Before I watch the movie, I presumed the title, “And the Band Played On,” to be a reference to the movie “Titanic,” which they were speaking about the string quartet that continued to play as the ship sank. Since watching the movie I think it referenced “business as usual.” Just like in Titanic, no one was concerned about the ship sinking until it was too late. In the movie “And the Band Played On,” In the same way, AIDS was considered, just a gay disease, and wasn 't seen as the epidemic with in the straight community until it suddenly started effecting people who were not gay, thereby alluding to the multiple agencies and communities who neglected to place in order a immediate medical response to the crisis. This movie showed the dark side to our government and the nonexistent roles that they played. The A.I.D.S. epidemic got the public 's attention and chronicled the political neglect that this devastating disease faced at its onset. If our government would have assisted the CDC and Dr. Don Francis sooner, then maybe they could have saved countless lives, especially those of the innocent babies and the ones that received transfusions.
The only memorable thing I remember about the history of AIDS before watching the movie, was that you could be contaminated through sexual intercourse, drug syringe sharing, and blood transfusion. I knew that if contracted that I would eventually die.
I first learned about AIDS when I was in high school. It was introduced to me in detail in
One of the big factors early on is that no one wanted to be associated with AIDS due to the fact that it was considered a homosexual man’s disease. There was a lot of fear, denial and anger surrounding this disease. In 1981at the CDC Dr. Guinan asks that a report about an epidemic with gay men had broken out and he wanted it published in the medical journal. The fear of the word “homosexual” was marked off and not used for that article. It took a long time for the realization that this disease could affect everyone from homosexual males, IV drug users, blood transfusion patients, women and even babies. Even though it was initially considered the disease came from gay men and their sexual practices it crossed all borders as time went on. Still today there is some prejudice regarding AIDS. (Spelling, Vincent &
The movie, And the Band Played On, illustrates the beginning of the AIDS virus and how it unexpectedly spread across the world. It used the Ebola disease to indicate that there will be another severe disease surfacing. The world was not prepared to handle such a transmissible disease. Doctors globally presumed that the first cases of the HIV virus to be just a deformity of a specific disease. Their negligence of this issue was the beginning of the spread of this AIDS. Throughout the movie, it shows various points, such as the start of HIV, the misunderstandings it gave, and the fear it stimulated amongst doctors and everyone else.
Fears and misconceptions regarding AIDS began when only the homosexual community contracted it. Therefore, people started to believe that only the homosexuals would get the AIDS and blamed them for the cause of the disease. The public was not in fear until some people who were not homosexuals contracted the disease. It was at this time, that the public’s attitude shifted into the fear that anyone was able to have AIDS; it was a sexually transmitted disease. Many were also deceived by the government’s actions. For example, one woman in the movie began to become sick after a blood transfusion. She always thought that it was due to surgical problems, but actually she had contracted AIDS and the doctors knew but didn’t do anything about it. This also caused panic because, even though the government knew AIDS was spreading around they did not do anything about it.
“Mother is this ship really safe and unsinkable?” said Mary Anne Louise to her mom while she started to walk towards the RMS Titanic “I have the same question as the girl… Is this ship really unsinkable?” said a lady known as Mrs.Sylvia Caldwell. “Of course it is unsinkable God himself could not sink this ship!” exclaimed the crew member as he helped her up the steps.After they entered the ship, she stood in amazement see how this ship was designed.She suddenly saw a girl dressed in a simple, pretty white dress and a large bow on the back of her head.She wanted to say hi but her mom wouldn’t let her because she was a lower class than her
Semen containing white blood cells infected with HIV comes into contact with tissue in the rectum and vagina. The virus can then enter the bloodstream of the host through perforations in the tissue surface. The risk of this happening is greatest in anal intercourse, either between two men or a man and a woman.” HIV is spread through a direct exchange of blood or blood products. This mode of transmission is most frequent among IV drug users who share injection needles. It includes, as well, hemophiliacs and other persons who receive blood transfusions, and fetuses of mothers who carry the AIDS virus.” AIDS has sparked considerable interest and controversy since the start of the epidemic. However, in trying to identify where AIDS originated, there is a danger that people may try and use the debate to attribute blame for the disease to particular groups of individuals or certain lifestyles. When the AIDS epidemic became offical in June 1981, it was widely considered exclusively a "gay disease” and this was because many people were confused and uneducated about this new, foreign disease that faced and ravaged our society as a whole. There is no doubt that many people coming from all walks of life were subject to discrimination when other people discovered that they were suffering as victims taken by the disease. The cultural and social response to AIDS portrayed in the film Philadelphia (1993) covered all of these aspects and was
This history of HIV/AIDS as a blurry timeline before the 1980’s since that was around the time reports came in which eventually become an HIV report. The origin of HIV can be traced back to the early part of the century. Some believe that in the 1920’s chimpanzees from the Congo came into contact with humans (Avert, 2016). Though reports were not identified as HIV until the 1980’s, the belief that HIV was already scattered throughout four other continents may have been incident (Avert, 2016). Even though for the past 30 years the world has been diligently working to find a cure and pushing prevention, we are still struggling each year with increasing diagnosis. The beginning of HIV did end with lots of death, but now with our improved antiviral medication there is hope for many.
inevitable that AIDS would be defined in political and cultural terms as well as medically, and
Throughout the Age of AIDS film many topics that were related to AIDS were brought up that I did not know anything about before. I did not know that there could so many strings attached to a disease and have such an influence in people’s lives whether it was negative or positive.
And the Band Played On surprised me with its intricate character development. I found myself becoming attached to characters and heartbroken as I found they had contracted the HIV virus and made me root for research to find a vaccine or cure. Out of the characters presented in the film, I decided to focus on two main ones: Dr. Robert Gallo and Dr. Don Francis. These two characters stood out because they were so contrasting to one another. I also felt myself becoming angry at these characters and some of the decisions they decided to make. In summation, I will analyze these characters and determine which actions I believe were right and which were wrong in helping advance the research of AIDS in relation to the movie And the Band Played On.
The year was 1991 when Mary Fisher tested positive for HIV. Fisher is the daughter of Max Fisher, a powerful and wealthy republican. She isn 't the normal face of AIDS, and in 1992 she spoke out of her disease at the Republican National Convention. Fisher 's speech, A Whisper of AIDS, is considered one of the top speeches of the 20th century. When Fisher gave her speech, she spoke to a crowd that didn 't believe AIDS was going to affect their lives. When listening and reading the speech, one must take into context the time period, during the 90s testing positive for HIV/AIDS meant death. At the time there were no treatments to help prolong those
When the AIDS and HIV virus crept its way into the human-race, it quickly, and without warning, claimed the lives of millions. Then when its destructive wake had finally been abated, it left behind several untold mysteries. Throughout the course of this class, all the new material we have been exposed to has added some unique piece to the puzzle of the AIDS epidemic. Each puzzle pieces have ranged from speculations on how the AIDS epidemic had begun, to what exactly has the epidemic done. We have also tackled the question and how it forced a change in society. Our newest piece of the puzzle is the documentary “The Age of AIDS,” by William Cran. Although this documentary did not surprise me in its content, it did, however, affirm certain types
According to a report published in the February 1998 edition of “Nature”, scientists identified what they believe is the earliest case of AIDs in a man from the Congo in 1959. (Lerner and Hombs 39) By the end of the year 1980, 80 men would have been diagnosed with at least of the opportunistic infections that are a characteristic of AIDs. (Lerner and Hombs 40) AIDs cases in the 1980s increased dramatically not only around the world but in the United States, primarily in larger cities like Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco. The numbers of AIDs diagnoses and deaths spiraled out of control throughout the 1980s and towards the end of 1989 there were 117,500 cases of AIDS reported and 89,000 related deaths.(Lerner and Hombs 54) In the
In the film, “Age of AIDS”, there were several scenes that were quite impactful. In my opinion, the three most powerful scenes in the documentary film were: President Ronald Reagan‘s speech about transmitting HIV (1a), William Dodge triple cocktail trail (1b) and Bill Clinton’s handshake with HIV positive man in the Chinese conference (1c). These sections in the documentary were instrumental in conveying a compelling story about the effects of AIDS.
Titanic portrayed sexuality with attraction between a man and a woman. Rose was a beautiful woman whom her fiancée Hockley was the son of a rich and powerful steel mill owner. However, the sexual interest here was actually in the form of business. Rose was marrying him because of the money Hockley would inherit when his father died, a very prominent practice during that time. Men with power and money were shown to be desirable from all of Rose 's companions on the ship. This common theme of sexuality was broken from Jack 's introduction into Rose 's life. Jack was a polar opposite of Hockley, and he took on a different theme of sexuality of being free, seeing a woman as an equal, and not being rich. Jack ' sexuality was expressed in may forms different from Hockley. When he saved Rose from falling overboard, in his folk-style dancing with Rose, and in his chase of Rose which included kissing and having sex with her. Jack’s simple flirtation with Rose and his later aid in her freedom from the gender binds she was in became the cornerstone of the theme of the movie.
The origin of AIDS can be traced back to 1959 in Zaire, but it wasn’t until the 1980s where AIDS was discovered that it can be transmitted by bodily fluids and that HIV operates by destroying the T-4 cell, which makes people vulnerable to infections. This was an important as it showed retroviruses such as HIV can cause other diseases.