Critique of Film And the Band Played On

340 Words1 Page

Critique of Film And the Band Played On

“And the Band Played On” was an HBO movie that illustrated the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and early 1990s. The movie touched on subjects concerning the reaction of the gay community, the heterosexual community, and the medical community. It showed not only the research in AIDS, but also the way that the US government dealt with it. The movie expressed the consequences the gay community suffered, the plight of the medical community in researching the disease, and the issue of government response to it.

As a result of the discovery of AIDS, the gay community suffered greatly at the hands of social alienation. “AIDS” was not called “AIDS” until the CDC changed the different name that singled out the gay community as the only ones that could acquire the disease. After some major controversy the gay bathhouses were closed down, because it was believed that the AIDS virus was spreading greatly in these places. The gay community also suffered major emotional trauma as very little was known of the disease and little could be done about it. ___

The medical community had much trouble in the progress of researching the disease. In the beginning and for a period of time, the disease had no name. This was partly because no one really wanted to announce that a new disease had been discovered. After being dubbed “GRID”, an acronym singling out gays, it was changed when it was finally discovered that AIDS could be transmitted though blood transfusions and IV drug use. There was also an amazing display of medical misconduct as the head of one laboratory in the US engaged in a competition-like struggle with a lab in Paris in the research of the disease. When he finally agreed to collaborate with the French, he announced discoveries ahead of time and took all the credit for himself. This led to a long legal action that delayed much of the research of AIDS and caused many people to “die of red tape.”

The government played a major part in the AIDS situation. The government’s blood banks did not wish to check blood with a test developed by the CDC because it was not “cost-efficient.” The government also neglected the CDC of large sums of money needed in the pursuit of a cure or vaccine in the disease and thought more of dollar signs that the lives of people.

Show More
Related

  • The Crucible Witch Hunt Essay

    1038 Words  | 3 Pages

    Even after the disease and its modes of transmission had been correctly identified, fear and ignorance remained widespread. In the mid 1980s, “AIDS hysteria” became a well known term in the media and public life. For example, a magazine published details about how extensive AIDS/HIV related discrimination became. “Anxiety over AIDS in some parts of the U.S. is verging on hysteria,” the authors wrote; they later published this disturbing example:

    Read More

  • George Chauncey on Gay Life in New York City

    659 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...e social changes brought about this period. He cites the growing sensationalism of sex covered in the media as a prime driver behind the sexual orthodoxy in American culture (Chauncey 1994, 359). During this witch hunt, he draws a silver lining. Using the scholarship of others such as John D’Emilio, he cites that this period brought a greater bond to the gay community by forging brotherhood of adversity which would then come back into play in the 1960’s as an experiential touchstone for the Civil Rights era (Chauncey 1994, 360). Chauncey nestles his own narrative of the gay community in New York within the larger narrative of gay life in America filling in the gaps of secondary sources through his own primary work.

    Read More

  • The Cell that Started a Pandemic

    1889 Words  | 4 Pages

    Another guest speaker and guide in this podcast is David Quammen. He talks about how the epidemiologists were trying to figure out what this new disease was and how they were thinking that maybe it was a sexually transmitted disease. So, the CDC launched the study of a group of about thirty patients came from New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco to see who had had sexual contact with who. They led as a series of interviews: “Please name all the people that you have had sex with”. After these surveys the CDC eventually released the results in the form of a diagram, like a network drive with circles representing patients and lines representing sexual contact. In each patient, each circle was numbered so that they could tell who is who. They noticed: New York seven, Los Angeles twelve etc… and soon they noticed a common denominator in this huge spider web of connections. One little circle, numbered zero: PATIENT ZERO. That was the first time they ever used the term patient zero.

    Read More

  • Film: The Age of Aids

    1862 Words  | 4 Pages

    One important scene in the film ‘The Age of Aids’ is “Port Au Prince, Haiti”. In this scene it outlines the conditions in Haiti, which were very poor and it turn left the city defenseless against the new disease. In 70’s and 80’s the disease began to be seen by doctors and priests who were being sought after to cure a unseen disease which left the people with the “look of death, [making them] so skinny you could see their bones”. The scene then goes on to take a look at one of the first HIV clinics in Port Au Prince, which was opened in the roughest parts of town. One of the surprising things that this clinic found when they were looking at the patients coming in was that the mean they were analyzing had more contact with women then they had with men. This was extremely interesting because this was completely different from what the pattern of the disease had been in the US. The doctors believed this was because homosexual males had been coming into Haiti as tourists and where having sex with locals, who in comparison didn’t call themselves homosexuals because even though they had been having sex with men, the number of women they were having sex with greatly outnumbered the men. This was extremely important because it allowed people to open their eyes, and realize that this was not a homosexual disease, that anyone could get the disease. And that’s exactly what happened within the Haitian community. Within three years the disease had spread across the entire island effects all aspects of society. This scene was effective because it is able to change a viewer with little knowledge of the disease to understand how doctors were able to come to the conclusion that the disease was not in fact a homosexual ...

    Read More

  • And The Band Played On

    820 Words  | 2 Pages

    The movie, And the Band Played On, discusses the origin of the AIDS virus and how it spontaneously spread across the world. It used the Ebola disease to foreshadow the forth coming of another serious disease. The world was not prepared to handle such a contagious plague. Doctors around the world assumed that the first cases of the HIV virus to be just an abnormality of a certain disease, their carelessness of this matter was the start to the spread of this disease. Throughout this movie, it illustrates different points, such as the beginning of HIV, the misconceptions it gave, and the panic it aroused amongst doctors and the common people.

    Read More

  • AIDS/HIV

    857 Words  | 2 Pages

    Randy Shilts set out to make monumental changes in the world’s perspective of AIDS. He planned to enlighten, motivate, and educate the population on this tragic disease that has already claimed so many lives. He believed that virtually all the misconceptions about AIDS would be corrected and the public would insist that more be done to stop the epidemic. "I had hoped to effect some fundamental changes. I really believed I could alter the performance of the institutions that had allowed AIDS to sweep through America unchecked" (220). Shilts’s immense expectations positioned him for his inevitable sense of failure. He did not accomplished all that he had planned. AIDS was still spreading and people were still dying. "The bitter irony is, my role as an AIDS celebrity just gives me a more elevated promontory from which to watch the world make the same mistakes in the handling of the AIDS epidemic that I hoped my work would help to change"(220).

    Read More

  • Medical Research with Animals Saves Lives

    1724 Words  | 4 Pages

    The spread of aids threatens our population daily. Lives lost to it number over 12 million, including 2 mil...

    Read More

  • Ethical Dilemmas In The Band Played On

    913 Words  | 2 Pages

    The government’s actions seemed very shady and didn’t meet the scope of the issue at hand. The government didn’t give the CDC enough money for research and the issue was not publicized enough, leading to more

    Read More

  • A Social Worker's Perspective on the Gay and Lesbian Community

    1771 Words  | 4 Pages

    Kayal, Philip. 1993. Bearing Witness. Gay Men's Health Crisis and the Politics of AIDS. Westview Press. San Francisco.

    Read More

  • AIDS in African American Community

    1310 Words  | 3 Pages

    Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was first recognized as a new disease in 1981 when increasing numbers of young homosexual men succumbed to unusual opportunistic infections and rare malignancies (Gallant49).During this time, many people were contacting this disease because it was not discovered yet and people did not have knowledge about it.Scientists believe HIV came from a particular kind of chimpanzee in Western Africa. Humans contracted this disease when they hunted and ate infected animals. A first clue came in 1986 when a morphologically similar but antigenically distinct virus was found to cause AIDS in patients in western Africa (Goosby24). During this time, scientists had more evidence to support their claim about this disease. Once discovered this disease was identified as a cause of what has since become one of the most devastating infectious diseases to have emerged in recent history (Goosby101). This disease was deadly because it was similar to the Black Death, it was killing majority of the population. Since its first identification almost three decades ago, the pandemic form of HIV-1 has infected at least 60 million people and caused more than 25 million deaths ...

    Read More

  • Harvey Milk

    1065 Words  | 3 Pages

    The background of homosexuality in the 1940’s and 50’s was harsh, but people started to be opened toward the rights. There were criticisms toward homosexuality in the early days of Milk. Gay men carried the labels of mentally ill or psychopathic. Often times, gay men committed suicide from harsh judgement and criticism that always followed them. Even though population of homosexuality grew and had jobs, they were harassed and beaten by the police. There were a lot of disapproval and hostility of homosexuality. Anita Bryant, a singer, made a campaign to oppose the rights of homosexuals. Christian forces and activists withdrew gay-right legislation which lead to Proposition 6. The harshness from background of homosexuality back in the 1940’s and 50’s took the freedom away from the homosexuals. After the harshness, there came a little bit of hope for the homosexuals in San Francisco. Castro, a city in San Francisco, became the center of gay neighborhood. In 1964, gay men formed Society of Individual Right (SIR), and 1,200 members joined. Homosexuals started having good views when Sipple who was gay saved the president from a gunshot. Finally in 1972, Board of Supervisor banned the discrimination law for homosexuals. Even though in 1940...

    Read More

  • Philadelphia, the movie.

    906 Words  | 2 Pages

    This movie begins by depicting a bright, articulate young lawyer named Andrew Beckett at work. Then the scene rapidly changes to Andrew at an AIDS clinic. You know at this point that Andrew Beckett has AIDS and a horrifying future as you see scenes of men with hollow expressions, open sores and skeleton-like features. It becomes obvious that Andrew was not telling his boss or coworkers that he had AIDS. Later we discover that he concealed this disease because he was afraid of being fired and people’s fear of him as a sick gay man.

    Read More

  • And the Band Played On

    508 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the movie “And the Band Played On”, illustrated the origin of the AIDS virus, how it was spread across the world quickly. It began with a scene in 1976, Central Africa, shows how the Ebola disease affected a village and was contained before it was spread. This was to show the beginning of another serious disease called AIDS. The world was not prepared to handle such a contagious plague. Doctors treating people with this virus thought that the first cases of the HIV virus was just an abnormality disease. The disease started to spread all over, especially gay men. Throughout the movie, I was able to see different points, such as the beginning of AIDS, the misconceptions it had, and the anguish it brought to the doctors as well as people around the world.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Movie And The Band Played On

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the movie And the Band Played On, stakeholders’ interests stymied public health efforts to research and implement health policy to control the rapidly emerging disease, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). The stakeholders within the movie, those whose interest would be impacted by policy change, included the affected populations, scientists, state and federal public health officials, and organizations including blood banks. Early in the epidemic, the Center for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were tentative in disclosing vital information – many homosexual men were becoming infected in the bathhouses (Pillsbury, Sanford, & Spottiswoode, 1993). Despite having the supporting evidence of patient zero and a sexual cluster

    Read More

  • Identity In Tony Kushner's 'Angels In America'

    1956 Words  | 4 Pages

    He also is a closeted homosexual. He has a high political power; this is the cause of him not being openly gay. The homosexual community has little power, and this scares him. He is obsessed with the amount of power that he has, and he will not lose that. This is where politics come into play, being a “right wing” conservative he is supposed to generally opposed to gay marriage. He is in a good political position and knows that coming out could risk losing power, and this is terrifying for him. He changed the label of his diagnosis from AIDS, to liver cancer to avoid losing the respect of people who are above him. The impression that homosexuals are nobodies is a great example of how identity politics or other things pressure people into becoming tied down by lies. The identities of people and their true selves is often hidden under the identity of what they are compelled to show others. Homosexuality is only one of the many things that can keep people from exposing their genuine identity. Throughout the novel many characters are diagnosed with AIDS. The first five cases of AIDS were initially reported in June of 1981. AIDS has taken the lives of 636,000 Americans. In 1992, there were 250,0000 reported cases of AIDS. Of those 250,000 cases 200,000 had died. A more recent study in 2004, there were 1,000,000 reported cases, only 500,000 had died. It is still decreasing today. Gay or bisexual men make up the

    Read More

More about Critique of Film And the Band Played On

Open Document