|
|
|
Angels in America: on World AIDS Day
by Susannah Indigo
(12/01/03)
Watching the controversial* Reagan movie on Showtime yesterday -- and surely that must
have been a marketing ploy, otherwise I couldn't have been forced to watch a movie about the Reagans --
there's a chilling moment when Nancy Reagan steps out of character and becomes quite compassionate about
losing her hairdresser to AIDS, attends a therapy group with AIDS patients, and then pleads with "Ronnie" to do something about this new "plague." "Ronnie" stonewalls her, and it's suggested in the film elsewhere that he is bigoted against gays, hardly an unusual attitide for a man of his era, and so he does nothing.
Which fits in perfectly with this year's theme for World AIDS Day, almost twenty years later -- "Stigma and Discrimination."
Fortunately there is what promises to be a much more powerful and interesting television moment coming up on HBO during the next two weeks, the premier of the 2-part film adaptation of the Tony & Pulitzer-winning play, Angels in America, with a dazzling cast including Al Pacino as Roy Cohn, Meryl Streep, and Emma Thompson. Pre-reviewers give it very high marks, so be sure not to miss this, because as the Newsweek interviewer writes --
"How in heaven's name do you describe 'Angels in America' without taking up this entire magazine? After all, this is a play about Jews and Mormons, gays and straights, New York and Antarctica, the ozone, Ethel Rosenberg, AIDS, African-Americans, Reagan Republicans, 'Cats' -- and we haven’t even mentioned the angels, or a devil named Roy Cohn."
But just for today, take a few minutes for awareness, and visit some recommended sites related to World AIDS Day:
Read an update on what's happening around the world, and how thousands are honoring the day.
Visit the Clean Sheets World AIDS Day archives with stories and poems and information.
What are the symptoms?
How can the spread of AIDS be prevented?
Facts about AIDS, and testing information.
Stories and quilt panel dedications from high school kids.
Visit The Body.com, a powerful resource for individuals dealing with HIV/AIDS themselves, or with loved ones.
Donate to AIDS research now.
Know that there are FDA
approved home tests for HIV available, and make sure that young
people around you know this too.
View some of the most powerful art in the world: find out
what's happening with the AIDS
Quilt, and note that you can buy lovely
quilt calendars, posters, and other things to help support
them.
©2003 by Susannah Indigo
*The most controversial line said to be cut from the Reagan film before airing was during the AIDS-
plea scene, when 'Ronnie' responded with "They that live in sin shall die in
sin."
Reader
Comments
Susannah Indigo is the Editor-in-Chief of Clean Sheets.
Read previous years' World AIDS Day writing.
|
|
|
