The Band Played on
Brendon Candella
HSC 310
The Band Played On. When I first saw this movie I was 13 years old. The impression it made on me then was different than the impression it made on me watching in class. The movie was entertainment to me when I was younger. Being older and have been exposed and involved in much more that after watching this film I can respond differently to it.
The film gives an alternative point of view of the AIDS virus. The film was not your typical type of movie show in a class just describing what AIDS is and how you get it. The film gave us a more human and personal feeling of how AIDS affected people and the frustrations it caused many people.
One of the main themes the film hit on was thepolitical and moral dynamics that accompanied AIDS. The disease as the movie shows is that it first surfaced as a disease that affected the gay community; a community not accepted by the government of the United States or many of its citizens, homosexuality was seen as taboo and immoral at the time. This is a point of major concern, the government and its citizens viewed AIDS as a disease that did not affect then so why should they care about it or deal with. If the government and the general population viewed the gay population as equal citizens, there may have been early intervention. If there was early intervention from the US government, possibly the AIDS virus would not have exploded upon the world’s population. Today AIDS may not be a major pandemic if intervention was taken.
The film focused on ethics as well. When there was a meeting held to talk about the possibility of shutting down San Francisco’s bathhouses, the character played by Phil Collins owned a bathhouse and did not want it shut down. If the bathhouse owner cared more about the gay population’s health and the public’s health, maybe he would have considered taking action to shut down his bathhouse. However at the time it was not yet determined that AIDS was spread through sexual
HSC 310
The Band Played On. When I first saw this movie I was 13 years old. The impression it made on me then was different than the impression it made on me watching in class. The movie was entertainment to me when I was younger. Being older and have been exposed and involved in much more that after watching this film I can respond differently to it.
The film gives an alternative point of view of the AIDS virus. The film was not your typical type of movie show in a class just describing what AIDS is and how you get it. The film gave us a more human and personal feeling of how AIDS affected people and the frustrations it caused many people.
One of the main themes the film hit on was thepolitical and moral dynamics that accompanied AIDS. The disease as the movie shows is that it first surfaced as a disease that affected the gay community; a community not accepted by the government of the United States or many of its citizens, homosexuality was seen as taboo and immoral at the time. This is a point of major concern, the government and its citizens viewed AIDS as a disease that did not affect then so why should they care about it or deal with. If the government and the general population viewed the gay population as equal citizens, there may have been early intervention. If there was early intervention from the US government, possibly the AIDS virus would not have exploded upon the world’s population. Today AIDS may not be a major pandemic if intervention was taken.
The film focused on ethics as well. When there was a meeting held to talk about the possibility of shutting down San Francisco’s bathhouses, the character played by Phil Collins owned a bathhouse and did not want it shut down. If the bathhouse owner cared more about the gay population’s health and the public’s health, maybe he would have considered taking action to shut down his bathhouse. However at the time it was not yet determined that AIDS was spread through sexual