tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2585163331194032530.post3334650825747177969..comments2023-11-02T09:08:08.645-04:00Comments on We Love Soaps: FLASHBACK: How TV Portrays AIDS 1988Kevhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13659344675956886092noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2585163331194032530.post-57076787776494349492010-12-02T10:04:03.550-05:002010-12-02T10:04:03.550-05:00I agree with you guys about the tone of the articl...I agree with you guys about the tone of the article. I think she had an interesting point in her mind, but her column is so one-sided and negative that it was completely lost.<br /><br />John, the AMC story was by far the best for me. Whereas Dawn Rollo was sort of isolated and the audience never really had a chance to care for her, you absolutely fell in love with Cindy Parker, and the entire town of Pine Valley was involved. Ellen Wheeler gave one of the best performances in soap history along with David Canary. I do think people watching that story received a bit of education and had to be moved.Roger Newcombhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17605713149480918249noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2585163331194032530.post-42907674962465281262010-12-02T00:06:55.310-05:002010-12-02T00:06:55.310-05:00On a more progressive note, though, didn't ATW...On a more progressive note, though, didn't ATWT do the Hank Eliot story around the time that this article ran? I know the character was short-lived and the partner who had AIDS never appeared on-screen. But just that one scene I came across on YouTube where Hank was talking to his dying partner's father on the phone, pleading in vain to let him visit him in the hospital, was so real and heartbreaking. And they even did something pretty clever by having the subplot involving James Stenbeck - aka evil incarnate - playing on his adolescent son's homophobia to turn him against his mother, who stood by Hank and his partner. Paul finally saw the error of his ways and befriended Hank, who ironically ended up being the one to save him from James after he saw his father for the monster that he was. Almost as if to suggest to viewers that maybe politicians and highly compensated religious leaders who fan the flames of homophobia might have some purely self-serving agenda as well.<br /><br />And then GH did the Robin/Stone story, as you so beautifully recapped. Which was a heterosexual story, but I think may have been the first time on a soap that characters appeared on-screen who had contracted HIV sexually, and the sex in and of itself (and/or the person they had sex with) were not portrayed as somehow deviant. And Robin has lived a full and healthy life for many years and was never pushed out as a core character, no matter how much the show has strayed from what it was at the time of that story.<br /><br />So, soaps did finally get it right, eventually...briefly... I know that's not much in the grand scheme of things, but I think it's worth acknowledging on an otherwise very sad day.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02108033595998741555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2585163331194032530.post-58221307940142688242010-12-02T00:01:47.803-05:002010-12-02T00:01:47.803-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02108033595998741555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2585163331194032530.post-52800931730940295242010-12-01T23:59:03.124-05:002010-12-01T23:59:03.124-05:00Yeah, this was pretty offensive. And I see that t...Yeah, this was pretty offensive. And I see that the Times was still not printing the word "gay." I too was a young child when this article was printed, and certainly did not know what "gay" meant (or that it applied to me), but articles like this certainly explain why I had a definite awareness that AIDS was a dreadful thing to have even for reasons beyond the fact that it was a death sentence at the time.<br /><br />That said, from what I know in hindsight, I kind of think the author did get at some flaws in those early AIDS stories on soaps. The only problem is, she drew all of the wrong conclusions from many of them, and cloaked her observations in her own homophobia and lack of compassion for people struggling with addiction. I actually agree that it seems like it would have stuck out like a sore thumb that these first three people with AIDS depicted on daytime were all women, but I don't think the writers were doing it to punish women for sexuality. I think they were so freaked out about viewers having homophobic reactions that they not only insisted on telling the audience ad nauseum that these characters were completely heterosexual, but they also couldn't trust the audience even to believe that the characters didn't get it from male-male sex unless they were women.<br /><br />I have to question how much of a positive impact those stories really had, especially as everyone else on the shows continued playing out the same old same old stories about women getting accidentally pregnant and not knowing who the father was and so forth, as if AIDS (not to mention DNA testing and Roe v. Wade and the pill) never existed. I saw the AW story when SoapNet re-aired those episodes a few years back, and it was kind of insulting. The story of how Dawn had contracted HIV was far-fetched and they did go out of their way to make the character completely asexual. On top of which, she had only tenuous ties to a few characters who had only been on the show for a few years at most and left not long after (but I guess that was typical of AW characters in its last 20 years or so).<br /><br />It almost seemed like the message was, "Well, yes, the vast majority of people who have died from this disease are not even worthy of being acknowledged on our show, but just on the off chance that some virgin who will never actually be part of your social circle - but she's a really nice girl - could get AIDS through a series of highly melodramatic circumstances, maybe we should do something about it or at least not automatically be cruel to people who have it." Then again, if that's what viewers took away from the AW story, maybe it would have been some sort of progress at that time in history. That's actually a more enlightened viewpoint than this author seemed to have.<br /><br />I never saw the AMC story, but it sounds like they at least did a better job of tying Cindy to core characters, and they showed a beloved character like Jesse working through his own fears about AIDS that perhaps viewers who were similarly ignorant could relate to and learn from. But I thought Forrest Gump sent some bizarre messages about AIDS and developmental disabilities and sexuality, and I can see how AMC's story did the same. And did they really never address whether Stuart and Cindy were having sex, and if so make clear that they were practicing safe sex? What on earth was the point, then?<br /><br />The Y&R story just sounds so bizarre, but I don't know anything about it so I won't say any more.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02108033595998741555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2585163331194032530.post-90752285418858479612010-12-01T07:35:36.406-05:002010-12-01T07:35:36.406-05:00What a horribly offensive article. I realize it w...What a horribly offensive article. I realize it was written 22 years ago, but it basically calls AIDS a gay man's disease and admonishes the soap writers of the day for making it more accessible to the viewers (heterosexual females). <br /><br />This author's feelings about people living with AIDS having sex is so archaic. Because of my age (I was 11 in 1988), I am unaware of what the general consensus was regarding AIDS patients having sex, but surely people understood that condoms helped limit the spread of the disease. <br /><br />I am grateful that as a society we have become much more educated regarding this disease. It is only through education that we will limit its spread and one day find a cure. 22 years is not a long time, so it is great to see that as a society we have come from this article (so ignorant) to a much more intellectual point-of-view.Mellow Yellowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05920044965744439636noreply@blogger.com