A Biopolitical and Rhetorical Mosaic of HIV Stigma in a Time of Prep-Aration

University of Denver Digital Commons @ DU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies 1-1-2017 Governmentality/Animacy/Mythology: A Biopolitical and Rhetorical Mosaic of HIV Stigma in a Time of PrEP-aration Brendan Geoffrey Aaron Hughes University of Denver Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd Part of the Communication Commons, and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons Recommended Citation Hughes, Brendan Geoffrey Aaron, "Governmentality/Animacy/Mythology: A Biopolitical and Rhetorical Mosaic of HIV Stigma in a Time of PrEP-aration" (2017). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1352. https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1352 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at Digital Commons @ DU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ DU. For more information, please contact [email protected],[email protected]. Governmentality/Animacy/Mythology: A Biopolitical and Rhetorical Mosaic of HIV Stigma in a Time of PrEP-aration __________ A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of Social Sciences University of Denver __________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy __________ by Brendan G.A. Hughes August 2017 Advisor: Dr. Christina R. Foust, PhD ©Copyright by Brendan G.A. Hughes 2017 All Rights Reserved Author: Brendan G.A. Hughes Title: Governmentality/Animacy/Mythology: A Biopolitical and Rhetorical Mosaic of HIV Stigma in a Time of PrEP-aration Advisor: Dr. Christina R. Foust, PhD Degree Date: August 2017 Abstract Since 1981, roughly 35 million people have died from the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), the end stages of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), and an estimated 39 million are living with HIV today. While various factors such as poverty, lack of education, and poor access to treatment and healthcare compound the epidemic across the world, the endemic in the industrialized west faces specific communication-based challenges to slowing the spread of HIV. Now classified as a “chronic manageable condition”, an HIV diagnosis is no longer the death sentence of the early outbreak in the 1980’s. A major factor in the continuing endemic of HIV in the United States is stigma surrounding the HIV virus, modes of transmission (anal sex and injection drug use), and a pervasive belief that HIV and AIDS remains a gay white man's disease despite increasing the increasing burdens HIV holds on communities of color where the virus does not discriminate by sexuality. While much Communication scholarship has explored the reasons why people do not talk about HIV, talk about it in specific ways, feel stigmatized because of HIV, and do or do not disclose their HIV status--among other topics--very little research has been done to examine the rhetorical nature of HIV stigma as it connects with stigmatization of gay and bisexual men’s sexuality. This project argues that in order to understand the reasons why HIV remains a medical problem for gay and bisexual men because of a ii complex network of reasons, a complex rhetorical understanding of the contextual mosaic of HIV and stigma must be explored. Using rhetorical methods of governmental analysis, viral/biocriticism, and mythic criticism this project proposes a new perspective on rhetorical criticism as a mosaic approach. The project explores: the Federal discourses by President Obama and prevention campaigns created by the CDC; perspectives of HIV Neutrality as proposed by social media campaign organization The Stigma Project in covnersation with blogger Renato Barruco’s proposed HIV status continuum as a form of animatic hierarchy of HIV risk; and the final two seasons of HBO’s popular television show True Blood’s use of Hepatitis-V through AIDS-as-allegory. Key words: HIV and AIDS, stigma, gay and bisexual men, rhetorical criticism, True Blood. iii Acknowledgements First, to my parents, Charles and Jeri: thank you for all you have done for me during my quest for this degree. Words fail to convey the love and support you have provided during this academic journey. Thank you is not enough, but it is what I have. Second, to most amazing advisor, Christina Foust, and committee, Bernadette Calafell and Josh Hanan: I have grown and learned so much from you all over these past five years. This project is a reflection of all you have taught me; the ideas contained are indebted to hours of office conversations, class time, and endless email exchanges. Third, to my amazing friends and colleagues: Robert Gutierrez-Perez, Melodee Sova, Haneen Al-Ghabra, Jason Derry, Sergio Fernando Juarez, Miranda Olzman, Kate Hoyt, Veronica Drozer, Shadee Abdi, Nivea Castaneda, Katie Irwin, Dana Zione, Stephanie Webb, Dave Thomas, Brian Grewe Jr., Kathryn Hobson, Raquel Moriera, Leslie Rossman, Fatima Alaoui, Leah Seurer, Lacy Stein, Shanna Kattari, Jessica Johnson, Sophie Jones, Emily Krebs, and Moana Luri. We have shared offices, classrooms, lunches, laughs, anxieties, conferences, heartbreak, plane travel, dinners, debates and dreams. What is a journey for a graduate degree without the friends who become our family? Thank you all for the amazing adventure and to many more in the years to come. Finally, to an amazing motley crew of friends who also became my Denver family, Friday Night Boys Club: There are so many of you to name and so little space, but thank you for the constant questions about this project, and providing needed reflection time away from it, so I did not forget to live. And in memory of Joe Klein, who always asked, “And when are you going to be done?” I am now, Joe. iv Table of Contents 1. Proposing A Rhetoric of Mosaics in a Time of PrEP-aration ................................. 1 Stigma and HIV in Communication ........................................................... 9 Rhetorical Study of HIV: Criticisms Past, Criticisms Ongoing ............... 33 Proposing a Rhetorical Mosaic: HIV, Gay/Bisexual Identity, and Stigma41 2. President Obama and the Regime of Health: Federal Governmental Rhetorics of (Empty) “Awareness” ....................................................................................................... 48 Theorizing Governmentality in Federal Rhetoric ..................................... 51 Acting Against AIDS through Discourse: Awkward Conversation Can Save Lives? ............................................................................................... 79 Conclusion: Governing Bodies, Governing Health .................................. 88 3. “We’re Not in 1984 Anymore, To+o”: The Stigma Project’s Conceptualizing of HIV Neutrality Through a Critique of Personal (Bio)Insecurities and the Possibilities of New HIV Animacy Hierarchies of Risk .................................................................................... 92 An Exercise in Biocriticism Part 1: The Stigma Project and HIV Neutrality ................................................................................................ 112 “Beyond Poz and Neg”: An Exercise in Biocriticism Part 2 .................. 123 Immunity/Animacy/Neutrality: Critiquing the Personal and Bio-Insecurity ................................................................................................................. 130 4. “Silence = True Death”: True Blood’s AIDS Allegory, Outbreak Narratives, and the Collapsed Frontier Myth ................................................................................................. 132 Monsters, Myths, and Viral Apocalypse ................................................. 137 True Blood, Viral Apocalypse, and the Rhetoric of the Collapse(d) Frontier .................................................................................................... 162 How to Have Theory in an Outbreak Narrative: True Blood and the Collapsed Frontier ................................................................................... 174 5. How to Have Radical Hope in a Rhetorical Epidemic of Stigma ............................... 183 Final Thoughts and Interventions: How to See Radical Hope in a Rhetorical Mosaic ................................................................................... 198 Works Cited .................................................................................................................... 206 Appendix A: Images ....................................................................................................... 224 v 1. Proposing A Rhetoric of Mosaics in a Time of PrEP-aration In June of 1981, five deaths from pneumocystis pneumonia, which occurred in Los Angeles, were reported by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Prior to this, hospitals in New York had been chronicling deaths of otherwise young and healthy men who suffered from WOGS, or “Wrath of God Syndrome.” The causes for these deaths were mysterious cancers and the sudden failing of the human immune system among a specific population—gay men. Before this, around 1979, many gay men in New York and California began noticing their friends mysteriously falling ill and dying. Paula Treichler describes these moments as the beginning of an epidemic that would move from being called WOGS to GRID (Gay- Related Immunodeficiency), to its official name in 1986: AIDS, the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (Treichler 26-27). Along the way, a cacophony of medical discourse grew about a mysterious disease that held no similarity with

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