Paul Rudnick's Jeffrey Response Paper

Beginning in the mid-1980’s, a number of efforts were initiated to bring awareness and enlightenment to the actual tragedy of AIDS. Two films that evolved out of these awareness campaigns were the documentaries “Paris Is Burning” and “How to Survive a Plague” . Both films, although in significantly diverse ways, provide a window into the alternative lifestyles of LGBT people of the times and the problems and issues they faced. A comparison of these two documentaries demonstrates the initial fears of the public and affected people and the beginnings of acceptance or at least tolerance of these alternative lifestyles.

At the Republican National Convention in 1992, no one was aware that Mary Fisher was about to alter the viewpoints of thousands of Americans. During the 1980’s and 90’s the public’s view on AIDS was uninformed, skewed, and ignorant. The purpose of Mary Fisher’s speech was to open up the conversation on AIDS and to inform the public of the deadly disease. Fisher’s speech came from a place of sorrow and passion because she and her newborn son were both diagnosed with AIDS. At this time, society deemed AIDS as only associated with homosexuals and that no straight person could contract it. Mary Fisher’s speech persuaded people to change their viewpoints on AIDS by the use of ethos, pathos, and logos.

In the 1980’s and 1990’s, society wasn’t the most accepting of places for people who were different from the “social norms”. Now I know, people today still struggle with trying to fit in and be “normal” but it was different. Being a gay man living in San Fransisco at the time, which had a large gay population, Richard Rodriguez had a hard time dealing with the discrimination he faced. Richard Rodriguez was an American journalist who wrote and published a memoir about his life as a gay man. In October of 1990, Rodriguez published his memoir “Late Victorians” in Harper’s Magazine, a critically acclaimed publication of the time. In his memoir, Rodriguez describes what it was like to realize he was gay and watch as the country changed to become a more accepting place. He does this by setting up how things can change and then explaining the actual ways things change for the gay population.

Anyone who enters cannot leave the cell and therefore once an individual is infected, then, death is the only next probable thing. This painting attracted views from all persons and groups in our society after they realized that handling and addressing the AIDS epidemic is a collective responsibility. Discussions of disease, death, race, sex, drug addiction and homosexuality which are shunned by polite individuals became common topics (Mahoney, n.p.). Gatewood created a scenario where everyone had to acknowledge that the AIDS epidemic was now a threat that needed to be addressed immediately. Humanity ought to give the AIDS epidemic the weight it deserves by advocating everyone to play their role in this collective responsibility of reducing infections and deaths caused by the spread of HIV. Gatewood wanted humanity to realize the price they have to pay for their prudishness and ignorance of AIDS as a killer

Moses Kaufman is the producer of the successful play “The Laramie Project” after a horrific incident that occurred in Laramie. Members of the artistic group of Kaufman 's, traveled to Laramie to find out more about the horrific incidence. The main aim of the whole project was to find the emotions, reactions, and reflections that the people of Laramie manifested concerning the beating and subsequent death of a twenty-three-year-old college student (Gale, 2016). A lot of questions were raised concerning the death as people had different point of views. Some thought it was a hate crime, others thought it was just a brutal assault or a form of robbery. Four hundred interviews were conducted so as to come up with the reasons behind the brutal murder straight from the town folks. The main issue was how homosexuality was defined in the crime. The Laramie Project, questioned the rights of the LGBT+ group. For example, why were Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Transgenders discriminated by the community and the society as a whole even though their rights were constitutional?

Thirty years ago, many believed that only gay people contracted the HIV virus, however, such speculation was disregarded once millions of people were infected. Humans were afraid to be infected, thus they stereotyped those who were infected in order to protect themselves, but the reality is that no one was safe from the HIV virus. Mary Fisher was one of few individuals that accepted the cruelty of the virus, but only by accepting what HIV is, she was able to challenge the virus. In order to awaken the society about the reality of AIDS, Mary Fisher’s speech, “A Whisper of AIDS” would send a message of challenge towards the virus and unite the humans to fight against AIDS. By balancing three different persuasive appeals; ethos, logos, and

The Laramie Project is a play written by Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project by interviewing the residents of Laramie Wyoming about the murder of a gay student, Matthew Shepard. The play raises controversy revolving around homosexuality, hate crimes and acceptance. In addition to the various themes suggested by the play, the author wanted to present the varying perspectives toward homosexuality in the Laramie Community at the time of Shepard death. The three main perspectives towards homosexuality were hatred, tolerance and acceptance. The author also wanted to explore how these perspectives may have changed as the result of Shepard’s death.

This whole chapter was on how negativity and positivity can affect productivity. It talked in depth of the ways a person may be affected by positivity or negativity in a group. Throughout the chapter I found things that were appealing and stood out to me. One of the things that stood out to me was Ken’s method of bucket filling in his major organization. He really thinks about his workers and how they must feel. He really takes the time to learn about all the good things about his workers and all the productive

The poem “Faith”, written by Mark Doty in 1995, works to destigmatize Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) through his relationship with his partner, Wally. Since this poem was written in the mid-1990s, it is a progressive piece that focuses on normalizing homosexuality and raising awareness for AIDS. His writing focuses on combatting the largely-held belief that AIDS only affects homosexual men. There was also the idea that there were “good gays” and “bad gays”. “Bad gays” were the ones who had the misfortune to contract HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and “good gays” did not contract HIV. Additionally, he describes the profound effect that a terminal disease can have on a relationship. Doty’s poem represents the idea that true love provides mankind with the ability to conquer fears. The main purpose of his poem is to show his love for his significant other and show the effect that AIDS had on their relationship, strengthening it, while making it more fragile at the same time. Doty’s poem is important because it opens up a non-judgmental conversation about AIDS, which was unique for that time.

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

The Laramie Project is a play written by Moises Kaufman and the members of Tectonic Theater Project. The play is based on the interviews of the citizens of Laramie about what’s happening in Laramie and their responses to the murder of Matthew. In addition to the various themes suggested by the play, the author wanted to present the varying perspectives toward homosexuality in the Laramie community at the time of Matthew’s death. The author also wanted to explore how these perspectives may have changed as the result of Matthew’s death. Even though the citizens of Laramie persisted that hate is not a value they practice, they still showed contrasting and puzzled views

When Melonie proceeded to do her presentation, she first identified three persons to stand up and then asked them to shake hands with other classmates. Instantly, I remembered doing this activity during a STI class many years ago, so I came to a conclusion that her topic would be on HIV Aids.

Unique within media promoting AIDS education, Kwame Dawes portrays the fragile disease culture of Kingston and surrounding ghettos with a series of personal, introspective portrayals. Poems, interviews, and documentary footage about key individuals magnify the challenge of overcoming the disease and the social stigmas facing disease patients in the small country of

Homophobia in America is often contextualized through America’s Judeo-Christian values, through historical movements which supported xenophobia, and also through the arts which seemed to reject homophobia. No artform is more often cited as a safe-haven for homosexual artists, than the theater. However, in my paper, I wish to discuss not only homosexuality in the theater, and homophobia in American at large, I wish to talk about the signs of internalized homophobia in the theater which has very clearly been influenced by external forces. The works of Paula Vogel and Jordan Harrison bring these questions by setting homosexuality as explicitly at odds with the romanticized American family and the struggles of their characters because of this.

A man whose cousin has AIDS and his curiosity about how to educate his family. He felt like people should know their status and should not be afraid of being tested. A woman told me that she was clean, but had no problem with being tested again. She felt that she should keep her health up to date and not be concerned with what others thought of her. Those who volunteered without hesitation set an example for those still out in the waiting room. They set a standard for everyone else to consider being tested. Something I did expect was for at least one person to state that it is the “gay man’s disease”, but I was so relieved that no one said it. I expected people to have strong opinions against what we were doing. There was that lingering feeling of people not participating because they thought others would disapprove. At times people would make eye contact with others as we spoke to them, signaling that they were not on board with the idea of education let alone