HIV+


What does everybody think this movie will say about the character with aids?

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They will probably just state the basic facts to say the least. How the character was introduced to the South African show in response to the huge AIDS epidemic that has spread throughout their country. The virus has nothing to do with sex, it is a disease that can be spread in so many ways. Plus, it is not the most sanitary environment out there. They don't have the same resources we do. Sure its controversial, but don't expect them to talk about sex as that had absolutely nothing to do with the character.

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The character with AIDS was created for the South African version of the show and never appears on the American (or any other) version. I saw this documentary at Sundance this week. They just explained why they created the character and then showed some senators (and others) making a big deal over the character before they knew all the facts about it. As soon as they discovered what the true story was, they stopped making a fuss. Kudos to the makers of the doc for pointing out that there were some cool heads (including Jerry Falwell!!) in this whole mess who understood what they were trying to do.

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I have seen this character in other sesame street mini-docos. The HIV+ character is a young muppet called Kami.

She introduces herself to the other muppets on South African Sesame Street, and says 'none of the other kids will play me because I am HIV positive'. The other muppets then reply 'we will play with you, because we know we cannot catch HIV through playing with you' (not exact quotes).

It's really beautiful actually!

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It's ridiculous how the naysayers, politicians and pundits alike (and I'm very ashamed to say my fellow New Yorker, Curtis Sliwa, who is fully aware that AIDS decimated a good part of the local population in the 80's while we were finding out it existed, made such a big stink about it before they even saw the character...they're so afraid of the disease that they can't even see the big picture. This character will save lives.

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