Yup, the one playing Edna Turnblad in the Broadway run of Hairspray. He has a fantastic op-ed in today’s New York Times - if you’re regstered (registration’s free), here’s a link: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/31/opinion/31FIER.html (note: Times articles go dead in 7 days). He’s becoming a wise uncle (and aunt!) to the gay community, a role that no one else I can think of is even trying to fill right now.
The title is “The Culture of Death,” and it’s searing, posing the question -
Criticising drug advertising, which is nothing new - but also criticising us, gay people who have helped create circumstances under which new infections are rising again.
A charming and intelligent guy. I saw him live at the Easter Bonnet competition for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS fundraiser, and he is huge, funny, and heartwarming. His writing is always good.
And his portrayal of Edna is the same. His duet with (the straight) Dick Latessa as hubby Walter is the sweetest and warmest love ballad on Broadway right now.
And I walk around the Village a lot and although, as a straight female, I am way outside their demographic (not all AIDS public ads, but the ones geared towards gay guys), I have seen the evolution of the ads he’s spoken of. In the late 80s they were scary as hell–do such and such and YOU WILL DIE THIS NASTY DEATH SOON. Now they look like the tampon or acid reflux disease ads.
You want blood running cold? We’ve already got early reports of recombinant forms of HIV - in short, bugs resistant to more than one class of drug. The barebacking phenomenon provides a terrific opportunity for the emergence of more of these mutations. And we (gay folks in particular, but a general “we” too) aren’t supposed to be, like, all judgmental about it.
I think the problem is that the gay community fought so long for acceptance - legitimately, and for the very legitimate goal of being treated like human beings - that there is an almost reflexive response against being judgemental in any way.
I think it’s appropriate to be judgemental, however. I can very easily draw a line that allows me to listen to someone who is happy to be a “bug catcher,” for example, and say, “You’re a dangerous and reckless idiot,” without compromising my ability to accept gays being gay. Too many people feel they must take an all-or-nothing approach to judgement.
One sour note in that piece: Fierstein’s comment suggesting that the medical community has some sort of financial stake in the uptick in AIDS cases.
I suppose it’s possible that by casting a jaundiced eye at drug companies, doctors and counselors Fierstein hopes to wake some sense of resentment that will stimulate those at risk to act more sensibly.
I can’t speak to the HIV counselors or drug companies (do the ads for HIV drugs really glamorize or outrageously minimize the problem?), but doctors have been working tirelessly to prevent or cure AIDS, cancer and many other diseases which can be related to smoking, excessive drinking, or various forms of recklessness. Blaming MDs for deriving income from such patients is dumb, to say the least.
This was written a few years ago and the author, a gay activist named Gabriel Rotello, was demonized for saying some of the same things Fierstein just said. There is some dangerous “group think” going on in the gay community about HIV/AIDS. Maybe trusted figures like Fierstein will continue to speak out and change this into a surviving and thriving culture instead of one that continues to be - and again is even increasing to be -decimated by this disease.
Fierstein (I almost typed “Milk” by freudian slip) sure knows how to write an editorial. This whole seroconversion, bugchasing, HIV-worshipping culture he talks about, though, is completely alien to me. I’m sure it exists, it’s just completely foreign to me.
I’ve been around the block, and I’ve only ever met one time someone who insisted on not using a condom. (Of course I didn’t sleep with him!) I was indoctrinated out the ying-yang about safer sex, risk management, etc., etc., I know all the stuff he said young Queers have to know, and I only came out five years ago. And this is a party town.
But then, my doctor keeps complaining about how many young gay men are seroconverting. Maybe I’m just out of the loop, but it just sounds so bloody stupid that I can’t fathom it.
A while back I heard a theory that it wasn’t HIV at all that was causing AIDS. I’m not sure what was exactly, but some people (Magic Johnson for example) have had HIV for more than a decade and have basically no symptoms of disease.
I forgot the researchers names (one was a guy who won a Nobel prize who stated that HIV=AIDS has never been proven), but it was basically that AIDS is caused by overwhelming the immune system and AIDS doesn’t work like the typical retrovirus. They did have a hard time explaining AIDS in Africa. I remember being in college and being told that AIDS would soon spread to heterosexuals and we were all at risk…it never happened (this guy predicted it wouldn’t) and I think it took some credibility from the scientific/AIDS movement.
Do any of you know that status of these ideas in the AIDS aware and gay community?
I think the general consensus scientifically is that those theories are crap, bri.
Magic is extremely rich, and - he’s in ads that will tell you this - he’s on plenty of medication, and he can afford the best medication available. He was also young and in good health, and is still not an old man. Those factors are probably all in his favor. He may go a good long time before his HIV becomes AIDS, but there’s no reason to think it won’t someday, barring more advances. Even before medicine reached the state it’s in today, people sometimes went 10 or even 20 years with HIV before it became AIDS.
How do you mean, it hasn’t spread to heterosexuals? According to the CDC, women are more like to get AIDS through heterosexual contact than any other way. (linkie) And how do you think Magic got AIDS? Heterosexual contact. (linkie2). Ten minutes on Google, and you too can find all the research you need to tell you that straight people get AIDS too.
Wow, how did I miss that? It’s so very wrong. This piece, for example, says that “While men having sex with men continues to make up the largest group of HIV positive individuals (43 percent), more than a quarter (27 percent) of newly infected Americans contracted the virus from heterosexual sex.”
And of course, that’s only Americans. Southern Africa is being hit the hardest by AIDS (it’s estimated one out of every four adults has HIV in some places), and people there don’t have as much access to drugs to fight it.
When I first read this piece, on Thursday, I thought it was incredible. Then I read the emailed responses of some of my friends, who are gay and HIV-positive. They were almost uniformly offended and disgusted.
Some of their p.o.v.'s:
Fierstein picks up the most negative part of the gay population (the bug chasers) and has them represent the entire community, when most gay men, positive and negative, spend a lot of time and money on AIDS prevention.
Quoted: “I’m still disturbed by Harvey’s assumption that the images of healthy HIV+ men (and women) are all lies–if they are, then I’m one of them!”
Overgeneralizations: “YES, there are some (fortunately quite rare) people who are interested in becoming HIV+ for what appears to the rest of us to be bizarre reasons. But put yourself in the shoes of a single female with three kids and a poor history of employment and who KNOWS that there is a far greater safety net available for her AND her children if she was HIV+ (this is true). Or the woefully lonely gay kid who has a poor self image and wants to belong so strongly that he sees becoming HIV+ as a way to finally belong to a group who is more willing to accept him unconditionally. In order for these people to find become HIV+ less attractive, we have to come up with fixes in our larger social safety net’s design or ways to help thousands of gays discover how to legitimately gain self- and social acceptance. I am largely unable to address these large population challenges alone.”