67 pages • 2 hours read
Randy ShiltsAnd The Band Played On
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1987A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Gay Identity and Tensions Within the Gay Community
The polarization the AIDS crisis elicited in the gay community is best exemplified between how Larry Kramer and Paul Popham, two of the founders of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) approach their sexual identities. While Larry is openly and unapologetically gay and even critical of his own community, Paul prefers to remain less obvious and is wary of confrontation. Paul “prided himself on never getting involved in gay politics” (91) but it is the death of his friends that causes him to fundraise for the epidemic’s research and raise awareness of the disease. For Paul, it appears that being gay is a trait, while for Larry it is a way of life. Even then for the two men, they have differing degrees of transparency about their identities. For instance, while preparing invitations for one of their fundraisers, Paul is embarrassed about the appearance of the word “gay” in them and about his mailman knowing his sexual orientation, to which Larry retorts: “What about your doorman […] You drag tricks up to your apartment every night (135).
However, there also exists another level of shame as Larry notes at the home of a health director who is a closeted gay man. Because they do not wish to call attention to themselves, and they are “very useful to the establishment” by keeping up the prejudice and discrimination (406), some of the top officials who are closeted homosexuals are responsible for doing little or nothing in battling AIDS and placing the lives of the community in danger. These tensions are apparent when Larry throws his drink at a closeted Republican fundraiser, Terry Dolan, who gave power to the “New Right.” Larry screams at him, “You take the best from our world and then do all those hateful things against us. You should be ashamed” (407).
At the same time, political agendas divide the community, as can be seen around the issue of bathhouse closures in San Francisco. The two gay democratic clubs are not aligned with the health interests of their community because of their history against each other. Therefore, while the Harvey Milk Gay Democratic Club favors the shutdown of bathhouses, the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Club decides to oppose it. Unfortunately, when Mayor Feinstein is up for recall, it is the Toklas Club that supports her, which pressures her to side with her allies until enough evidence shows that the bathhouses aided in the spread of AIDS.
But even before the bathhouses, another split is observed in the gay community: being sexually liberated or monogamous, a dilemma exacerbated with the presence of AIDS. As the epidemic grows, the reaction within the community is wide-ranging and shows no signs of unity. As Shilts observes: “The gay community’s confused response marked the start of its own collective redefinition, a process that, for all its early silliness, would become one of the more profound effects of the AIDS epidemic in the coming years” (378).
Reputation Over Responsibility
With AIDS being stamped as a homosexual disease early on, it does not relay itself as either an urgent matter for the government or a lucrative topic for the scientific community because it is not reputable. Even in the issue of bathhouse closures, Mayor Feinstein points out that “if this was a heterosexual problem, they would have been closed already” (443). However, as soon as it becomes a heterosexual problem with the emergence of Silvana Strangis and the possibility that straight people could have AIDS, it “captured the attention of editors and news directors” (513). Previously, they did not want to give AIDS air time, with some journalists knowing that they would not be allowed to cover gay-oriented stories.
Within the medical circles, some hospitals do not want to be associated with this disease and its connection with homosexuality. In the case of Rock Hudson, even with his wealth and power, he is ordered out by hospital officials as soon as they discover he has AIDS. Further, “[n]o hospital in New York City wanted to become known as specializing in this homosexual disease” (150). At the same time, doctors who are interested in assisting those with AIDS, such as Dr. Willy Rozenbaum, had “to change hospitals because he refused to give up his studies on this strange new disease” (202).
In the government, with Reagan’s budget cuts, funds are asked to be diverted from various health programs with no one feeling the need to take responsibility or see that AIDS is a crisis. It isn’t until the matter affects reputation that Congress is able to force the administration to dole out some funding. Public health officials are also influenced by politics; Dr. Mervyn Silverman waits until the last minute to make decisions on the bathhouses for fear of upsetting the gay community. Some government officials are wary of what it might mean for their reputation if they do aggressively combat AIDS such as Mayor Ed Koch, who worries that he may be mistaken for being gay if he provides funds for combatting AIDS and therefore does not do enough.
Conflicts of Interest
Through the book, Shilts presents communities, ideologies, and institutions pitted against each other. Their conflict of interests becomes an obstacle in fighting AIDS.
Even within the National Institute of Health (NIH), once it is evidenced that AIDS is infectious, there is interest from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to become more involved, which causes objection from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), an initial player. At the same time, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the NCI are seen at odds with each other as Dr. Robert Gallo refuses to reveal his work to Dr. Don Francis and prevents him from creating a retrovirus lab at the CDC because he wants the glory that comes with being credited as the person who discovered AIDS.
With the Reagan budget cuts, the administration pushes its federal health officials to pretend that they have enough money, while internally, they are being asked to divert money from other programs or beg their bosses for further funding. Tied by the administration’s strict financial policy and a president who refuses to address the epidemic for almost six years, Tim Westmoreland realizes Reagan’s insensitive attitude: “He hadn’t ascribed much importance of funding priority to any other non-armaments program during his presidency, why should he have given any to AIDS” (595)?
Beyond the drama between public health officials and the administration, there are the tensions between Dr. Gallo and his lab and the Pasteur Institute team. Even though the United States and the NCI initially take credit, the Pasteur Institute team requests the Freedom of Information Act against the NCI. To prevent embarrassment and an international dispute, the American government decides to settle on a truce with the French and name Dr. Gallo and Dr. Montagnier as “co-discoverers of HIV” (593).
Outside of the bureaucratic conflicts, there are those that reveal the biases and the prejudices across society. For instance, the spokesperson for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation attempts to use Rock Hudson as an example that “AIDS is not a gay white male disease” (577) when in reality, he is a gay white man with AIDS. When “a square-jawed, heterosexually perceived actor like Rock Hudson” (588) is exposed, the people can finally talk about it. To keep his career and safeguard his insecurities, Hudson remained closeted until he was near death.
