And The Band Played On is a documentary about the AIDS epidemic that is based on the book. The book (and the movie itself) has an interesting title and I think it means that no matter what the circumstances, everybody just kept going on as usual, like nothing was wrong. AIDS is a widespread epidemic and I don’t think enough is taught about the history and prevalence of it.
Before the movie, my knowledge of the history of AIDS was few and far between. My knowledge of AIDS before watching this movie was very little. We did not learn very much about it in school. In fact, we really only learned about what it was and where it was prevalent. We never learned about how it started. We first learned about AIDS in middle school and it was glossed over at best, only described as an autoimmune disease. It is also pretty shocking to me that they do not know where the AIDS virus came from as well. “So we know gay men are dying. Think but can’t prove” (Spottiswoode 1993). They kept repeating the phrase think but can’t prove, which is a chilling part for me about the AIDS virus.
Before this movie I also had no idea about bathhouses. “This is San Francisco, where bathhouse isn’t just a word but a symbol of sexual freedom (Spottiswoode 1993). Bathhouses have been around for centuries. They are a place for men (and sometimes women) to freely engage in homosexual behavior. It is extremely prevalent in San Francisco. They are a heated room resembling saunas where 10-20 men go in and can engage in sexual activity with other men. The CDC wanted to shut them down, but the government didn’t have them means to do so.
Before they knew about the AIDS virus they called it “gay pneumonia” or “gay cancer” (Spottiswoode 1993). I had no idea that this is what the called it before they truly discovered the AIDS virus and this shocked me as well. How they had no money at all, and tried to find a way to research the AIDS virus but were not supported by anybody in their trials to find answers. They would moonlight their research at the beginning, which is working at night after their normal day job (usually for free) in order to progress their research. A group of researches in France was doing the same thing. Before this movie, I did not know that it was hard to find funding for research about the AIDS virus, I thought it was something they would try to find the reason and combat it.
I also did not know that it was traced down, in fact, to one person that they called “patient zero,” who was a flight attendant who had sex with a lot of different sexual partners. Many gay people of HIV-positive people were ostracized from society when AIDS was better known and many people were denied health care and help. Many people would not receive blood or anything when they needed it because there was fear of the AIDS virus spreading. This shocked me as well that people were so afraid of it, and that medical professionals weren’t trying harder to understand the disease.
My knowledge of HIV and AIDS is much better today than it was before. For example, I know about the T-Cell counts and the symptoms of the disease better now than I did when I was in school. I didn’t know before that it resembled “Feline Leukemia” (Spottiswoode 1993). I also now understand the prevalence of it, compared to before. This movie really moved me that they were trying so hard to figure it out and a way to cure it. I feel this movie is very important that shows the AIDS virus as it actually was, and that they should show it to in schools as a way to understand it.
REFERENCES
McCabe, K. J. (Producer), & Spottiswoode, R. (Director). (1993). And the Band Played On [Motion picture]. United States: Home Box Office.
