{"id":270,"date":"2019-01-15T11:31:45","date_gmt":"2019-01-15T11:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gendersexualityandmedia\/?p=270"},"modified":"2020-04-20T15:34:12","modified_gmt":"2020-04-20T15:34:12","slug":"no-day-but-today-theatre-gay-america-and-the-theatrical-sanitation-of-aids-1985-1996","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gendersexualityandmedia\/2019\/01\/15\/no-day-but-today-theatre-gay-america-and-the-theatrical-sanitation-of-aids-1985-1996\/","title":{"rendered":"No Day But Today: Theatre, Gay America, and the Theatrical Sanitation of AIDS 1985-1996"},"content":{"rendered":"

Synopsis<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prior to the AIDS plague, representation for the queer community was limited to the point of near nonexistence. After AIDS emerged in the queer community, invisibility persisted, but the urgency for representation intensified greatly. Between 1985 and 1996, there was an increase in the portrayal of people with AIDS, particularly in the four shows <\/span>The Normal Heart<\/span><\/i> (1985), <\/span>Angels in America<\/span><\/i> (1991), <\/span>Falsettos<\/span><\/i> (1992), and <\/span>Rent<\/span><\/i> (1996). These four works of theater were paramount in raising awareness for AIDS to the general, presumed straight audience. There was also an increase in AIDS-related performance art in less conventional venues centered in the queer community.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this paper I explore how each of these four theater works portrayed AIDS from the inside in the gay male community and how these portrayals both excluded the macro nature of AIDS in America, while opening up avenues that had not previously existed for talking about the epidemic in a personal, human way, at the same time that off-Broadway performance art centered in the queer community was overall more realistic and harsh in its portrayal of AIDS though it failed to reach a wide, mainstream audience or reach popular acclaim. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are many things that <\/span>The Normal Heart<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Angels in America<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Falsettos<\/span><\/i>, and <\/span>Rent<\/span><\/i> completely miss as works depicting the AIDS crisis. Protagonists of color, queer women protagonists, and protagonists facing true poverty are missing from all of them. They present instead a more palatable portrayal of the AIDS crisis in the form of white gay men with some level of financial security, except for <\/span>Rent<\/span><\/i> which presents white straight men with some level of financial security. This mass misrepresentation of AIDS does not negate the value present in all of these works but it is erasure. It is indicative of an institutional problem in the medium when realistically representative work is not able to succeed on a mass scale. The theater-going audiences are presumed wealthy, white, and straight. The shows that found this mass success makes this sort of audience feel affirmed and validated, not necessarily challenged nor educated. The performance art was centered in the queer community at the center of the AIDS crisis, but it was because of its harsher, realistic portrayal of the crisis that it was unable to see mainstream acclaim. There is a balance of values in this dichotomy. The shows that saw mainstream acclaim were able to spread their message to a wider audience, and were therefore able to increase the visibility of AIDS. But that value is offset by the fact that the truth was sanitized to reach this wider audience. There is not inherent value in this wide acclaim when it is built on a false mask of the AIDS crisis that only confirms the preconceived notions of its audience. <\/span><\/p>\n

Media<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Normal Heart<\/p>\n

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Angels in America:<\/p>\n