them.
David Ehrenstein
This is the very best film about the AIDS epidemic I’ve seen to date. And believe me I’ve seen thme all. What makes it both so moving and so informative is that the filmmakers concentrate on San Francisco and caregivers who were there from the start — and are still here now.
These are the sort of everyday heores whose lives should be celebrated. You’ve never heard of any of these people. They simple found themselves on the front lines of the greatest health disaster of our time and they did the right thing.
As they tell their stories we follow the arc of the epidemic. It was years before anyone knew it was a vrius — or how it was contracted. Worse still for yesrs there were no forms of treatment whatsoever.
In spite of all of this it’s not a depressing movie. The small triumphs of its marvelous subjects are thrilling and heartening.
Mike in Asheville
@geoff: Ditto — makes no sense at all.
Mike in Asheville
@Steve: While I certainly understand your determination to skip this documentary, I hope you change your mind.
For me I could not, for emotional reasons, go to the theater to see “And the Band Played On”, “Longtime Companion” nor “Milk”. I completely broke down watching them at home with my hubby. The humor and relief, and that it was fictional, “Longtime Companion” brought me some comfort remembering the loving moments when my heart touched another’s, someone who simply needed love.
With “And the Band Played On” I just cried too much. One of the main characters, I had such a crush on him, and though the intimacy was just a couple one-nighters, his beautiful nature along with those dreamy eyes, kept a much-too-short friendship such a good friendship. Perhaps the toughest part was knowing (it was a FACT then that if HIV+ your days were very numbered) my turn was coming too but keeping that quiet for their comfort.
For “Milk” again way too many tears at home watching that part of my life too. I will never forget just how sober the City and the Castro turned that week, the leader who inspired us 18-19 year-olds to become active in promoting a fairness for ourselves. Watching the scenes of the vigil and then the White Night riots, wondering if you’ll spy a picture of yourself in the midst?
But the more complete reason I do watch films about my and our community’s history, I have watched those movies (And the Band, Companion, Milk; second times not first times) with handfuls of nieces and nephews, answering their questions, and telling that history.
I have saved “We Were Here” in my Netflix que for when it gets released on video.
Mike in Asheville
@David Ehrenstein: Nice review; I have added the movie to my Netflix account for when it is released to video.
I look forward to meeting others who too were there living the life and fighting the fight. And there so many unsung heroes: I remember how invigorated I was watching the hustle and bustle of activity at the Project Openhand kitchen when I would drop off a basket full of garden vegetables; witnessing the gifting of $75k from “Friends of Oscar” to Ruth at Openhand to build their kitchen. And all of the many volunteers who gave and gave for others.
Mike in Asheville
@TheRealMannequinAdam: Please go to Marcus Bachman and see whether he can turn you straight cause, damn, we sure don’t need assholes like you on our side.
rick mechtly
I remember feeling a bit letdown by my circle so frequently experiencing hepatitis B (let alone the many other STDs) so enrolled into the “b” vaccine study prior to people noticeably having fatal illness – My focus was there on sexual health as had been a surgical orderly in the early 70s. Our community was rebelling against the rank conservative leadership in part with their social lives and later reacted largely with shock/much denial when the original reports began apppearing. Was personally advised to be VERY careful in a phone call with a mystified Dr.Joel Weisman prior to the release of the initial official reportage in NEJM.. It was responding to his plea to try visiting his hospital patients (many completely bereft of social support) in ’83 that I threw myself into a dozen years of ward bedside contact with thousands of persons from every level of sexual histories- there were numbers of them who expressed to me that they had very few contacts and they were telling their truths to me I’m certain— Personal growth was evident in the many volunteers I got to sheperd into their calling as outreach specialists – Gee Mannequin – would you have stepped forward into the blazing nightmare that we encountered as weatherbeaten but proud volunteers?? A survivor it turns out due perhaps to my immune situation as an elite controller–Rick Mechtly
Mike in Asheville
@geoff: Completely agree with your post; however, a pet peeve of my about the quote you quoted.
George Santayana’s quote, as most commonly translated into English: “The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again.” (BTW, this is the translation used on the warning plaque at the Auschwitz memorial.)
Winston Churchill’s version: “Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.” (1912)
A century before, though, Edmund Burke wrote: “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”
Mike in Asheville
@Mike in Asheville:@No. 34: re: Mike: somber NOT sober
Jack E. Jett
For me, (in the middle of it during the 80’s) my hope is that enough time has passed that I can watch something like this without totally breaking down. It was much like having been in a war that you need to recall but it hurts to do so.
JoeyO'H
@TheRealMannequinAdam:
Are you small minded or Republican or both?
It’s about OUR HISTORY as a community. I am still here and HIV- but many, many friends of mine are not. They died at the very beginning of the epidemic. I recall seeing that one article in the NY Times- the small headline of the small article “41 Gay Men Die Mysteriously.” At one point in 1984, I was going to 3-4 funerals a week!! I couldn’t get my suit out of the cleaners fast enough! I lost too many friends who I miss dearly today.
It’s their story. It’s our story. It’s part of our history. The history of my friends who are no longer here to tell it.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@Mike in Asheville: How quaint.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@JoeyO’H: OK, you have a personal connection to the history and that’s fine.
JoeyO'H
I came out in 1981 at 19. I lived through and saw the AIDS epidemic take form from the beginning and take so many people I loved. I was scared shitless. Here I am, young, sexual and there is an unknown out there killing gay men. The unsure of what was going on in the gay community, hearing it’s a cancer, something you could get from doing poppers, know one what the fuck to think. Then it was GRID, and my world changed. My friends, my new found friends, were dropping like flies and dying horrible deaths and I MEAN HORRIBLE! That is why WE WERE HERE is so very important! Very important!!!
I have not seen it yet, but I plan to.
JoeyO'H
@TheRealMannequinAdam:
Adam, I think we all have a personal connection to it.
WillBFair
@Daniel Villarreal: I won’t mention a certain heartless, judgement bitch, because like all the other comments here, he is intentionally missing the point.
It’s not about blaming each other. If it were, I could spend all day at it. I fought tooth and claw throughout the 80s to stop the spread of hiv. I was screamed out the door of gay discussion groups at Stanford and UC Berkeley for trying to discuss safer strategies.
It’s about the internalized homophobia that has caused irresponsible behaviour. We must admit our self hatreds and self destructiveness, and begin taking responsibility for ourselves and our community.
We must talk about realistic strategies: safer sex always, monogamy, sero-division, safer sex f–k buddies, shouting down the barebackers, mentoring people in their twenties, building their self esteem, laying down the law about condoms and safer sex, etc…
We must stop the spread of hiv in this community. Now. And there are obvious ways to do that. The first steps are to stop blaming others, stop getting bogged down with sentimentality like this film, and stop the bull—t infighting. We need to take responsibility for each other and this community, and get serious about workable strategies. Period.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@matt: So why do people have the sex and then make themselves into victims when they contract something they don’t like, and knowing the risks of risky behavior? For me, it has nothing to do with having a different worldview. I’m speaking from the standpoint of personal safety and personal responsibility.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@WillBFair: You’re basically saying the same thing I’m saying. You’re just writing down solutions.
Daniel Villarreal
@WillBFair: I agree with everything you said except for “stop getting bogged down with sentimentality like this film.” Truthfully, I think this film is an excellent primer for any young person who did not live during the height of the AIDS epidemic and is necessary for them to get a good start in understanding the multiplicity of highly-charged sociopolitical issues involved in fighting the HIV epidemic.
I’d say the film is more emotional than sentimental. If you saw it, you’d say the same. Sentimental sounds weepy and useless. Emotional implies a visceral response that might spur someone towards action. Action and education are undoubtedly what we need. And without younger people understanding this part of the epidemic, their knowledge remains incomplete.
Xander
“In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.”
“Experienced participants in online forums know that the most effective way to discourage a troll is usually to ignore it, because responding tends to encourage trolls to continue disruptive posts — hence the often-seen warning: ‘Please do not feed the trolls’.”
matt
@TheRealMannequinAdam: It IS a different worldview, because you consider life without sex as an option, while most people simply do not. Driving is risky behavior, but would you say in response to a tragic car accident that the people involved should have simply not drove? Sex is a basic human desire, some people are fine without it but for most people just not having sex is not an option, no more than how not driving isn’t much of an option for many people. If you personally are fine with choosing not to have sex that’s fine, but for most people that simply isn’t a satisfying life. I am aware of the consequences that can come with certain actions but that doesn’t mean that people deserve no sympathy simply because they engage in risky behavior. EVERYONE engages in risky behavior and in most cases we still show sympathy if something happens, without taking risks life would be pointless and boring.
Alex
So how are we supposed to see this without traveling hundreds of miles to some festival or screening? When will the torrent be released?
McGullen
@WillBFair: The most effective strategy is for individual gay people to get educated and use a condom if they have sex with strangers. Most people really shouldn’t be having sex with strangers, or if they do, it should be very infrequently. Even anal sex with a partner should involve a condom until you know you can trust him.
McGullen
@WillBFair: Sorry for the second comment, but I forgot to ask what sero-division is.
Mike in Asheville
@Alex: Because of this post, I went to my Netflix queue and added it. The release date for video is not out yet so I am unsure when, but, when it does become available, I am already signed up and ready to receive it.
ewe
It is complete disorganization that this film is not at least in all major cities.
ewe
@TheRealMannequinAdam: If you were in front of me i would tear the sides of your mouth out.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@matt: Then how do you explain the fury that any discussion of Mason Wyler brings up? There is never any compassion for him, yet he fits the criteria that you just established (of needing sex at the expense of one’s health).
Also, I never advocated life without sex (which would be celibacy). I (in effect) did not advocate reckless, unsafe promiscuity, which has and continues to fuel the HIV/AIDS crisis. There is a very big difference.
I liked your driving analogy but I don’t know if it works here.
ewe
@TheRealMannequinAdam:http://www.popartuk.com/g/l/lgfp2063+the-joker-batman-the-dark-knight-poster.jpg
ewe
@TheRealMannequinAdam: shut your fucken hole cuntwipe. This movie and the people who were effected did not know about HIV when they acquired it. ASS FUCK HOLE.
ewe
@TheRealMannequinAdam: We obviously need to silence you the same way we do stupid bigoted athletes.
McGullen
ewe, a single comment is all the silencing he needs, really.
ewe
@TheRealMannequinAdam: shut it maggot slime. Disease is not criminal behavior.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@ewe: “Disease is not criminal behavior.”
And neither is a lack of identification with the people who bring the disease on themselves.
ewe
@TheRealMannequinAdam: they they they they they. You are an ignorant piece of filth.
ewe
@TheRealMannequinAdam: typical you blame gay people for being ill. As if you fucking know each individual case. Idiot.
ewe
@TheRealMannequinAdam: So called non promiscuous gay people held the hands and assisted many of their friends who passed away. That’s why “non promiscuous” gay people should care about this movie. As if you are the one who defines what promiscuous is for each individual gay person on the planet. You are in the dark and you are a bitch and you are not getting anything from me but a huge FUCK YOU until you apologize for your disgraceful callous comments.
ewe
@TheRealMannequinAdam: Let me guess. You are a holocaust denier too.
ewe
@TheRealMannequinAdam: I have an idea Bitch. How about a cure instead of blaming ill people for being ill?
ewe
@TheRealMannequinAdam: Long before you were hatched this conversation took place about what kinds of people like you would come along years into the future and how their ignorance would fuel the bitchin and blame against everyone who became HIV+ after the first wave of people died. So you’re not fucking original Queen just another tart with an ugly heart that can be matched by those who are much stronger than you.
matt
@TheRealMannequinAdam: The problem is there are people who are not overly reckless who get HIV and there are people who are really reckless who don’t get it. Just like there are great drivers who get killed by some idiot and there are awful drivers who get lucky time and again. I think it’s a perfectly valid analogy.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@ewe: I don’t care.
They “knew” that they were engaging in risky sexual behavior through which they could acquire other STDs. And they “know” now that they could acquire HIV/AIDs and yet they still choose to engage in the same risky behavior.
So, history and posterity have shown that it wouldn’t have mattered whether or not they knew about the disease, so that argument is simply invalid and unacceptable.
matt
Also you seem to be forgetting the socioeconomic factors that go into this whole thing. You seem to be a fairly well read and educated person, what about some gay teen who got kicked out on the street by his parents and has mental health issues and not even a high school education? Do you expect people like that to be able to make informed rational decisions about their sex life in all cases? Yeah if some well educated and mentally stable person decided to go bareback with a ton of random strangers and got HIV, I wouldn’t feel overly sorry for them, but do you think that’s how it usually happens?
TheRealMannequinAdam
@ewe: The vast majority of them point to the same situation: risky sexual behavior. Individual cases that don’t follow that trend, don’t detract from it and don’t counter it as much as they just add variety.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@ewe: I never said I was original. I simply asked a question.
TomMc
@TheRealMannequinAdam: RE: #57
Sexually speaking, only celibacy will prevent one from contracting HIV. You’re not celibate? Then YOU are part of the problem.
JoeyO'H
@TheRealMannequinAdam:
Adam: You’re not making any friends here. See, there are many people here who have a personal, in one way or form, attachment to HIV/AIDS. Whether it be a lover, friend, family member, etc. I can feel it, I see it in the posts. Tread very lightly.
Don’t be the one casting stones. It could very well happen to you.
This horrible disease knows no boundries, sexes, sexualities, races, or even hair color. Anyone and everyone is at risk like the poster before me said that driving is risky. Walking across the street at a red pedestrain signal is risky and many, many people do that everyday.
So take a step back and see the bigger picture here. Or maybe you can’t and you’re just stirring the pot here for attention. I don’t know you. But remember, you don’t have to be reckless to get HIV/AIDS.
TomMc
@ewe: RE: #56.
That’s not very creative! Haven’t you seen the South Park episode where Scott Tenorman sells Cartman his pubes?
TheRealMannequinAdam
@matt: “What about some gay teen who got kicked out on the street by his parents and has mental health issues and not even a high school education? Do you expect people like that to be able to make informed rational decisions about their sex life in all cases?”
No, but I think we’ve been educated thoroughly on the risks of sex such that any modern teenager should know that they should be cautious.
“Yeah if some well educated and mentally stable person decided to go bareback with a ton of random strangers and got HIV, I wouldn’t feel overly sorry for them, but do you think that’s how it usually happens?”
Promiscuity, along with unsafe sexual behavior, is primarily how it happens.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@TomMc: I am celibate unless I’m in a monogamous relationship. So, I don’t see how I could be part of the problem.
wtf
You only have to be exposed ONCE to get HIV. You don’t have to be promiscuous. (Not that I personally have anything wrong with people having multiple sex partners.) I have more than one friend who made a mistake – they trusted someone they shouldn’t have – an error in judgment in the moment – and they are now HIV+. How is this not relative to anyone? How do you, TheRealMannequinAdam, get to sit in judgment of so many people who didn’t deserve to die? You think they had it coming because they fucked? Or because they fucked a lot? I’ve personally had lots and lots of sex – with many different people – and am still HIV- because I use condoms. But those people didn’t get that choice. Perhaps you should aim your judgment at yourself. Because the people you’re judging now? They’re your elders, who lived through hell, fought for our rights and YOURS so that you could sit there and act so indulgent, self-righteous and offensive. I hope you never, ever, ever, make any mistakes in your oh, so perfect life.
wtf
oh and another thing honey. Just because someone TELLS you that they are being monogamous doesn’t necessarily make it so. Just sayin’. So I hope you are careful about your serial monogamy. Cause you could get some diseases that way too. And then we’ll all be judging you.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@JoeyO’H: I understand.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@wtf: Point taken. Thanks for the heads up.
TomMc
@TheRealMannequinAdam: Even in a monogamous relationship your partner could cheat on you with a person who was HIV postitive. Then, you might very well acquire the HIV infection from your unfaithful partner. So, unless you are celibate all of the time, you are a potential vector of disease transmission.
Clearly you live in a country/State with Same Sex Marriage already? Which one?
TheRealMannequinAdam
@TomMc: If my partner would cheat, then it wouldn’t be a monogamous relationship.
I reside in the great state of California and marriage equality should be worked out soon enough.
WillBFair
@McGullen: It means getting tested, and negative people going only with negative people, positives with positives.
TomMc
@TheRealMannequinAdam: Oddly enough people have been known to lie about cheating in relationships.
So, as a Californian, why aren’t you simply satisfied with a “Civil Union”? They do provide all the benefits of marriage.
Why are you people fighting over a word?
TheRealMannequinAdam
@TomMc: I don’t understand what marriage has to do with anything in the discussion.
WillBFair
@Daniel Villarreal: Thanks for the kind words.
But I still disagree about the film. I haven’t seen it, but I’ll bet there’s no mention of people who tried to stop the spread, like Larry Kramer and others, or of the venom and profanity thrown at them in the gay press, or of the serious strategies we all should be following to stop it.
The acid test, as you point out, is that it should inspire our people to action. And after seeng plenty of distractions like this, from Angels in America to Longtime Companion, I would bet that it will not inspire action. It is more sentiment, another something to let the audience feel sad, and help them think they’re doing something about the problem when they’re not.
Movies aren’t going to help. They never do.
The only thing that will help is if we all take an uncompromising stand and get active, now.
TomMc
@TheRealMannequinAdam: Good point.
I just imagined that some of the folks active during the 80s/90s within anti-AIDS organizations (those still alive that is) are now vocal and effective supporters of ‘gay marriage'(sic) in California now.
Would that be necessarily incorrect?
Daniel Villarreal
@WillBFair: You’re really generalizing here and have no proof that movies never help spur people to action. In fact, most of my exposure to queer art are what spurred me to begin writing and working in queer media and I know of many others compelled to create and help others create because of a cinematic experience. So art can compel action; maybe not in your case, but in others.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@TomMc: I don’t think it would be incorrect. But all supporters of gay marriage weren’t involved in the AIDS crisis and don’t necessarily see a connection between the two.
ewe
@TheRealMannequinAdam: It’s fucking obvious you don’t care. I am not talking about what you fucking care about shithead. You do not dictate that people should do what you do because you choose to sit alone in judgement. You live in fear asshole. 2 HIV- people can fuck like bunnies and they do not get HIV. So it’s all about you bitching and screaming about your narrow morality on them them them. Again all you continue to say is they they they. You are goddamn fucking blessed to be so freagin damn ignorant cunt. Shut your filthy hole.
ewe
@TheRealMannequinAdam: well well well. At least now you have reconsidered to say “the vast majority of THEM.” You are a fucking brat.
ewe
@TheRealMannequinAdam: I would not be surprised if you lie there like a fish when and if you do ever have sex. You sound like one horrible little nitwitted selfish TAKER. T A K E R. You you you saying everyone should think and do as you you you or any misfortune that happens upon them them them is self created. Grow up.
ewe
@TheRealMannequinAdam: I have no doubt you got one little sob story justification for all those poor little hemophiliacs that died of AIDS who according to you were the innocent victims of those rabbit screwing gay men huh? Jack ass.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@ewe: Sweet, fragile Ewe, always one for a spin on reality.
Please stop. You’re making a scene, and it isn’t Oscar-worthy, dear.
meego
@ewe: ewe, my friend, don’t bother with Adam. You,re wasting you’re time. He reminds me of one of those pod people from invasion of the body snatchers. No feeling, no emotion. Just a blank slate. Vurtually nobody sides with him here and still he carries on. That alone should tell you enough. Don’t waste your time.
Abirdwillingtobeitself
The blank slate thing is an approach to trolling after saying something offensive. Ewe has the power since she’s keeping up the illusion that Adam wants to create, which is a passive way of breaking the illusion. Adam is a low-grade troll and probably a low-grade person who hasn’t pierced through any of the layers of deception in life.
TheRealMannequinAdam
Ooooh, I love that I’m being psychoanalyzed by not one but three internet shrinks now. My, this is quite rich. LOL.
Abirdwillingtobeitself
I’m a lay shrink, not an internet shrink. I do know enough to say that you can’t give birth to your own maieutic, which is why you rely on real shrinks to bring into conscious expression what you can’t.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@Abirdwillingtobeitself: Please, go on. This is getting good.
Abirdwillingtobeitself
There’s nothing more to say.
TomMc
@TheRealMannequinAdam: Indeed. However I would, perhaps incorrectly, suppose that gay activists would advocate for many gay-positive ’causes'(?)
TomMc
@Abirdwillingtobeitself: That’s okay. Most people have misunderstood what Freud wrote in “The Question of Lay Analysis”. No worries.
WillBFair
@Daniel Villarreal: You may be right. I have no evidence either way, except that the films I mentioned have been out, and it’s thirty years later, and not much has changed. People are still being infected. Barebackers and dingbats can speak freely on the blogs with no blow back. And no one seems to care much about setting standards for the community, or mentoring the most vulnerable, or taking any meaningful action at all.
Art is all well and good. But what good is talking and writing if they don’t address the real issues? Speaking out on our problems is what’s needed, not the trivia and non issues found on the blogs. It’s what I’ve been waiting for for thirty years. And I guees I’m getting a smidge frustrated.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@Abirdwillingtobeitself: Darn!
@TomMc: Excellent! So can we all go back to being friends? I’ll buy everyone snow cones?
TheRealMannequinAdam
@TomMc: “Gay-positive causes” are open to interpretation, I think.
TomMc
@TheRealMannequinAdam: You’re right, it is.
TomMc
@TheRealMannequinAdam: RE: #107. Woo hoo! Snow cones. As you wish.
greenmusic23f
@TheRealMannequinAdam:
No, but I think we’ve been educated thoroughly on the risks of sex such that any modern teenager should know that they should be cautious.”
Yeah, the abstinence only education I got totally prepared me for safe sex — NOT! Sex ed varies — plenty of people really didn’t/don’t know — and it’s not their fault — how can you know something NO ONE has told you? And before AIDS, most STDs were pretty treatable. (http://www.cracked.com/funny-5871-stds/) Still to be avoided, but not automatic death sentences.
@everyone else reading this: Sorry for feeding the troll, but I didn’t see anyone else respond to this particular misconception.
edfu
@TheRealMannequinAdam: No, we can’t “go back to being friends.” You don’t know what a friend is, and you will never be one to anybody. You are too self-centered, selfish, and superciliously judgmental to ever be anyone’s friend. If you ever know anyone who is HIV-positive, you would do nothing but kick them into the gutter and then spit on them.
———-
It’s admirable that Queerty has called attention to this documentary, but it’s a little lazy on their part that they haven’t bothered to provide any info, as meager as it may currently be, for those who wish to see it. For those who weren’t around in the early 80s and have open minds and wish to learn about the greatest tragedy to befall the gay community (a whole generation of vital, beautiful, young gay men were literally wiped out), yet a time that was simultaneously the greatest flowering of the love that gays are capable of, please note:
The film will be released to general movie theaters this September. In addition, it will be shown on PBS early in 2012, at a date yet to be determined.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@edfu: *eyeroll* Go AWAY. That friends comment wasn’t even intended for you, anyway.
@greenmusic23f: Well, that’s you and you only.
edfu
@TheRealMannequinAdam: Just keep rollin’ them eyes, sister. It will get you far. I’m suprised they haven’t just gotten stuck in the back of your head by this time…or perhaps they have.
Armand
I will watch the film. But like the commentators in this thread (Adam and Will), I am apathetic towards it. I personally do not need to see another film of our LGBT community crying and sharing stories of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
What we need are films that are reacting to HIV/AIDS in our present age.
I’ve read through this thread before making a comment and I keep seeing the use of condom as a solution. Do you know condoms does not prevent all sexually transmitted infections and HIV? A person may not put on the condom correctly, wrong condom size, not replacing a condom while using one, the condom tears. In addition to unsafe sex such as the fecal-oral route.
There are plenty of education on the internet, public, and in our LGBT community but there is a silence (and sometimes hatred) towards chastity, remaining in a monogamous relationship, and why HIV/AIDS remains the highest with LGBT persons.
B
No. 3 · TheRealMannequinAdam wrote, “Why should non-promiscuous gays care about this movie?”
The short answer is because it is a good film. You obviously didn’t see it.
It included interviews with people trying to help AIDS patients. One experimental treatment killed all but one person participating in it (that person couldn’t stand the side effects any more and dropped out and was the only one who survived – drugs that suppressed the virus became available just in time). The medical professionals who were managing the program were devastated emotionally by the outcome of that experiment. They were trying their best to help and what seemed at first to be their best shot at it failed completely, turning out to kill people faster than the disease it was trying to treat. Just learning about that is useful – you should have more sympathy for your doctor and medical researchers after learning about that incident.
TheRealMannequinAdam
@B: “Just learning about that is useful – you should have more sympathy for your doctor and medical researchers after learning about that incident.”
How is that useful to me?
And the second part of this comment assumes that I don’t have any – or enough – sympathy for doctors and medical researchers, which is an odd claim to make.
matt
@Armand: “There are plenty of education on the internet, public, and in our LGBT community but there is a silence (and sometimes hatred) towards chastity, remaining in a monogamous relationship, and why HIV/AIDS remains the highest with LGBT persons.”
Wow that’s awesome next lets cure the obesity epidemic by telling fat people to stop eating so much, poverty by telling the poors to stop being so lazy and spitting out kids they can’t afford, and drug addiction by telling people to stop using drugs. Can you seriously not see why telling people not to have sex isn’t a solution to the HIV/AIDS problem? EVERYONE knows that chastity is the only 100% effective method to prevent HIV and other STIs, but still very few choose to do it, and it will always be that way. Trying to reduce the harmful side effects of risky activities by telling people not to engage in them has never worked, and never will work.
ewe
@TheRealMannequinAdam: You obviously have no personal experience with AIDS on any front and that is why you sound so immature.
ewe
@meego: Re: comment #98: thank you for the advice Meego but i confront that thing so that other readers who do not comment can see that ignorance is stood up too. I am not concerned about Adam for his sake at all.
ewe
@TheRealMannequinAdam: btw AIDS is not and was not a theatre performance piece you dumb cunt.
Armand
@matt: Thanks for proving my point with your knee-jerk comment.
Nicholas
@Steve: my heart goes out to you steve, thank you for your loving kindness xxo
Pitou
@Daniel Villarreal: Even though I disagree with the way you word certain things sometimes, you are were spot in and I must thank you for the way you responded to TheRealMannequinAdam. He is sooo way out in space, he must have literally seen the shuttles last mission. The complete lack of empathy on his part is vile.
The onset of HIV/AIDS within the Gay community is something I find myself grateful to have not lived through. Historical pieces I’ve watched, read or heard about are, and I fear will forever be, gut-wrenching. Though I know a small handful of Gay men living with the disease, I’ve yet to see one go. I fear that(those) day(s). While watching/reading/hearing about what life was like then, the toll it took not only on the victims but also their families, partners, caregivers and friends, I try to see myself in their shoes and it breaks my heart.
I feel as though humanity in general owes much to those original founders of ACTUP, etc. who fought against the stigma. (How many years and lives passed by before the nation even acknowledged the epidemic existed?) I say humanity in general as we all know that its not just a “gay disease”. Its a human disease. No one is immune to it. No one owns it. Its there for all of us to be infected by. Promiscuous, monogamous, single, married, straight, gay, black, white, young, old. AIDS/HIV knows no demographic.
I am a proud, OUT 20-something. I am proud of my success in life, and own my failures. I am proud of my Gay communities history. Their success. Their failures. Their joys. Their heartaches. Without our pasts, our futures would not be as certain.
I thank you for the post. Without it, I might not have found out about this documentary, which is now on my “must see” list. So Thanks 🙂
TheRealMannequinAdam
@Pitou: OK, you’re proud of all that. Great! Be proud, but trying to impose that standard onto every single gay person is absurd and unrealistic.
I’m sorry, I don’t care about the movie nor do I care about the approach it takes to portraying the AIDS crisis, for all the reasons I’ve stated in this post. I’m pretty independent-minded and I can think for myself on these issues, thank you.