Speaking out from the Frontline: Queer Aids Media Activism in the United States (1987-1996)
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SPEAKING OUT FROM THE FRONTLINE: QUEER AIDS MEDIA ACTIVISM IN THE UNITED STATES (1987-1996) Axelle DEMUS ! A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Anglophone Studies – Year 2 U.E 102 Department of English Studies Faculty of Languages and Cultures June 2017 Under the supervision of Dr. Françoise LE JEUNE and Dr. Nolwenn MINGANT UNIVERSITÉ DE NANTES ! ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First of all, I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Nolwenn Mingant for her constant guidance and support as well as for her invaluable suggestions during the two years that I have spent working under her supervision. I would also like to sincerely thank Dr. Françoise Le Jeune for her sage advice and her continuous encouragement throughout my studies at the Université de Nantes. I am deeply indebted to Jean Carlomusto, Alexandra Juhasz, and Jim Hubbard, who kindly accepted to be interviewed for this project. I am grateful for their help as well as for the tremendously important work that they did and continue to do to make the voices of people with HIV/AIDS heard. Finally, I would like to dedicate this dissertation to the late Professor Joanne Klein. She inspired me to write about this topic when she taught me, among many other things, that art was not “a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” ! ! ! ! ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ! ! ! ACT UP AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power AIDS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome CPB Corporation for Public Broadcasting CDC Centers for Disease Control DIVA TV Damn Interfering Video Activist Television DPN Diseased Pariah News GMHC Gay Men’s Health Crisis HAART Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy FDA Food and Drug Administration HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus HIV+ HIV-positive IFP Infected Faggot Perspectives KS Kaposi’s Sarcoma LAPIT Lesbian Activists Producing Innovative Television NIH National Institutes of Health NEA National Endowment for the Arts PBS Public Broadcasting Service PTTV Paper Tiger Television PWAs People with AIDS TTL Testing the Limits (Collective) WAVE Women Activists Video Enterprise ! TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction .................................................................................................................. 7 Part I From Videos to Zines: An Overview Of Queer AIDS Media ..................... 19 I.1. QUEER AIDS MEDIA: A CONSTELLATION ....................................................... 20 I.1.1. Fighting with a Video Camera: The Alternative AIDS Video Movement ............. 20 I.1.1.A. Media Evolution and Video Revolution .................................................................................... 20 I.1.1.B. Combating AIDS Collectively: Affinity Groups and Video Collectives ................................... 25 I.1.1.C. Individual Trajectories ............................................................................................................... 29 I.1.2. Angry Graphics and Underground Publications ..................................................... 31 I.1.2.A. Gran Fury: ACT UP’s “Unofficial Propaganda Ministry” ........................................................ 31 I.1.2.B. HIV/AIDS Zines: “Diseased Pariahs” and “Infected Faggots” Speaking .................................. 33 I.2. “STOP LOOKING AT US, START LISTENING TO US!” TAKING THE TOOLS OF MEDIA PRODUCTION INTO THEIR OWN HANDS .................................................... 35 I.2.1. Producing and Funding Queer AIDS Media ........................................................... 35 I.2.2. Distributing and Circulating Queer AIDS Media: Alternative Networks and Counterpublics ................................................................................................................. 39 I.2.2.A. Local Enclaves of Resistance ..................................................................................................... 39 I.2.2.B. Beyond the Local Level: Expanding the Enclaves ..................................................................... 41 I.2.2.C. Oscillating Between Counterpublics and the General Public: The (Impossible) Leap to the Mainstream .............................................................................................................................................. 46 I.3. SPEAKING OUT BEFORE WE ARE DEAD: QUEER AIDS MEDIA’S GOALS ............ 53 I.3.1. Dealing with the Urgency of the AIDS Crisis ........................................................ 53 I.3.1.A. “AIDS Won’t Wait!”: Raising Awareness About HIV/AIDS ................................................... 54 I.3.1.B. Revolutionary and Empowering Media Practices ...................................................................... 55 I.3.1.C. “The Whole World is Watching”: Video Vigilantes .................................................................. 56 I.3.2. Bearing Witness to the Epidemic ............................................................................ 57 Part II Subverting The Mass Media’s Representations Of HIV/AIDS ................ 60 II.1. CONTESTING THE VOICES OF AUTHORITY: AIDS ACTIVISTS AND THE NEWS MEDIA ................................................................................................................ 61 ! II.1.1. Seeing is (Not) Believing: Smashing the Myth of Media Objectivity .................. 61 II.1.1.A. “The Supreme Deity of American Journalism:” Objectivity in the News Media .................... 62 II.1.1.B. The Failure of Objectivity: Stereotypes and Sensationalism .................................................... 64 II.1.2. Appropriation and Deconstruction of The News Media’s Techniques ................. 70 II.2. MIMICKING THE FORMS OF PSEUDO-SUBVERSIVE MEDIA ............................. 76 II.2.1. Spreading Radical Ideas Through Subvertising .................................................... 76 II.2.2. MTV Activism: Songs as Agit P(r)op ................................................................... 80 II.3. RE-BALANCING MEDIA COVERAGE THROUGH EXCESS ................................. 84 II.3.1. Making the Invisible Visible: Re-eroticizing and Re-glamorizing the AIDS Body .......................................................................................................................................... 84 II.3.2. Turning Hierarchies Upside Down: Pushing the Boundaries of Acceptable AIDS Discourse .......................................................................................................................... 89 Part III Reversing The Gaze: A Diseased Society Under Scrutiny ........................ 94 III.1. PARTICIPATORY MEDIA ACTIVISM: PROTESTING THE U.S. MEDIA’S DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT ........................................................................................ 95 III.1.1. Democratizing Media Production and Consumption ........................................... 96 III.1.2. Queer Coalitions and Community Building Through Media Making ............... 101 III.2. LOOKING AT SOCIETY THROUGH THE INTERSECTIONAL LENS OF THE EPIDEMIC ......................................................................................................... 105 III.2.1. “Black Men Loving Black Men is a Revolutionary Act:” AIDS and Queer Men of Color .......................................................................................................................... 106 III.2.2. (In)Visible Women with HIV/AIDS .................................................................. 109 Part IV Queer AIDS Media’s Legacy: A Record Of Loss? ................................... 118 IV.1. THE DECLINE OF QUEER AIDS MEDIA AND HIV/AIDS ACTIVISM ................. 119 IV.1.1. Revolution Turned Eulogy: Is Mourning Militancy? ........................................ 119 IV.1.1.A. Demoralized Representations of HIV/AIDS ......................................................................... 120 IV.1.1.B. From Public and Collective Concern to Private Experience ................................................. 125 IV.1.2. Dealing with Loss as a (Divided) Community ................................................... 126 IV.1.3. The Second Silence: The Progressive Normalization of HIV/AIDS ................. 131 IV.2. “HISTORY WILL RECALL:” LESSONS FOR PRESENT AND FUTURE STRUGGLES ........................................................................................................................ 134 ! IV.2.1. Historicizing the AIDS Movement to Fight Erasure ......................................... 134 IV.2.2. Keeping the AIDS Crisis Alive in the 21st Century ........................................... 138 IV.2.2.A. Academic Writings as Testimonies ....................................................................................... 138 IV.2.2.B. Queer Archive Activism ........................................................................................................ 139 IV.2.2.C. Ending the Second Silence: The AIDS Crisis Revisitation ................................................... 141 IV.2.3. Viral Images: Digital AIDS Activism ................................................................ 147 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 152 Glossary ...................................................................................................................... 157 Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 164 ! INTRODUCTION AIDS is a war, not only of politics and medicine, but also