Released Before AIDS became a nightmare
This film to me is very good. You have to watch it because it was an innocent time. Released in 1982 before AIDS became a house hold word.
Production probably wrapped around the time AIDS became news.
I believe I first heard of the AIDS virus early winter 1982. Back then, the only known victims were Haitians and the homosexual community.
Correct, at the time of production & release there was no mainstream cultural awareness of AIDS--and certainly no knowledge it would eventually become a pandemic. Even when the disease first appeared in 1981, the medical community was puzzled at the pattern of infection (what do Haitians & male homosexuals in NY & CA have in common?). It even took a year or two before doctors discovered that it was a breakdown in the immune system that was causing cancer & pneumonia--although that was their theory from the beginning.
Correct, at the time of production & release there was no mainstream cultural awareness of AIDS--and certainly no knowledge it would eventually become a pandemic. Even when the disease first appeared in 1981, the medical community was puzzled at the pattern of infection (what do Haitians & male homosexuals in NY & CA have in common?). It even took a year or two before doctors discovered that it was a breakdown in the immune system that was causing cancer & pneumonia--although that was their theory from the beginning.
This is going back a bit, so don't quote me, but I understood the AIDS virus was introduced to the San Francisco area by a male flight attendant who had engaged in unprotected sex in Haiti and continued to do so when he returned home to San Francisco.
I also suddenly recalled the context in which it was news to me in January (thereabouts) of 1982. I was living in Canada at the time and they were discovering infants were born with the disease in Québec (the French-speaking province of Canada). The parents of these babies were in fact Haitian. I believe Québec was the logical port of entry for Haitian immigrants at the time due to the language factor which is why it remained isolated there ... in the beginning.
I have known several people who have been diagnosed with HIV and AIDS, and several of them are not around today. May they rest in peace. Very sad, really, since many of them traced their infection to sexual encounters taking place as late as 1987. I simply cannot fathom that people were not taking precautions that late. The AIDS nightmare had become a household word half a decade before that. share
Your recollections are correct, bill. It took many years of research to trace the transmission tree, which eventually led to the identification of the North American "patient zero" --- a Quebecois flight attendant. I believe it was sometime in the 90s before this was confirmed. He didn't only introduce the HIV virus to the bath houses of SF, but also NYC, and many other cities worldwide.
Particularly up until the early 90s (probably including some of your acquaintances), many transmissions continued to occur due to unintentional misinformation, myth, and rumor. Even the medical community was divided on what constituted "safer sex" (formerly known as "safe sex"--which doctors eventually renamed because there is no such thing---other than no human contact at all). Even today, the guidelines are murky and there is some disagreement among doctors as to the degree of transmission risk for certain acts.
Foremost, physical intimacy is also a very complex human interaction. When emotions like passion, love, or lust are involved, it's very easy for us to think with our hearts (or groins) instead of our heads--which leads to risky behavior. It's easy to say something like "just refrain from unprotected sexual intimacy", yet can be quite another to practice it, since it's an inherent element of our human nature. I guess it's the same phenomenon that causes thousands of unintended pregnancies every year.
There is a new book out "Spillage" by David Quammen. It's about disease in the form of epidemics and pandemics (which AIDS was).
According to a portion of the book, the latest research and scrutiny of history and facts explains the spread of HIV as follows:
HIV was prevalent in the Congo region of Africa since forever, but no white people/Westerners ever went there until the Belgians started to colonize the area. Once this happened, the area was not so remote anymore. Then the Belgians left and the French came in, and established more two-way traffic along with continue interaction with the local population (replete with its exotic diseases). Of course, the French were also still in charge of Haiti, and so people who were involved in and affected by French colonial affairs (be they white or black) traveled between the two countries. THIS is where and how the Haitian tie to HIV-infection started. THEN the theory goes that American medical and travel professionals traveled back and forth to Haiti from Miami, Florida - with many of these people being gay men (who liked the idea of exotic jobs and who were single thus making them more available for such work). The current theory is that HIV jumped from Haiti to the Miama-area, which was (and still is) a mecca for gay men and gay resorts (in the early 1970s. Gaetan Dugas, so-called "Patient Zero," was influential in the domestic spread of HIV, but the Quammen books suggests that it was not Gaetan who brought the disease into the U.S. Given Gaetan's Canadian heritage and the French-Haitian Connection, it's more likely that someone else with true French ties brought it to Miami. The early infection of Gaetan then took place and the rest is (tragic) history.
"Don't call me 'honey', mac."
"Don't call me 'mac'... HONEY!"
''many of them traced their infection to sexual encounters taking place as late as 1987. I simply cannot fathom that people were not taking precautions that late. The AIDS nightmare had become a household word half a decade before that.''
even today in 2015 people i know many men in the gay community [and the straight community-i know straight men who have had unprotected sex with thai prostitutes] who do not wear protection so it's no big leap of faith to think people did not do it in 1987. My gay ex caught the virus from unprotected sex in a 1 night stand in 2008.