Tony Kushner's Angels In America

Kushner’s play Angels in America serves as both a cautionary tale and a vision of hope in the midst of a major social turmoil challenging traditional views. Kushner tells us many things that he wants to be changed in the world. Kushner believes that American society should be re-imagined. Kushner’s play tells us that Kushner believes the American society should be re-imagined with the thought of acceptance of everyone, no matter their sexual orientation, race, religion, or sickness. Kushner believes that the new America should be accepting of everyone, with their significant others included.

The period from the 1960s until the 1980s is one that many would define as the second sexual revolution. Different kinds of relationships and alternative forms of sexuality became increasingly accepted. Then, in the 1980s, the AIDS crisis gained national attention and the perception of sexuality changed dramatically. People became less liberal about sex as they tried to protect themselves from the disease. Because HIV had not garnered much attention in the media before the 1980s, scientists had not really focused on finding a treatment. HIV, which stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus, is a virus which weakens the immune system of its host by reproducing in the host’s immune cells. Unlike most viruses, the human body cannot clear HIV out

Ryan’s disputes with his old school had captured national media attention. Between 1985 and 1987, news stories about AIDS had doubled, and the public was becoming more aware of what it really was and how it was actually spread. White became known as the poster boy for AIDS because people had never seen someone like Ryan with AIDS. AIDS was usually associated to homosexuals, but Ryan put a new face on it. He was just a normal teenager that had to battle with his disease. Not only did Ryan catch the attention of the media, but also of celebrities. Ryan caught some big stars’ attention such as Michal Jackson, Elton John, and John Mellencamp. He even met with the president, Ronald Reagan. These celebrities, and many more, were often seen with Ryan at AIDS fund-raisers and promotions. They also gave him money and gifts, Even though Ryan got all of this publicity, he didn’t necessarily like it. White stated that he disliked the spotlight, hated that many people blamed his mother for his sickness, and said that he would trade all the attention to be free of his disease any day. Despite hating the attention, he still used his notoriety

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 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

"Perhaps more than any other disease before or since, syphilis... provoked the kind of widespread moral panic that AIDS revived when it struck America in the 1980's" (Allen. Searchquote). Angels in America: Millennium Approaches by Tony Kushner, follows several characters during 1985-1986 in New York, during the Reagan era. This was a time of an emerging gay culture, the spike in HIV/AIDS, and the focusing on furthering and improving one's self. Kushner shows the progressing times and widespread panic and beliefs through his complex characters. Their identities work with and through each other to grant privileges or create oppressions, this is also known as intersectionality.

According to Tony Kushner in his dramatic play, Angels of America, Kushner uses angels and religion to help develop the characters afflicted by it as well carry them through the entire play and reach some sort of enlightenment. Spirituality is a big thing within Angels in America, and Angels are one of them. “Harper: When you look at the ozone layer, from outside, from a spaceship, it looks like a pale blue halo [...]. It's a gift, from God, the crowning touch to the creation of the world: guardian angels, hands linked [...] a shell of safety for life itself.” (Kushner)

      The 80's were a time of economic growth and global power.  It is also the setting for Tony Kushner's play, "Angels in America".  In Kushner's play it was at time of gay revelation.  Reagan's reforms and policies gave homosexual people the power and

Most of the characters in Tony Kushner's Angels in America struggle with their sexuality. Reflected in this struggle, the homosexual characters are flawed to the degree at which they hide their sexuality. Prior, Belize, Louis, Joe, and Roy all deal with this issue in the course of the play. Prior is the least closeted homosexual while Roy is the most. Prior is chosen to be a prophet, is morally upright, and represents good. Roy, the unlawful lawyer, represents evil. Belize, Louis, and Joe fall in between Prior and Roy on the scale. By having these particular characters represent what they do, Tony Kushner places a negative stigma on those in the closet and emphasizes his negative opinion on closeted homosexuals.

Angels in America: Millennium Approaches by Tony Kushner can be conventionally defined as a work of Theatricalism. Breaking the preconceived notions of theatre such as gender casting, fluent scenes, and varying extremes ranging from characters, to visuals, to the introduction of historical figures. However, the work strikes a note of realism. We find ourselves encompassed by passionate actors sharing real emotions with us, scenes based in historical events, and characters placed in events that we then find to be our own realities. While we find our realities to be true—and heightened by those in the work—could it be possible that some of these characters’ realities are in fact false, or being defined by the theatricality that surrounds them? Harper serves as an emotionally charged wife to Joe, who questions not only his sexuality, but her purpose as a wife. A close read of the play begs

In “Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches”, Tony Kushner sets the play in New York, around 1985; where homosexuality was still not accepted by everyone in the society. Around 1980s, heterosexuals dominated society; therefore homosexuality was not freely expressed and accepted. Kushner’s play is all about the expression of homosexuality in New York and their struggle with the AIDS crisis spreading. Most of the male characters in the play are all homosexuals. The main male characters are Joe, Prior, Louis, and Roy.

When it comes to reading literature, one often question why minor characters are even included, as I definitely wondered while reading Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. The play focuses on internal struggles following two couples in relationships while progressively heading toward destruction and surrounding the AIDS epidemic in the 80s. However, if taking a deeper dive, the play becomes so much more than that. Thanks to minor characters, the play is able to bring in politics, religion, power, sexuality, and justice all at once. Minor characters aren’t just fillers, they are there to help the author tell the story. In Tony Kushner’s one of the most celebrated plays in the 20th century, one of the minor characters that is often overlooked

Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America” and Mwaganu wa Kaggia’s “Not Ashamed but so Ashamed” both explicitly address the social, religious, and political stigma associated with HIV/AIDS and homosexuality. The use of split scenes in “Angels in America” allows Kushner to demonstrate the similar ways in which both Joe and Prior respond to alienation despite having distinct personal conflicts. The two characters’ societal and personal dilemmas are most evidently intertwined in Act 2, Scene 9 of the play. In a similar manner, by using repetition of the phrases “I’m HIV positive” and “I am so ashamed”, Kaggia’s poem confronts the ironic notion that it is not the nature of illness that causes suffering; rather it is the persistent stigmatization of HIV/AIDS that continuously impedes any attempt to end this epidemic. The dramatic techniques shown in both texts are strategically used by the authors to emphasize the influences that social, religious, and political stigmatization have on individuals with HIV/AIDS and those openly disclosing their homosexuality.

AIDS Crisis in the 1980’s with Angels in America The first cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, also known as AIDS were reported in the United States in June 1981 (HIV and AIDS). Acquired immune deficiency syndrome became a terminal epidemic that was quickly stigmatized and feared by the American society. In his Pulitzer prize winning play Angels in America, Tony Kushner showed how AIDS affected people that were diagnosed with the disease, how it affected their relationships, and just how the people that were branded by society dealt with it when it was first discovered.

Tony Kushner’s main themes of exploration in Angels in America was the so called American Dream, which is a widely known American ethos, that is the overall character of the nation’s dreams, beliefs and ideologies. The American Dream essentially states that all Americans have the freedom and opportunity to pursue success, prosperity and upward social mobility if only they really want it and are willing to work for it. Though this may be the national ethos, American society is unfortunately filled with many elements that often run counter to those well-meaning ideas. The character of Roy Cohn, who is based off the real life anti-communist, conservative Republican politician who was especially active in the 1950’s, and serves as an example of the many real obstacles in American society that often cause so many to not be able to pursue their own personal American dream.