Reliving the AIDS Crisis in HBO's "The Normal Heart"

The other night I watched the HBO production of Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart" with a brilliant cast of actors including Julia Roberts, Mark Ruffalo, Alfred Molina, and Stephen Spinella. During the film, I found myself crying while reliving the terrible effects of the then, inappropriately named virus, GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency), take the lives of so many within our community with little to no governmental intervention to help us.

The ongoing thread of the film was, "the straight community hates us and wants us to die!" That alone would fuel my rage at the time when I lost as many friends and lovers as I was old; I lost forty-three at one point during the worst of the epidemic.

Watching this movie forced me to relive that difficult period in my life where I recall gay men being fearful of having any contact, even kissing, with one another. I, being a young Italian-American, had a great deal of difficulty accepting that behavior in others, knowing in my heart, that kissing was not one of the causes toward getting AIDS; later proven to be true.

What was both sad and frustrating while watching the movie, was the difficulty that Julia Roberts who played a role similar to that of Dr. Mathilde Krim, was having in convincing gay men to stop having unprotected sex with one another. Knowing now, that the transmission of the HIV virus was spread primarily through semen, it was quite upsetting to now see the virulent protests to the prospect of curtailing our sexual activities. If we only knew then, what we do know now!

Having met Mr. Kramer at a charity event in Connecticut where he now lives, I was able to witness firsthand his lack of patience and with the behaviors of some gay men when an acquaintance of mine had a little too much to drink. Mr. Kramer was very quick to state his opinion of the man's condition to him, and asked me, "Is he a friend of yours?" To which, I quickly stated that the man was an acquaintance and quickly continued our conversation about his work.

Clearly, the man has not refrained from expressing his opinions when he witnesses something that displeases him, and nothing could be any more unpleasant than what occurred within the gay community in the eighties and early nineties. Thanks to Mr. Kramer and his contemporaries continued efforts to enact action to fight AIDS, and the injustices that were precipitated by a less than caring political system, change finally came about.

Remembering how he worked fearlessly alongside such organizations as GMHC, which he co-founded, and ACT UP, together, they were finally able to embolden gays of the time to fight and get results in public health policy. Most importantly, their efforts toward educating the public and providing more effective healthcare for PWAs and the public in general, since AIDS was eventually proven NOT to be just a gay disease, as many of the ignorant tried to advocate.

In returning to the film's most significant moments, I was most affected by the loving male relationships depicted by several of the characters, where in the final moments of those relationships due to the death of one the partners, feelings of love were so beautifully enacted, that even our staunchest adversaries could not help but be emotionally affected.

But, then, perhaps I am going to far in believing that our adversaries could be swayed, since those are the same people who helped to keep the ignorance about the disease alive. It was also those people and those of a similar mindset, who refused to believe AIDS should be a concern for the public at large, since it only affected gays, prostitutes and hemophiliacs and not the more "normal" part of the general population. How I hate that word "normal" when used in association with the LGBT community.

Such prejudice and ignorance resulted in minimal action among our political leaders back in those important early days of the virus, at a time that could have saved countless lives, both heterosexual and homosexual, as the HIV virus never discriminated on who it infected!

In closing, I cannot advocate enough that everyone should watch "The Normal Heart" which to me and many others, is this world's modern day plague. And, I thank Larry Kramer and HBO for their continual activism in keeping the memories of those who passed due to AIDS forever in our hearts and in our minds.

In the words of the poet Dylan Thomas: "Though lovers be lost; love shall not, And death shall have no dominion."