[Marxism] Fw: [leftqueer] "AIDS for Rent"

["Louis R Godena" <louisgodena@xxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Yasmin Nair 
To: JOhn Gabriel 
Cc: leftqueer 
Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 6:44 PM
Subject: Re: [leftqueer] "AIDS for Rent"


Dear JOhn,
Thanks for your response to my piece.

Before I go on, I'd like to make absolutely clear that I write about Rent the 
film, NOT the musical: " I recently attended a screening of Rent, the film 
based on the musical by Jonathan Larson." It seems that your points are about 
the musical (your words: "...goals on stage" and "the musical hardly 
addresses.") I brought up the Schulman issue because the questions surrounding 
the use of material came up with the musical, and then came up again in a 
different form around the film (as I show). I'll go ahead and make my points 
about the film. 

The film is insubstantial, yes. I went in with low expectations and then had to 
gnaw at my coat sleeve to stay awake. But it is a major film about and around A 
IDS, and we -- queers and straights -- need to consider what kind of history 
gets simultaneously remembered and rewritten in texts like this.The question is 
not about the "assumed" connection between Rent and the AIDS crisis; it's about 
the degree to which the film does rest upon AIDS as the driving vehicle for its 
(however weak) social commentary and the fact, again as I noted, that it will 
become a "film about AIDS" shown in classes and as an example of what the AIDS 
crisis looked like. Your own words about what role this text  should play are 
contradictory. If AIDS "plays a major role in the plot," how can there not be a 
connection between it (Rent) and the AIDS crisis? 

But I fear that I know the answer -- the problem is that "AIDS" in America is 
seen as something other than a crisis - a not-crisis, to use an awkward phrase. 
A health issue that only affects particular portions, and mostly people in 
other parts of the world. AIDS is no longer seen as a crisis, it's become 
normalised into something "we" need not worry about. 

You write that you didn't expect Rent to fulfil queer societal goals. But you 
also see it as a useful tool to "reach out to" non-queer youth audiences, whom 
I shall hereby refer to simply as "straight." So you also expect it to do a 
substantial amount of work, yes? I'm tired of this notion of "starter 
activism," one that others have used with me in defense of Rent and other 
insubstantial texts. Frankly, if straights -- and many of our head-in-the-sand 
queer brethren --  still can't figure out the systemic problems of poverty, 
health care, and everything else that is so badly wrong today without first 
being made to cry about them, they ought to seriously consider moving to a 
remote island. Do they really have to feel empathy to understand the extent of 
AIDS an d other societal problems?  Are hard facts about the extent of problems 
no longer enough to convince people that something is badly, sadly, madly wrong 
with us? We'v had more than than 20 years of the crisis -- what more will it 
take?

One of my biggest peeves is with the privatisation and domestication of 
activism, AIDS-related or otherwise. There's this strange new idea that social 
change can only be initiated within the realm of the domestic, or the private. 
For instance, the gay marriage-wallahs would have us believe that social change 
only matters when it concerns the domestic and private sphere. First get 
marriage rights and social security and health care benefits for those who're 
willing to get married, they argue. Then, maybe, we can start to think about 
the rest of the slobs who don't bother to "commit." Your rationale about Rent 
being used for queer goals (which you don't define) follows this same logic. 
Let's first present this bizarre, sentimental blather about a group of friends 
living this charming boho-lifestyle , a film that pretends that queers never 
actively fought for health care, that would have us believe that queers never 
learnt to build networks of support around people with AIDS, and posits 
straight people at the center of the crisis. A film that leads us to believe 
that loving people for AIDS is all that matters, without breathing a word about 
murderous governmental policies. 

We've already seen a similarly skewed representation of AIDS --  Tom Hanks in 
Philadelphia. Where did that get us? Not one bloody word about Reagan's 
non-existent AIDS policies, not one hint that there was ever an AIDS crisis in 
one of the major obituaries immediately following his death. 

Empathy and its related emotion pity can turn quickly into horrible, insidious, 
and useless emotions unless they're accompanied with some historical 
understanding of how the crisis that engenders these emotions came about in the 
first place. You write that youth communities might have reasons to care. To 
care about what exactly? What must we care about, love, or remember if we're 
not willing to remember the history and politics around any crisis, 
AIDS-related or otherwise?  

Yasmin 



JOhn Gabriel <john.a.gabriel@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
  I geuss what I don't get, and have never really got, is the assumed 
connection between "Rent" and the AIDS crisis.  While I am totally willing to 
agree that AIDS plays a major role in the plot of "Rent", I think that it is 
only one aspect of the musical, and in fact, only one aspect of the musical 
that falls short of portra ying reality.  The problem of poverty rings out all 
over the music, a problem which has many intersections with issues of both race 
and HIV/AIDS status.  But the systemic problems of poverty, health care, AIDS 
education, and race are among the many issues that "Rent" brings up but does 
not explore nearly as deeply as I would like. 

  I don't expect "Rent" to have been the fulfillment of queer societal goals on 
stage.  I think that because of its accesibility, it cam be a very useful tool 
to reach out to non-queer, especially non-queer youth audiences about other 
problems (race, poverity, drug addiction) in our society, that while the 
musical hardyle addresses, it does give youth communities reasons to care. 

  What we as queers need to do is harness the empathy that this musical raises 
in peoples hearts and use it for queer goals.

   
  On 1/6/06, Yasmin Nair <nairyasmin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: 
    Hi everyone,

    Below is a link to my recent column on Rent, the movie. It looks at the 
representation of AIDS activism,  the controversy over authorship surrounding 
the "plot," and the intense fan culture that has developed around the original 
musical. 

    As always, I welcome any comments and/or asides. 

    Yours,

    Yasmin 

    http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=10430

    "AIDS for Rent"

    I recently attended a screening of Rent, the film based o n the musical by 
Jonathan Larson. Given my cynicism about popular depictions of AIDS, I was 
unsurprised to find that it erases the massive organizing around AIDS by queers 
furious about government inaction in the 1980s. The activism of groups like ACT 
UP ( AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power ) led to significant shifts in policy and 
treatment alternatives, but none of that is apparent in Rent, which 
appropriates the group's name and part of its slogan ( "Act Up, Fight AIDS" ) 
in one of its songs without a single pink triangle in sight. 
    Despite these and other flaws, the appearance of Rent brings two sets of 
narratives to our attention. The first consists of the fan material generated 
by "Rentheads," people who were in their teens when the musical appeared in 
1996 and remain devoted to it. The second is the dispute between the estate of 
Jonathan Larson and Sarah Schulman, the lesbian novelist and playwright who has 
argued that Larson borrowed details from her 1990 novel People in Trouble. 
Taken together, these narratives form a cultural text about AIDS and the 
choices we make in remembering how the epidemic came about............ 

     
    http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=10430 




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