[gjkood]

If you have time I would recommend two movies that touches deeply upon this topic. They are 'Philadelphia'[1] which garnered a 'Best Actor' Oscar for Tom Hanks and 'And the band played on'[2] starring Mathew Modine.

'Philadelphia' a fictional movie that touches on the social stigma associated with HIV and 'And the band played on' captures the politics of why it was ignored by Reagan and his supporters for so long and the sad politics and scientific infighting in the chase for a cure.

Both are incredible movies.

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107818/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3

[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106273/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

[jdm2212]

Both are really incredible movies, and I'd also highly recommend them. "How To Survive A Plague" is pretty great too (it even features everyone's favorite NIH official, Anthony Fauci!).

One thing worth being aware of with "And The Band Played On": it's quite old, and science advanced a lot after the book it's based on was written, so it's sometimes factually inaccurate (Gaetan Dugas didn't personally cause the pandemic, and the incubation period is longer than they thought then). It's not a work of history or a documentary, but it makes for fascinating viewing precisely because it was made so close to the events that the story it tells is not neat and polished with the benefit of decades of hindsight and narrative shaping. It's chaotic and emotional and raw and authentic and, inevitably, sometimes wrong about stuff that wasn't known then.

[overkill28]

The Gaetan Dugas thing seems to dominate every discussion about And The Band Plays on which is too bad because the book is like 600 pages long, tracks dozens of real life individuals, has tons of incredible primary source material, and gives a very touching, grounded, contemporary look at AIDS in the early 80s.

And out of the small portion of the book that talks about Dugas, I never got the impression that Schilts was trying the blame him for causing the pandemic, but rather that he was using him as a real life example of the type of man that existed in that era, who flew around the country having sex with thousands (yes thousands) of other men, whose behavior doubtlessly and unknowingly sped the spread of AIDS.

[jdm2212]

Most people have only seen the film, I think (I only read half the book). Gaetan Dugas is much more prominently featured in the film, which pretty strongly implies he was a key factor in the wide spread of HIV.

[rurban]

A much more interesting Aids movie is Cold Case Hammerskjöld, which could explain the discrepancy of existence of the virus in these early samples. Highly controversial though.

https://youtu.be/ZrUkRs8wDo0

[clairity]

i really liked dallas buyers club[0], which was heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Buyers_Club

[qubex]

Yes! The comments on this thread made me think of Philadelphia instantly!

I have Bruce Springsteen’s Streets of Philadelphia (the titular song of that film) playing right in this instant.