Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

Philadelphia

The movie Philadelphia (Jonathan Demme, 1993) was daring in terms of its presentation of a legal issue, but inherent in the film is a certain understanding of AIDS as a medical issue as well. The relationship between the main character and his dying roommate metamorphoses into the story of the main character's own impending death. The social attitudes in the film were colored by misconceptions about the origin and nature of AIDS, and while such altitudes have changed somewhat, it remains possible that a firm could take a similar tack today and try to oust anyone perceived as having HIV or AIDS. The medical issue has changed since the film was made, however, and AIDS is not necessarily the death sentence it was considered at that time, nor need it be so debilitating that the individual would in time not be able to work at all as was considered the case then.

AIDS is clearly a medical issue, but the history of the disorder and of the response to it shows that AIDS is also a political issue. The political and medical aspects of AIDS clash. Our perception of AIDS has changed greatly as more information about the disorder has been developed, and this has altered our medical response to the disease so that more emphasis is placed on prevention by the use of condoms and other means identified as "safe sex." The political response has been slower to change because AIDS is bound up with ideas about sex and sexuality and is still identified largely as a "gay" disease, bringing out all the conflicts that our political system has embodied regarding attitudes toward homosexuality.

This can be seen in the film Philadelphia as the fact that the young lawyer who develops AIDS is gay is just as off-putting to his colleagues as the fact that he has this deadly disease. Many of his colleagues do fear that science does not know all there is to know about the transmission of the disease and so fear that they could get it through casual cont...

Page 1 of 7 Next >

More on Philadelphia...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
Philadelphia. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:05, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1707201.html