So many died...
I was saddened to read that so many of the cast members died of AIDS.
sharedeath sucks.
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MovieChat Forums > The Boys in the Band (1970) Discussion > So many died...
I remember the early eighties. So many good men were lost. I attended so many Funerals for young men, those at an age that should have been in the prime of their life. The disease and especially the treatment were in its infancy. There was a atmosphere of fear and paranoia. You would never believe the ostracization of those dieing. Rumors were rampant. Schools, hospitals were closing the door on the dieing. Remember the children thrown out of schools? The bigotry and hatred of homosexuals really showed in how society or even the government (Reagan) treated the sick. It was barbaric, medieval.
shareAt last! Finally somebody who "gets it".
Yes, I saw a whole generation just slip away over a period of 10 years.
From 1985 to 1995 over fifty of my friends were lost. That averaged about one every two months during those ten years.
Fwiw, I feel for you. One of my best friends lived in NYC until recently, and he, like you, lost a lot of friends -- it was just horrible, the number of funerals, the numbness, the grief, the wondering whether circumstances would ever get better.
One of our close friends died in July 1992; three who loved him hurried to make a beautiful panel for the quilt so the panel would be included in the Oct. 1992 trip to DC. That b-st-rd Papa Bush didn't bother to take a few minutes to speak or view part of the quilt (bad behavior by Repugly-cans wasn't as much of a given back then, as no doubt you remember).
Hope you're doing well -- feeling part of a community and a family.
"All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people."
I really don't mean anything by this, but the only cast members that didn't die of AIDS, or are still alive, are the ones who are apparently straight.
I was also shocked to find that the most flamboyant character of all was fantastically portrayed by a married man.
I was saddened to read that so many of the cast members died of AIDS.If some ravaging disease had suddenly afflicted a wealthy, white, straight community -- something passed on by drinking cocktails at country clubs, say -- you can BET that vaccines and disease-slowing meds would have been on the market within one year.
The number of amazing, smart, YOUNG, creative people who were lost -- it's just wrong.
"All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people." share
Society -- any society -- is like a giant organism (with it's own needs & weaknesses). And, like any organism, it seeks to further it's life into the future. In this case, that means encouraging procreation among the cells that make up the organism. No matter what your "feelings" on the subject are, that does make gay people SLIGHTLY less valuable to the society that they live in than straight people. We all may be equal in the eyes of the law, but we're not all equal in our utility to other individuals or the community/nation* at large. Sorry, just is.
Furthermore, it was discovered fairly early on that blood** was the mechanism of transfer, and that HIV was easily preventable with (a) monogamy or (b) condoms. Yet gay men vocally fought against the closure of bath-houses and continued to bareback with strangers. So let's save our tears for more rational victims of nature's whims.
* You are presented with two men, Elon Musk and Charles Manson, and told that you must decide which one is to be put to death at midnight. Do you really have to agonize over the decision?
** Doctors -- being ultra-conservative (who can blame them with malpractice insurance being what it is) -- have been claiming for 30 years that it's the transfer of "any/all bodily fluids" that puts you at risk, but most people have figured out that blood is the real culprit, and if you're not poking/getting poked in the corn-hole, then bareback oral or vaginal sex is not terribly risky.
...that does make gay people SLIGHTLY less valuable to the society that they live in than straight people.According to Census and other data, the number of - to employ your phrase - "straight people" in the U.S. who remain childless their entire lives outpaces that of "gay people" by many millions. This old argument about "procreation" also overlooks the fact that sexual orientation has absolutely nothing to do with the ability to engage therein, as millions of gay men and women in the U.S. have and do.
Further, it overlooks the fact that any ecosystem breaks down when one or more elements thereof surpasses that system's ability to sustain itself, as has been observed repeatedly when, for example, predators multiply to the point where resources upon which they depend diminish to levels at which their survival becomes jeopardized.
So let's save our tears for more rational victims of nature's whims.How are your "tears" for those on the African continent, where HIV transmission between men and women is and has always been more than double that occurring between men? And incidentally, if we're talking about "nature's whims," where does rationality enter into it?
...if you're not poking/getting poked in the corn-hole, then bareback oral or vaginal sex is not terribly risky.According to the CDC, anal intercourse with the opposite sex is reported by 44% of men and 36% of women, representing numbers that again far outstrip the totality of gay men in the U.S.
No, if it were simply a matter of those not contributing to multiplication of "the cells that make up the organism," being "less valuable," there would be equal stigma surrounding childlessness and contraception use among heterosexual couples.
The phraseology you chose above and comparison with someone such as Charles Manson belies what's at the heart of the phenomenon Helena727 observes: simple, irrational prejudice. And none of the issues you raise in attempts to justify that phenomenon bring anything to bear upon the validity of Helena's observation thereof.
Poe! You are...avenged! share