More than four decades has passed since AIDS reared its ugly head. Questions are still being raised about the effectiveness of the nation's inability to manage a plague; the amount of nonsense, bs, and inaction has not altered, and it's still a struggle to deal with our current plague of Covid-19 and its variations. It's only in the past three or four years that we have managed to deal with AIDS, so the issues with Covid, from denials, anti-masking, and getting the vaccine out to the population has been disgraceful. It's only this week that vaccines have been approved for children, and even in New York City, there are people who have not gotten even their first dose.
So this documentary demonstrates issues that are still with us. You may, if you wish, argue that this is not so much a documentary of the AIDS plague as one of the gay community's reaction to it.
A very good friend of mine came down with AIDS early. When he told me, my reaction was two-fold. "Oh, I said. So you are gay." Then I thought and said "Maybe you should keep quiet about this. Some of our friends might react badly. In the meantime, what can I do?" To my surprise, everyone was very supportive. His straight friends would go to his apartment and keep him company, run errands for him. One afternoon, while sitting with him, we turned on the news, where a story about a marh down on Wall Street, demanding that they do something about the matter came on. I blew up. Where were these people for my friend? Forty years later, I can recognize that they were afraid. We still didn't understand the vectoring of the disease. But at the time, and even today, their abandonment fills me with anger.
None of which excuses the sloth with which the nation as a whole reacted to AIDS, nor the selfish and stupid way we are dealing with Covid-19.
