First. I have never seen the stage version of this play. I went, never knowing the thematic matter or the story. I know that local theater teenagers really liked the stage version, and it was sort of a rite of passage to see the stage version, but I never went or saw the play.
Everyone is talking about the stage version vs the film. I think what may be lost is the story, the sheer emotion of living with the threat HIV/AIDS in the late 80s/early 90s. I remember the terror of getting tested to learn your HIV status and finding out the results. Of possibly knowing you were positive and your potential partner may not be and being afraid to tell them. Being attracted but afraid as Roger was to get involved with Mimi.
My 16 yo daughter recently asked her father if there were any gay friends she could interview for a school project, he told her they were all dead. And they are, because of HIV/AIDS.
This film brought back so many memories of terror. Not knowing if something you did unthinkingly in the past might have resulted in this terrible deadly disease.
Those of you who are younger like the film because of the friendship and faith in adversity message it brings. That is correct, but to those of us who were there, it brings back, in a very poignant way, the past and the truth.
And because of that truth, I cried in memory.
-Linda
Everyone is talking about the stage version vs the film. I think what may be lost is the story, the sheer emotion of living with the threat HIV/AIDS in the late 80s/early 90s. I remember the terror of getting tested to learn your HIV status and finding out the results. Of possibly knowing you were positive and your potential partner may not be and being afraid to tell them. Being attracted but afraid as Roger was to get involved with Mimi.
My 16 yo daughter recently asked her father if there were any gay friends she could interview for a school project, he told her they were all dead. And they are, because of HIV/AIDS.
This film brought back so many memories of terror. Not knowing if something you did unthinkingly in the past might have resulted in this terrible deadly disease.
Those of you who are younger like the film because of the friendship and faith in adversity message it brings. That is correct, but to those of us who were there, it brings back, in a very poignant way, the past and the truth.
And because of that truth, I cried in memory.
-Linda