MovieChat Forums > Miss Evers' Boys (1997) Discussion > 'Propaganda for the Ignorant?'

'Propaganda for the Ignorant?'

posted 18 years ago by wide_eyed15
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I just wanted to remark on what one poster had to say regarding this film. The user berated the film throughout his/her post, seemed to deny the occurance of the Tuskagee experiment, and in general thought that apparently Hollywood was just making the entire thing up to make White people look bad.

Now, maybe you don't think this was the most interesting film ever made. Maybe you believe the acting was horiffic. Maybe you think it's the most excrutiatingly dull movie ever. However, that doesn't change the fact that the Tuskagee Experiment really did occur.

I'm a Justice Studies major at my state university and I watched this film in my research ethics class. Regardless of how well-made or not it is, the Tuskagee experiment did occur. African American men were experimented on. They were told they were receiving treatment when in fact they were just being observed for what would happen if syphillis went untreated. You can read and learn more about this incident as well as others at the national cancer site: http://cme.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials/learning/humanparticipant-protections.asp

I just hope whoever wrote "Propaganda for the Ignorant" has the integrity to take a look at it and maybe change his/her perspective.

[–] mfisher452 18 years ago

"Miss Evers's Boys" was a good, solid, moderately well done TV movie. It dragged in spots and I suspect it took considerable liberties with details in order to tell the story. But the story is an important one that deserves to be told, and not just once. I am guessing that viewers' reactions will depend on their point of view: Black viewers will react more strongly than white viewers, naive viewers will react more strongly than cynics, etc.

In no way do I condone the Tuskegee Experiment; however, I think "Miss Evers's Boys" has the potential to mislead viewers in one important respect: It would be easy for the viewer to assume from the film that nearly all of the 399 men in the Tuskegee cohort died horrible deaths of syphilis. This is not true. Untreated tertiary syphilis remains latent in roughly 90% of those infected.

I came across this statement on the Internet: "By the end of the experiment, 28 of the men had died directly of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children had been born with congenital syphilis." This means that 7% of the men died "directly" of syphilis. I can also accept the 40 wives and the 19 children. The statement "100 were dead of related complications" sounds fishy to me. What were the "related complications?" Symptomatic neurosyphilis IS the complication of tertiary syphilis. Case ascertainment and medical knowledge were much more primitive in the years 1932-1972 and I would like to see the specific details of those 100 men.