File #1024: "Video Guide no48.pdf"

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Michael Callen, in his article "Pinned and Wriggling :
How Shall I Presume?", describes experiences of being
constructed as an object of inquiry during his involvement in "challenging" America's conceptualization of
AIDS and people living with AIDS.
AIDS/VIDEO/and the MEDIA provides an overview of some of the "alternate" media production that
has surfaced in response to the world-wide health
crisis: AIDS . There's educational AIDS information
tapes geared to specific communities, personal
memorials to people who have died of AIDS, community-based educational tapes, video art, and
documentary challenges to mainstream's representations
of Al DS. My favourite development is video production
within the Al DS Activist Movement that is pressuring
governments, educational and health care institutions
to better address the educational needs of all sectors
of our society and the current health care needs of
PLWA's (Persons Living With AIDS) and those seropositive for HIV .
Main points of discussion are the dominant media's
representation of Al DS, its biases, and its neglect of
certain groups in our society. Mainstream political
agendas are exposed and criticized. There are discussions of politics, power relations, sexism, racism,
classism, and homophobia, as well as issues around
access to means of production and access to public
cable airwaves.

"Making It: Al DS Activist Television" addresses
video and the Al DS activist movement that is fighting
government inaction on AIDS . In "Some Notes on
Collective Production", Sandra Elgear and Robin
Hutt look at three New York based media collectives:
Diva T.V., Gran Fury, and Testing the Limits, and
their involvement in the Al DS Activist movement.
"Do It!" is safer sex educational video by producers
at NYC's Gay Men's Health Crisis. Spread The Word, a
video produced by Australian Tracey Moffatt and
directed specifically at the Australian Aboriginal
population is discussed. I've included a Safe Sex
page because it is crucial that people keep informed
about details around safer sex, especially video producers who are getting involved in Al DS educational
video.

-----~-- --t

While there are a number of articles addressing gay
rights within the context of dealing with the AIDS
crisis, this has occurred because gay people were the
first visible group in North America to be identified
with Al DS. This issue reflects the community and
political commitment of P.L .W.A.'s even in the face of
contined harassment and discrimination.
Jan Grover, curator of the U.S. Arts Exhibition
"AIDS : The Artists' Response" has kindly offered to
review this issue of Video Guide for future publication
in a 1990 Video Guide - so watch for it! I would also
like to encourage interested video producers to respond
to this issue, especially those working in Al DS video in
the many countries not mentioned in this issue. Please
address correspondence to myself c/o Video In, 1102
Homer Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6B 2S2.
Finally, special thanks to Judy Weiser, Jan Grover,
and my patient colleagues at the Video In.
Sue Jenkins
for the Satellite Video Exchange Society

In the video by Testing the Limits Collective in New
York - Testing the Limits (Part 7) - Phil Reed of the
Minority Task Force on AIDS states "AIDS will either
kill us or politicize us." I hope this issue is a contribution to such a politicization process.

The following is a brief summary of articles included
in this issue :
The first six articles provide a snapshot of the political climate around AIDS in B.C. and some of the video
resources available. The first article is an interview
with producer David Tuff about his videotape on the
B.C. Government's "Quarantine Legislation", a
dangerous response to the crisis of AIDS. Local video
resource libraries at both Al DS Vancouver and at the
B.C. Ministry of Health are introduced, with brief
reviews of some of the videos available. Terry Leitch
of the P.W.A. Coalition shares some of his experiences
as an AIDS educator who uses video, and his feelings
about the banning of an educational Al DS video for
teenagers. Her Giveaway: A Spiritual journey with
AIDS is an educational Al DS tape made specifically
for American Indians, reviewed by Ruby-Marie Dennis.
HIV+ is another example of a community-based
· educational videotape about Al DS, made by and for
teenagers. Producer/performer David Maclean tells us
about his latest videotape, Now Playing, and comments
on gay social culture in the age of Al DS.
John Greyson comments on the role of video and
its potential effect on the AIDS crisis in his article
"Requiem for Gaetan " : Greyson 's most recent production, The World is Sick (Sic), about the Vth
International Conference on Al DS, is reviewed .
Alexandra Johasz, in "Constructing Authority:
Documentary Form and AIDS", wants us to understand "the formal organization of mainstream media
in order to expose, challenge, and re-construct Al DS
representation." Alternate media producers can learn
how to represent the AIDS crisis differently, how to
provide information, rather than evaluate. Alexandra
underlines the need for community specific programming addressing the specific needs of people.
In conversation, Black filmmakers from England
Pratibha Parmar and Isaac Julien discuss their respective films Reframing AIDS and This is Not an AIDS
Advertisement. Parmar's film challenges mainstream
media's agendas and "re-contextualizes the representations of sexuality and race, to show them being
"re-invented". Julien 's film "uses images and representations of sexuality to celebrate love and desire,
and shows the multiplicity of identities within gay
culture."
In "Mining the Oro Del Barrio", Jose GutierrezGomez and Jose Vergelin illustrate the power of the
video medium in minority health education and
education around AIDS - referring to their educational AIDS video for Latinos, Ojos Que No Ven.
An overview of video at the Vth International
Conference on Al DS in Montreal is provided by one of
the organizers of the video section of the conference,
Ken Morrison, who talks about the role of video in
relation to the Al DS epidemic, and analyses the
effectiveness of the videos presented.

VANCOUVER GUIDE
Vancouver's Video Magazine
Volume 10, Numbers 3,4 Issues 48,49
Publisher
The Satellite Video Exchange
(A non-profit Society est. 1973)
Managing Editor
Shawn Preus

3

ARE WE GOING BACKWARDS?
David Tuff in conversation with Ken Mann

4

AIDS VANCOUVER VIDEO LIBRARY
by Rick Marchand
A PERSONAL STATEMENT
by Terry Leitch

5

HIV+
reviewed by Gordon Fisher
MINISTRY OF HEAL TH VIDEO
reviewed by Tony Carter
HER GIVEAWAY
by Ruby-Marie Dennis

6

VIDEOS AGAINST AIDS - Screening at Video In

Guest Editor This Issue
Sue Jenkins
Production
Cowling & Assoc.
Crista Haukedal
Sue Jenkins
Jill Kelly
Karen Knights
Shawn Preus
Joe Sarahan

NATIONAL
7

NOW PLAYING
by Sue Jenkins

8

REQUIEM FOR GAET AN
by John Greyson

Contributors
Michael Callen
Jean Carlomusto
Tony Carter
AIDS Film Collective
Ruby-Marie Dennis
Sandra Elgear
Gordon Fisher
Jose Gutierrez-Gomez
John Greyson
Robin Hutt
Sue Jenkins
Alexandra Juhasz
Isaac Julien
Terry Leitch
Maria Maggenti
Ken Mann
Rick Marchand
Ken Morrison
Pratibha Parmar
Mark Turrel
Jose Vergelin

9

THE WORLD IS SICK (SIC)
reviewed by Mark Turrel

Photos
Tom Buhr
Sue Jenkins
Testing The Limits

20 SOME NOTES ON COLLECTIVE PRODUCTION
by Sandra Elgear and Robin Hutt
22 DO IT
by jean Carlomusto and Gregg Bordowitz

Thanks To:
Canada Council
City of Vancouver

23 SPREADING THE WORD: an Interview with Tracey Moffatt
by Sue Jenkins
ULISSES CARRION - In Memorium

GLOBAL
10 CONSTRUCTING AUTHORITY: Documentary Form & Aids
by Alexandra Juhasz
12 IN CONVERSATION with Isaac Julien and Pratibha Parmar
13 MINING THE ORO DEL BARRIO
by Jose Gutierres-Gomez and Jose Vergelin
14 VIDEO AND THE 5th INT'L CONFERENCE ON AIDS
by Ken Morrison
16 PINNED AND WRIGGLING
by Michael Callen
18 MAKING IT
by Jean Carlomusto
19 MEDIA NETWORK: An Educational Guide
by Maria Maggenti, Robin Hutt, Sandra Elgear
AIDS FILM LIBRARY
by Aids Film Collective

24 SAFE SEX PAMPHLET
ISSN 02286726
British Columbia, Canada

25 MR JOE SAYS
26 SCANNING

2nd CLASS MAIL REG. No. 7268

Cover: by Joe Sarahan

2

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

Subscriptions to VIDEO GUIDE are available at $70.60 for 5 issues, $70.00 U.S. funds in U.S., overseas $15.00 Cdn.
Send cheque or money order to VIDEO GUIDE, Satellite Video Exchange Society, 1702 Homer Street, Vancouver
British Columbia, Canada V6B 2X6
'

GOING

Kenn Mann: Tell us about producing "Are We Going
Backwards?"

You also make references to the Quebec separatists
issue in 1970, the FLQ crisis ...

David Tuff: It's been three years since the beginning of
the idea. I was watching a tape I had recorded of T.Y.
evangelists with their slant of AIDS being a punishment from
God. There was a lot of controversy about subliminal messages, the devil talking through rock and roll, etc. I was
playing the tape of the evangelists back, and they sounded
very much like the devil talking. I said to my friend, "Are we
going backwards? or forwards? I can't tell .. .". The form that
you've seen it in [10:00 min. VHS] is an edited version from
an installation at Emily Carr College [1987] . Originally, there
were three monitors, set up on a 15 foot pink triangle - with
a monitor on each point, facing inwards. Loter it was synthesized down to ten minutes so it could be shown on one
monitor.

This is what I felt dealing with Bill 34. We woke up one
morning, and (the War Measures Act] had been passed
overnight. Neither my friends in the gay community nor my
friends in the straight community, had any idea that Bill 34
even existed, before it became law. There was an ignorance
on the part of the community as a whole that this was actually
happening in our city and in our province.

Sounds like to was really powerful to actually experience
it physically - the graphic image of the triangle ...
Yes, it was great. When people came to see the installation they had the option of staying on the outside and not
participating, or they could actually step onto the pink triangle
and be in the midst of these three messages that became a
little bit confusing to separate. I'm still really attached to the
art piece as an installation. I thought it really made people
deal with the issue. "Are we going to get involved or are we
just going to watch this as o media piece?" Many people
who came through the installation chose to walk around it
and leave the room. The people that were very concerned
actually stepped onto the triangle and became part of the
installation, and had to decipher it for themselves. I've been
talking to Video In about setting it up again. I only edited it
down to the 10 minute version that you saw because it's
easier - you can't fit three monitors everywhere.
Con you describe those various images and messages?
Well, one monitor, sitting an a 45 degree angle, dealt
with the politics and policies that [Premier Bill] Yonder Zalm
was proposing, [specifically Health Bill 34, the so-called
Quarantine Legislation]. There is a little box cut inside the
face of Yonder Zalm, containing images of T. V. evangelists,
superimposed with hard care gay pornography. You get this
mesh of the evangelists with a lot of physical bodies - bath
going at wrong speeds, backwards and forwards at the same
time. Behind Yonder Zalm is footage of the concentration
camps from World War II.
The second monitor had all the footage I'd taken at the
"Na Quarantine" rally organised by the Coalition for Responsible Health Legislation. I recorded more than an hour of the
various speakers, including Kevin Brown of the Vancouver
Persons With AIDS Coalition. It's at that rally where he says
"There will be o time when we have to write the history of
this disease, and will we be found to be lacking?" ...
The third monitor was images of the past, what happened to the Japanese Canadians in British Columbia during
World War II, when the government stripped away their
individual and civil rights.
The poem from Joy Kogawa is about her childhood
experiences of incarceration during the war. The face of a
ghost coming out of the heart of her kimono makes reference
to the past talking to future generations.

I did an information workshop last year with prison staff,
security officers and people who work inside provincial
prisons - to look at homophobia and issues around the gay
community. At the end of the couple of hours we showed the
video tape and got quite o violent and negative reaction . I
think they felt uncomfortable and angry. Was this a typical
reaction of people who have seen the tape?

Some people from AIDS Vancouver saw a screening of
the tape and were appalled by the fact that I had a Japanese
boy sneezing throughout the tape. They felt we had all
worked so hard to get across to the general public that AIDS
wasn't a contagious disease, spread by someone sneezing,
or touching hands. That wasn't the point that I was trying to
get across in the tape.
The image I was working with was of a young boy who
is involved with other children. They're not afraid to hold his
hand, and they're not excluding him because he's a different
nationality or because he has a virus.
The thing that struck me with that image was the innocence of the child, I wasn't even thinking of o contagious
virus.
Some things in the tape are very subtle. At one point I
rewrote the lyrics to Ring Around The Rosie . On one channel
you hear the children singing the poem and on the other
channel you have adults talking about visible minorities and
Kaposi's Sarcoma being the new target of the government.
I filmed those children singing Ring Around the Rosie
assuming that people would know the poem comes from the
days of the bubonic plague - drawing a parallel between
the AIDS epidemic and that plague. At the rallies that I went
to, one of the slogans was "People united will never be
defeated I" I took that soundtrack and put it with the children,
looping it from monitor to monitor, so the children were
constantly singing it.
The tape focuses on the power of governments over
individual people.
If we start setting laws in our province to isolate and
quarantine people who have the AIDS virus or the tuberculosis virus, where is it going to stop? Are we going to go
back until we give so much power ta [the government] that
they are going to be able to say at any time "We no longer
want this in our society."
You can't start separating some people, breaking society
down even further. Wouldn't it be a better approach to the
whole problem, to deal with these people, still included in
society, and not segregate them? We should be dealing with
this problem as we have done with cancer, or any medical
problem that we've had, where the country unifies not

separates.
Making "Are We Going Backwards?" must have been o
very challenging piece of work.
It was a real growing process for me, the first political
issue that I'd dealt with. When I finally completed the tape, I
did it almost angrily. I didn't expect this tape to educate a lot
of people, but it was something I had to say in my own way,
about the situation that was happening. I was discouraged
at how many people were not interested in something that
concerns a lot of peoples' lives. "Oh, it's politics and we don't
wont to deal with that."
The tape took me two years to complete and there was
a real turning point while I was making it. When I started out,
I wanted everyone to get the message. But it seemed that the
more information that was out there, the more complacent
the people were getting to the issue. Then it opened up a lot
for me on a personal level, because of what I was going
through being a gay man, and dealing for the last five years
with being HIV positive myself. Finally, it became my viewpoint on how I see my whole province.
Now you're going to do o tape about living with AIDS?
Yeah, I want to do a tape called Positivity. I intend to
focus on three or four people who have been dealing with
having AIDS or being HIV positive, and involve them in the
tape. For example, if they were graphic artists, they could do
the graphics for it, or if they are musicians they could work
on the soundtrack - so they become an integral part of
making the tape.
Maybe there should be a disclaimer at the beginning of
the tape - "This is not another tape on the tragedy of AIDS,
this is o tape on the positivity."
Its hard to find hope when you've been diagnosed with
AIDS or HIV. We're told the odds are overwhelming, that
you' re going to die.
AIDS doesn't hove to be a death sentence - it's not like
the commercial media soys, you're going to be dead in 280
days because you've been diagnosed. Rather it can be a time
when you look at yourself and say "What do I want to do,
now that I know that I may have only o little time?" AIDS is
not the only disease that makes people deal with these kinds
of issues.
A few of the people I've been interviewing have said how
sad they were when they were first diagnosed. They had to
wrestle through that - and now they see it as almost a
blessing in their life. Maybe their life has improved since they
turned off their televisions and radios or stopped drinking in
bars five or six nights a week. Now they've developed an art
form or ore into a spiritual practice, and have found an inner
positivity about themselves, o meaningful quality in their life.
I've hod a few friends who, before they died, have told
me that although their life was cut short, shorter than they
hod planned, taking responsibility for their life and their
situation was the most important priority.
I think my personal involvement with the arts, and
keeping o positive attitude about life and what it holds for me
helps me to keep on beating the odds.
VIDEO GUIDE 1989

3

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M 1.tdr1 1n& 1 cmn·

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AIDS VANCOUVER-VIDEO LIBRARY
by Rick Marchand

Can video facilitate AIDS prevention among gay men?
Gay video brings an image to mind : men at home
watching porn, nights of solo sex. Considering their
popularity, you might think video substitutes for communication and intimacy among gay men. How close can you get
to the glass screen? There' s no chance of exchanging body
fluids, so it's very safe sex.
When AIDS Vancouver moved to assess the education
needs of gay and bisexual men in the Vancouver area,
information was collected through interviews with seventy.
seven people, most with gay and bisexual men, and a short
survey. Three hundred and forty-seven men, representing
what might be called the "mainstream" gay community,
returned the AIDS survey. Although we now talk of high risk
activity instead of high risk groups, this "mainstream" gay
community has been most affected by HIV infection and AIDS
in Vancouver.
We also gathered information on groups within the gay
community: gay Native men, gay Asian men, gay youth,
. disabled gay men, lesbians, to name a few. Although these
groups need more specific AIDS education, it will take more
than a survey to reach them.
Survey results followed patterns established in U.S.
studies. Knowledge is high in the gay community. Many
people practice some form of safer sex, but not consistently.
A quarter of the men "disclosed" having unsafe sex. I use
"disclose" because in the everyday talk among gay men,
telling others about having unsafe sex has become an inappropriate subject. In interviews, people brought up a range
of communication difficulties that have arisen as men experience change in their sexuality.
In the survey on AIDS issues, 44% of gay and bisexual
men said they would prefer to learn about AIDS from videos
more than any other medium. Video can have a significant
impact on stopping the spread of AIDS.
Video can, for example, help us:
talk about kinds of safer sex we like to have
talk about unsafe ·sex we might have had
make decisions around getting an HIV test
decide on a level of risk tolerance that is safe and
comfortable
• explode HIV transmission myths about who gets the
disease and how
• negotiate safer sex
• fight fear and discrimination
• turn denial issues into positive strategies for dealing
with sex and disease
• develop a more accepting attitude of death
•
•
•
•

"Safe Sex - Here We Come", Victorian AIDS Council
Video can provide the context for gay and bisexual men
to work on these issues. What comes to mind is the small
group experience. The natural follow-up to the AIDS Survey
would be several focus groups of gay men talking specifically
about the use and content of video in prevention education.
We have been hearing a litany of do's and don'ts about gay
sexual behaviours. But how can we feel comfortable with new
sexual practices unless we can participate in the evolution of
community thinking?
Video can stimulate social interaction by showing us
familiar, yet challenging situations. We can watch other gay
men on the screen making decisions, talking about safer sex,
experiencing fear and confusion, talking about the difficulties
of ensuring safer sex. Video can move us to talk, or simply
reflect on the personal strategies we use to deal with AIDS.
An excellent video already used in a small group setting
is Safe Sex - Here We Come, subtitled a series of discussion
trigger videos , produced by the Victorian AIDS Council for
the Australian Federation of AIDS Organ izations. Ten
thematic areas are represented in sometimes humorous
vignettes. They focus on the communication difficulties
among gay men concerning AIDS, safer sex, attitude and
behaviour. We see scenarios about picking up men, trying to
find out if they practice safe sex; bringing up condoms in that
moment of passion; the complexity of decisions couples must
consider; attributing safeness to another man based on
looks. Although some of the idiomatic expressions are
decidedly Australian, anyone would readily recognize the
situations.

A PERSONAL STATEMENT
I am a member of the Vancouver Persons with AIDS
Society and chairperson of the Speaker's Bureau. During the
last two years I've been dedicated to providing information
on HIVI AIDS and other STD' s. Almost everyone wants to hear
the real story about living with AIDS from someone who has
the disease.
In our presentations, video provides the visual impact
(along with the presence of myseln that enables us to effectively convey many messages. For example, one of the things
I do is speak to people in the workplace about AIDS. When
an employee wants to inform her/his colleagues thats/he is
HIV positive, or has AIDS, we are sometimes asked to be there
for emotional and educational support when the disclosure
is made. Af this time, we also show "disclosure videos" such
as One of Our Own to support the process. Video is definitely
useful in this difficult situation.
I also work with teenagers. Earlier this year, I went out to
Pitt Meadows with Dr. Michael Rekart to speak to several high
school classes about HIV/AIDS and STD's. We took along a
60 second video about the use of condoms, that has since
been banned by B.C. 's Premier Vander Zalm. We videotaped
the presentations and the reactions of the teenagers to the

4

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

Made in 1988, the issues in this video are still very
relevant; but more situations can be represented, such as
dealing with a homophobic health care worker or dealing
with a persuasive gay man who wants to engage in unprotected sex.
Besides vignettes for discussion, what about docudramas that can more fully address the complexities of AIDS
issues? Video-taped plays? Comedy sketches that can diffuse
the intensity of fear? Or a community development approach: handing over the video equipment to a group of gay
men to have them address the issues through the work of
making a video.
New videos need not be limited to the small group
experience; bars, clubs, and baths could include safer sex
messages in their video programming ; video events with
speakers or panels already happen ; and organizations need
videos for training volunteers in AIDS work.
As part of its educational services, AIDS Vancouver has
a video library where safer sex and informational videos can
be borrowed. But as prevention efforts continue into the 90's,
we need a greater range of video resources to keep the safer
sex message alive. This is a call for video makers to think
expansively about the potential impact of their work.
Rick Marchand, Education Consultant,
AIDS Vancouver, 1272 Richards St. ,
Vancouver, B.C., V6B 3G2.
phone 687-5220

by Terry Leitch of the PWA Society

video, hoping to use both for outreach education in less
accessible rural areas of the province.
The banned video, in my opinion,is well put together and
sensitively presents crucial information to youth on safer sex.
I know the B.C. statistics on the sexual activity of students:
47% of B.C.'s grade eleven students are sexually active. I'm
not going to walk into these groups of kids and speak to them
only of abstinence, nor do I teach them to have unlimited
casual sex. I want to help prevent the transmission of the HIV
virus (and other STD's) and to help people have compassion
and understanding for those who are HIV positive or have
AIDS.
Moralistic Mr. Vander Zalm is not helping us fight the
AIDS epidemic when he bans a video that has such a n
important message for youth : use condoms if you' re going
to have sex. The students who saw it were obviously impressed that we were placing some responsibility on them to
know about safer sex and guide their behaviour accordingly.
Nothing has ever happened to the video footage from our
trip to Pitt Meadows, so we haven't been able to use it in
urban or rural high school settings. I can only presume that
the other videos remain uncompleted because the footage

contains the controversial 60 seconds.
I can't relate to this one man in his Fantasy Castle being
able to push his morals on public policy and decide what's
right and wrong,for an entire province. As someone who is
going into my third year of having AIDS, I am interested in
his justification for this censorship. I don't believe there is any.
Guest Editor's Note : There are two main issues concerning AIDS education for youth - 1) It's difficult to make the
danger of AIDS real to youth 2) Getting the message across
requires a source/method that is credible to youth. The
banned video Terry speaks of was an initiative of the B.C.
Health Ministry and was meant to be used as a trailer in film
theatres. It was made with the following points in mind:

• The video's content/form had to be directed specifically at youth.
• It needed to involve a youth-oriented medium: rock
music/video.
• It needed to use a role model familiar to many B.C.
teenagers (Colin James)
• It had to get to the audience where they hang out. It's
well known that teenagers spend a tremendous
amount of time and money going to theatres.

______________________________________________.....- ! £ 1 . i § . l i @ § l @ t j

HER GIVEAWAY •• A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY WITH AIDS
Funders: Minnesota AIDS Task Force, The American
Indian Advisory Council for the Chemical Dependency
Division of Minnesota's Department of Human Services, and
the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community.
Her Giveaway is in The B.C. Ministry of Health Video
Library. It's an important production presented by the Minnesota Indian AIDS Task Force. The subject of the tape is
Carole Lafavor, an American Indian who has AIDS. She
explains what a giveaway means to her: "My understanding
of 'a giveaway' is to express to other people that you care
about them and that your home is open to them, and that
what you have you'll share with them." One of her gifts to
Native people, and others, is sharing personal insights and
experience from her struggle with AIDS. This video validates
for native people that native gay people are everywhere, and
we are at risk of contracting AIDS.

Carole explains her perspective: "Maybe the best thing
for me is not to be cured, maybe the best thing for me in this
is expanding my spiritual life, maybe that's why I got the
disease." Her spiritual self is more important than it's ever
been before. She asks us to start caring about this crisis "that
can destroy all of us". As far as why she has AIDS, I find her
reasoning a bit heavy with religious overtone. As native
people we were taught by outsiders that if we were bad, we
will suffer, and that what we get is what we deserve. I don't
believe that anyone deserves to get AIDS.

AIDS Wise .. . No Lies is a video directed at youth, and
contains the seemingly inevitable "Rap" segment. Twelve
young persons from several ethnic groups talk about their
reactions to testing positive to HIV antibodies. They all talk
about AIDS but, whether they are HIV positive or have AIDS
is unclear, and no distinction seems to be made between the
two conditions.

One man in AIDS Wise... No Lies does have AIDS. His
voice is heard over still photographs of himself in a hospital
bed - followed, rather ominously, by a picture of an empty
bed. Far too often persons with AIDS are presented as
pathos-drenched victims, particularly to youth. It almost
seems that they are used as a deterrent - a sort of bogeyman to scare the kids off sex and drugs, a rather dangerous
way of stepping around the difficult issue of informing youth
how to have sex safely. There is no mention of safer-sex
practices in this video; and no strictures against the shared

We are watching a quiz show (Mr. Myth) and our two
adult contestants have to correctly answer the question: "In
what three ways can one catch the AIDS virus?". Our first
contestant answers: "Sexual intercourse, deep kissing, and
(with an embarrassed clearing of the throat) anal intercourse". She wins for being correct, but of course she isn't.
We are informed by a mysterious stranger that kissing or
casual contact does not contribute to the spread of the HIV
virus. We immediately have the premise of the piece set
before us: there's misinformation out there, and the myths
surrounding AIDS have to be dispelled. If the adults in the
Quiz Show of Life don't have the information, who can we
turn to? Youth, of course! What follows is fifteen minutes of
fairly concise information about how and why to use condoms, methods for the safer use of needles, and IV street
drugs, and various other bits and pieces related to AIDS and
survival.
The most effective moments are provided when we have
the opportunity to listen to someone actually living with AIDS
tell us of his experiences in hospital (good), and with friends
and family (alienating). Warnings issued directly from a PLWA
(Person Living With AIDS) tend to carry more weight.

At the end of Her Giveaway, AIDS information phone
numbers are listed.
I've talked about some of what's wrong and right with
this video. I believe it's a must for all Native people because
it opens the door for more information and communication
on the subject of AIDS. It is great to see an effort to inform
others, by our Native Brothers and Sisters across the border.
Hopefully, Canadian Native gay people can take up the
(~~i
example.

Reviewed by Tony Carter

use of needles.
The catalogue description for AIDS Wise ... No Lies says
the video is intended to "personalize AIDS"; but, personalization won't lower the seroconversion stats for youth.
Your Choice for Life is a B.B.C. Open University Production directed at 14-16 year old youth; and, wastes no time
in bringing on the bogey man. This time the "victim" is John.
John has AIDS and one of his infections is Kaposi's Sarcoma.
He has lesions on his face, and the sarcoma has obliterated
his nose. John is encouraged to say little else but that he is
dying and he has no future. He says he is motivated to appear
in this video out of concern for the fUture of others. John is
poorly used here (in fact, horribly exploited), and to no avail
in terms of ensuring the future of young viewers. No amount
of pathos will prevent transmission of HIV infection.

Later in this video, safer-sex practices are described,
including a brief mention of anal sex, but only after an
emphatic prelude on abstinence. The distinction between
being HIV + and having AIDS is fairly well described. Overall
though, Your Choice for Life is a sex-negative effort, that
ultimately leaves one depressed.

The Minnesota AIDS Project funded a video presented
by the Minnesota Indian AIDS Task Force called Her
Giveaway: A Spiritual Journey with AIDS. Carole Lafavor, a
native woman, speaks lucidly and intelligently about her
experience with having AIDS. The viewer is immediately
encouraged by her strength and insight, no dripping pathos
here. She describes AIDS as a "spiritual gift" which is easier
to understand when she explains how she has gained
strength, developed maturity, and produced positive changes
in her life. At one point, she begins to describe her physical
condition, and, is interrupted mid-sentence by a white female
doctor who_takes over the description. A.fter _this, Carole is
allowed to finish her story. It was an astonishingly crass and
offensive interruption, considering how competently the native woman was describing her own condition. I found this a
bizarre abberation in an otherwise positive and insightful
production.
Hopefully, there are more of the Her Giveaway type of
AIDS video in the Ministry of Health Library. There are a lot
of useful and fascinating videos, as well as duds.
Ministry of Health
828 West 10th Avenue,

Vancouver, B.C.
660-5061

+II

Produced and Directed by Theatre Street '89

Kim U-Ming, Rob Joyce, and Stuart MacFarlane have
no previous experience in video production or acting, but with
assistance and guidance from Faye Yoneda and Fraser Doke
they have conceived and produced HIV+. The video is a
vehicle to feed information to their peers, a group the media
generally labels as "Street Kids". Although it isn't a slick video
piece, the work succeeds in touching upon the issues which
probably most concern the target group.

Her final message to other Native people is "What I think
we need to do as Native people is to return again to our
Native place, the place that has never really left us in our
spirits, in our souls, the place of dawns and sunsets. I think
reservations need to get ready for us, those of us who have
it, because we're going to want to come home to die."

Sharon Day and Lee Staples of the American Indian
Gays and Lesbians organization talk about chemical abuse
and how it can make you not bother about safe sex,etc. Lee
Staples says, "I remember I didn't hove respect for myself
when I was using. I remember instances when I was feeling
really bad about myself."

"HIV
The Quiz Show as allegory for life is an old device and
even an overused device, but, in the context of disease (and
particularly AIDS), it's an appropriate image to focus on. You
play the game - you take your chances.

Throughout the video, nc:iture shots and a soothing
Ojibwe Lullaby drift in and out, conveying the strong feeling
Native people have about Mother Earth and its healing
powers. Native spiritual healing ceremonies help Carole and
so do her close personal relationships and positive attitude:
11
Doy in and day out, living the lifestyle of a spiritual person
is the most important thing any of us can do, whether we're
experiencing severe illness or wonderful health."

Lori K. Beaulieu of the Native Indian AIDS Task Force
explains about the dangers of AIDS. She does say that AIDS
is transmitted by unprotected sex, blood, and sharing needles. Basic information is important, but AIDS isn't transmitted
that way, the HIV virus is. The difference isn't made clear.
, Later, she says "to avoid AIDS, don't do drugs and don't
share needles". Simply preaching abstinence to viewers who
may be addicted to drugs, is absurd and dangerous. There
needs to be information on how to clean your works with
water and bleach, to prevent transmission of the HIV virus,
whether needles are going to be shared or not! Also, there
is no mention of safe sex for lesbians. Not all lesbians use or
have use for condoms! If we are to help the fight against
AIDS, then ·we must break down all barriers and communicate truthfully to everyone.

HEALTH MINISTRY VIDEO
The Provincial Ministry of Health's AIDS Video Library
lists about eighty titles in the Library Catalogue. A very wide
range of AIDS-related issues are covered making this a fairly
comprehensive source of information. The quality of this
information, however, does seem to vary somewhat.

' by Ruby-Marie Dennis

When Carole speaks about her feelings on finding out
she has AIDS, it suddenly cuts to White Western Medicine
professionals, who for awhile take over telling her story. I
thought she was doing a fine job and found the interruption
offensive.

reviewed by Gordon Fisher

If all of this sounds like fairly heavy stuff, I don't want
you to be misled. There is a great deal of humour attached
to this work. Every old condom visual (and a couple of new
ones) is here, and the cast obviously took pleasure in their
work. The direction doesn't fail even at the end when the
pistol fires us into a blackout, and a warning that this isn't
just a Quiz Show, it's your Life.
Now we know what HIV+ is about, but there's alot that
it isn't about as well, and that's unfortunate. This is not to
criticize the effort and quality of what was created - it's just
that if the target audience is to learn as much as possible
about AIDS, then there's much more ta cover. The group this
video is aimed at is currently in the highest risk category for
coming into contact with the HIV virus; and, they are also
most at risk for going on to develop AIDS because of the
co-factors present in their lifestyle. For instance, the healthiest
of people will have their immune system compromised by
persistent use of drugs (prescription and street), poor nutritional habits, and lack of proper rest and exercise. Take a
hypothetical "street kid" and you will tend to find a body
abused on all of the above counts. Expose that same person
to any virus, and they will tend to succumb. My point is this:
how about getting some vital information onto the streets
about the importance of exercise and diet (you live on junk
food and your body will give you a junk response), and the
dangers of drug abuse (cocaine, marijuana, alcohol, poppers, and nicotine particularly suppress the immune system).
Even without the horror of AIDS, these are issues we
should be dealing with. In this "disposable" society, these kids
are our "styrofoam" brothers and sisters. On the surface AIDS
generates a fear we associate with any epidemic or disaster,
but look again and you will see that AIDS is a collecting point
upon which all kinds of fears are focused. One of the main
reasons for the slow response of our government and society
was because it required some very honest public discussions

about sexual practices and orientation. We are now made
more aware that "street kids" are at risk, but we have yet to
face up to the fact that they are only out there living that
lifestyle because we allow the conditions that facilitate their
move to the street to perpetuate.
Society has a responsibility to continue and improve the
process of educating our children about AIDS. Theatre Street
and HIV+ is a step in the right direction. The facts are there
for all of us. We have named the problem, and we have some
of the solutions. What's missing is more action, and all things
must end in action, or they just end.

"HIV+", by Theatrestreet '89

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

5

VIDEO AGAINST AIDS
SCREENINGS AT VIDEO IN
DISCRIMINATION

This section consists of Amber Hollibaugh and Aliso
Lebo.w's. T~e S~cond Epidemic: on informative documentary
on d1scnmmotion coses negotiated by NYC's Human Rights
c;=c;immi~sion. Examine~ in .detail are two stories of people
living with AIDS: Margie Rivera, a young woman living in
Manhattan; and a community in Massachusetts which first
expressed and then overcome its prejudices by providing
support to a young AIDS patient and his family.

ANALYSIS

Tom Kalin' s They Are Lost To Vision Altogether is a poetic
retaliation to right-wing homophobia and anti-AIDS hysteria
which reclaims eroticism. Pratibha Parmar's Refroming AIDS
offers a wide-ranging global analysis of the AIDS epidemic,
focusing specifically on the construction of black sexuality in
relation to AIDS.

AIDS AND WOMEN

Safe Sex Slut is a pro-safe sex education reminder from '
Carol Leigh (aka Scarlot Harlot) a member of the activist
prostitutes group COYOTE. Cori: A Struggle for Life recounts
the heroic battle of one woman to care for her baby daughter
who had been infected with AIDS from a blood transfusion.
"Mildred Pearson: When You Love A Person", by Yonnick Durand Jean Carlomusto and Maria Maggenti's Doctors, Liars, and
Women: AIDS Activists Soy No To Cosmo documents the
angry protest made against Cosmopolitan Magazine by
women from the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP)
for the publishing of dangerously misleading information
NOVEMBER 29th , DECEMBER 6th and 13th
concerning the risk of AIDS to women.
at VIDEO IN, 1102 Homer Street
ADMISSION: $3 members $4 non-members Unemployed
PROGRAMME 2 :
FREE
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 6th at 8:00p.m.
with KEN MANN of the P. W.A. Coalition

VIDEO AGAINST AIDS brings together a persuasive and
involving cross-section of independently-produced works on
the AIDS crisis.

"Stiff Sheets'', by John Goss

RESISTANCE

The three two-hour programs that comprise the package include work by individuals in all sectors of independent
media production, award winning artists as diverse as Barbara Hammer, Isaac Julien, Michael Balsar, Andy Fabo, and
Tom Kalin, as well as activists associated with such groups as
the Gay Men's Health Crisis, the Haitian Women's Program,
and the Testing the Limits Collective. VIDEO AGAINST AIDS
is a cornerstone collection for AIDS education and support
groups, communicating with passion and clarity to anyone
concerned or touched by the pandemic.
Provocative and inspiring, VIDEO AGAINST AIDS (curated by John Greyson and Bill Horrigan, produced by
Kate Horsfield) - is not work you'll see on mainstream
television . The pieces range from highly sophisticated artist's
tapes to boldly confrontational work - from lyrical and
upbeat music videos to in-depth analysis on the AIDS crisis
-: from document~tions of aC!ivist demonstrations by people
with AIDS to reflective memorials of those who've died from
AIDS.

A variety of forms of resistance to the mainstream
media's construction of AIDS is offered. John Greyson's The
ADS Epidemic adopts a music-video format to preach against
ADS - acquired dread of sex. Barbara Hammer's Snow Job:
The Media Hysteria of AIDS critiques the representation of
AIDS in the popular press. In We Are NOT Republicans, Adam
Hussuk and Robert Huff document the disruption made by
AIDS activists at the 1988 Republican presidential convention. Stiff Sheets by John Goss, similarly indicts public health
officials and politicians for the lack of adequate and humane
care for PWA's in Los Angeles, this time by documenting a
mock fashion show staged by ACT UP activists.

A CTN/SM

Youth Against Monsterz's Another Mon is a short and
retort to all the Jerry Falwells of the world. Testing the
L1m1ts (Port 1) produced by the collective of the same name
ad~r.esses the politics of AIDS by documenting the range of
act1v1st responses to the chronic inadequacies in government
health care, the legal system, education, and scientific research.
s~s~

LOSS

E.miay Wilso~'s A Plague Hos Swept My City, is an
associative evocation of the fear and confusion the pandemic
has generated. Ann Akiko Loriyasu's Gob focuses on a friend
who has died of AIDS. Andre Burke's A intricately weaves
layers of sound and image to question the threat to sexual
desire and identity posed by AIDS. British producer Isaac
Julie~'s _This Is Not~ AID~ Advertisement offers a lyrical and
meditative celebration of life and sexuality urging viewers to
"Feel no guilt in your desire."
'
VIDEO AGAINST AIDS : Ordering Information, write or call:
Video Data Bank
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
280 South Columbus Drive,
Chicago,lllinois 60603
Chicago (312) 443-3793
New York City: (212) 233-3441
Toll Free (800)634-8544
FAX :(212) 608-5496

PROGRAMME 1
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 29th at 8:00 p.m.
with ROBIN BARNETT of the Women and AIDS Proiect
PWAPOWER

In Survival of the Delirious Canadian producers Michael
Bolsar and Andy Fabo invoke metaphors from Native
American mythology and weave them into a narrative concerned with the often hallucinatory effect the epidemic has
on persons living with AIDS. Work Your Body, produced by
NYC's Gay Men's Health Crisis as part of its Living With AIDS
television show, offers a variety of life-affirming testimonies
from HIV antibody positive people and PWA's

"A Plague Hos Swept My City", by Emioy Wilson

MOURNING

Yannick Durand's Mildred Pearson: When You Love A
Person recounts a mother's dedication to her son as she
learns he is gay and gravely ill from AIDS. David Thompson's
The Inaugural Display of the Names Proied Quilt commemorates the unparalleled public memorial created when
the Quilt's first 1, 920 panels - each one for a person dead
from AIDS, were unfolded in Washington, DC. Stashu
Kybartas' s Donny is a heartfelt and complex commemoration
of a young man in various stages of his illness.

For Canadian Distribution:
VTape
183 Bathurst Street, 1st Floor
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5T2R7
(416)863-9897
FAX(416)360-0781

COMMUNITY EDUCATION
Patricia Benoit's Se Met Ko, produced by the Haitian
Women's Program, is a model fictional analysis of attitudes
and misconceptions about AIDS within a Haitian-American
neighbourhood. The tape uses indigenous cultural references
and socially-specific occasions to demonstrate how communities, wit_h individuals acting in enlightened cooperation,
can responsibly respond to the AIDS crisis.
PROGRAMME 3 :
"We Are NOT Republicans",
by Adam Hossuk and Robert Huff

6

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 13TH AT 8:00p.m.
Associate Member of the PWA

with BRIAN TEIXEIRA Coalition

VIDEO AGAINST Al DS
VIDEO GUIDE 1989

Cori: A Struggle For Life

National

"NOW
PLAYING"
Condom pass in "Now Playing", by David Maclean

"Now Ployingn is the third independent video produced
by David Maclean. His video work has dealt almost exclusively with themes related to gay social culture. ("Bon
Voyage My Loven, "It's Your Time"). Recently, David was in
town (from Toronto) performing in "Quarantine of the Mind",
at the Pitt Gallery.
Sue Jenkins: Tell me about the your most recent
videotape.
David Maclean: Now Playing is a videotape that explores a variety of gay men's experiences within the shadow
· of the AIDS epidemic. I've used a thematic base of location
in terms of the present and the past, and the present and the
future. Now Playing addresses where we are as a "community" of gay men. The story's about this group of gay men
who have came to the cinema to see a film, but the scheduled
film isn't available and they have to wait for another one to
arrive. This facilitates ,through a suspension of disbelief, them
sharing stories about where they' re at now in their lives and
in their sexuality, mourning the past, and people who have
died, and feeling that they're in limbo ... where do we go
now ... lt looks at how gay men feel about AIDS, at how people
feel. There's the element of confusion and fear, of a holding
zone if you will.
Why did you choose a cinema for the setting ?
I chose the location of a movie house because cinema
has often been a way that gay men have found a language
of expression and experience for themselves, funnelled
through Hollywood films. There's been strong identification
with female screen stars who express emotion in a way that
men are traditionally not allowed. But there's also a closet
that goes along with this because it's been a way that gay
men don't have to address their emotional experience directly. The onus hasn't been on us to talk about what it means
to be a gay man, without all that accoutrement.
You think many gay men have fantasized around female
screen stars?
Well yes. With the Marilyn Monroe myth there's wanting
to be desirable, and loved, but underneath there's the idea
that the only way you can have that is to turn yourself into
something else. I think it's an issue gay men have been
grappling with for a long time. Oh, to be accepted I have to
be more masculine, or younger, or in this style .. I have to be
less than I am. Even in this sophisticated period of time we' re
living in, I don't know any gay man that doesn't have some
problem with that area, about what it means to be a man.
As a gay man you're seen as giving up control and power.
When you do this you're set apart, but you still have to go to
work, and affect a certain look to fit into the office, or
wherever you work. It's the endless, fluctuating, uncertain
areas of image. Who am I? What am I supposed to be like?
As an artist with a history of using drag, and identification
with film stars like Marilyn Monroe and others, I feel a
responsibility to move beyond that without any of the masks
and the defensiveness around the movie thing. Now the onus
becomes what am I feeling? ... How do I funnel it directly
without the safe place of "I'll be ready in a few minutes .. ;ust
let me get my makeup on and I can talk to you ... ".

goes off and has a quickie in the bathroom. If it's a memory,
it's a good memory. We've learned and hove to keep
re-learning how to have safe sex.
In the tape some gay men reveal their fantasies of
romance, being cared about, being touched emotionally
too ...
Well the film scenarios often portray a heightened sense
of the emotional possibilities in relationships. Gay mole
culture hos been very influenced by commercialization of
experience i.e. the commercialization of sex, and for awhile
sex seemed to be the only currency. While I'm not in any way
opposed to sexual expression, I know for myself and friends
I've talked to in private situations, that what we really want
in life and relationships is something more endowed with
emotional trust and love. These things con be very unpopular
in the stork, block, noir, late eighties but that's really what we
hove to struggle for ... more honestness in our communication, on all levels. In my performance and in the tape Now
Playing there's gay men talking about the tradeoff. Does
giving up promiscuity mean you' re going to get a white picket
fence, a home and lover forever? It's about balancing the
extremes. What are we looking for as we move within a
community that's been totally changed? AIDS has brought
such upheaval, but it's an opportunity to ask some more
serious questions and maybe find a maturity in our community that hasn't been there before.
One of the characters in "Now Playing" complains: "The
condom iust means one more barrier, more tangible than the
emotional barriers we erected before ... / can't stand the
sanctimonious talk about safe sex when so few of us are
willing to examine how men have abused each other in the
post, before we had AIDS ...as if everything was perfect
before. I've hod safe sex but I haven't learned how to practice
safe love yet."
That's a combination of what I know about gay men.
It's very unpopular to admit one's emotional needs cause
we're such a cool generation. AIDS has brought with it all
kinds of new problems. The immediate thing was how do we
prevent transmission of the virus, so it seemed everything was
focused on sexual activity. I'm sort of working this out in my
show as well (Quarantine of the Mind), with the character
who's leading the safe sex workshop. Gay men have a lots
of emotional/psychological stuff to work through and come
to terms with. Even before AIDS there were all kinds of things
about how gay men and men in general relate to each other
- the adequacy of how they can communicate and share
emotion, affection, and all that. Now there's AIDS. We can't
focus any less on the interpersonal difficulties we have as a
community, if anything we have to focus even more.
Especially when friends are dying around you ..

How did you research to find out how some gay men
ore feeling, and did the men involved find it difficult to speak
about such personal stuff, even with a script?
My research was direct observation. Being aware of my
feelings and those of my friends and immediate support
group, as well as observing responses of the gay community
to AIDS. Some of the men hod acting experience, some
didn't. They got ta address some very real concerns. There's
a real impoverishment of lesbian and gay male imagery, so
it was an opportunity to do something in a theatricized way,
that came close to the bone of their real experience. There
was excitement and a bit of fear because it's a very "feelings"
tape, as non-trendy and embarrassing as that is for people
sometimes, but I think that's all we really have to grapple
with, our personal experience.
Was the audience you had in mind for the tape specifically gay men?
It's twofold. Definitely my work's aimed at other gay men
but I've also got a lot of response to the tape and performance from women. Like women, gay men haven't always
been allowed a voice. The work is about being very confrontative in talking about personal experience, reclaiming the
experience and saying "you're the one that's got to work that
experience out. n It's not going to be the straight mole that
defines and decides your role and how you cope in the world.
In terms of a general audience, my approach is humanistic.
Average people trying to cope. Anyone can relate. AIDS isn't
something just affecting gay men.
It's almost like there's an unwritten law between gay and
straight men-that if you're going to be a gay man, then at
least make sure you ore different enough in appearance and
behaviour so that you're easily distinguished from those who
are straight.
Definitely. It's the endless desire. The some thing women
ore bottling with. It's the straight, mole, heterosexist target.
As long as we con target you, as long as we con keep you in
a place that makes us feel comfortable, and as long as we
can control how you express yourself, then everything's fine.
But the minute you wont to define that for yourself, or ploy
with that, then there's trouble. I think gay men and women
have to keep fighting for that right to shed some of the
<:tereotypic straitjackets. As a gay man or woman, there is
this sort of endlessness of how you can express yourself and
be as a person.
Some people do feel anxious around individuals they
can't easily categorize, as if another's difference is perceived
as a challenge or threat...
Yes I It sounds so utopian, but to think that one day things
could get to a state where we weren't so threatened by
everything that's so different, so other. That the other wasn't
the enemy to be lassoed and put in its place. I'm working on
.that in my tape. In the community, subtle lines have been
drown about who was and who wasn't responsible in terms
of the AIDS crisis. Who was trashy and slutty, as if those
people could all be grouped together and disposed of. These
people are part of the fabric of the community but when the
heat is on it's "We// that's not me, I'm not like that. n There's
this horrible division of responsibilities - presenting people
as either guilty or innocent victims. It all comes down to
society's hatred and mistrust of human sexual expression and
variety of experience. There's a heavy layering of morolism
and Judea-Christian values that supports the status quo and
heterosexist crop. We're still bottling this.

There's a real lack of direct dues about time frames in
the tape.
Yes. Is it happening in the theatre or what? I'm representing a larger framework in terms of location, time, and
relationships. Some of these ore symbolic. It's illustrating
levels of contact, and isn't that what defines people's
sexuality? Let's face it, it's what you do when you have contact
in a sexual way. We hove to emphasize that sex is okay and
still a good thing. The media hype with its old lessons of
morality has some people struggling to not be crippled by
fear and self-hatred. In the tape people group off and there's
a nostalgia, a real angst because, before there was a real
celebration around sexuality that certainly isn't there
anymore. Now there's a real hesitancy, a reticence about
sexual expression. When the two guys sit over coffee and talk,
it's as significant an encounter as when one ofthe character's

Yes, it's emotional fallout that we're just beginning to
feel. In the seventies there was a culture of immediacy and
satisfaction, where do I get my next pair of 501 jeans? That's
been turned upside down and there are going ta be people
who don't know how to cope or deal with it. I'm speaking of
common experience, including myself. It's a new game in
town.

~

"Quarantine of the Mind"
VIDEO GUIDE 1989

7

National

REQUIEM. FOR GAETAN
The following "fake" video script was originally written
almost two years ago as a contribution to a Queer Media
issue of Square Peg, a British quarterly exploring lesbian and
gay culture. The editors had requested an essay addressing
the relative wealth and health of lesbian and gay video
production in Canada. Certainly the subject was warranted:
Canadian video art had become a predictable programming
block on the circuit of queer film/video festivals in the States
and Europe. Indeed, the curators of Only Human, a large
international survey of video art addressing issues of sexuality
(presented atthe 1987 American Film Institute Video Festival)
confessed that they were faced with three interlocking
programming dilemmas that were messing up their assumptions of equitable balance: too much gay/lesbian content;
too much AIDS content; and too much Canadian work!
(Luckily for all, they decided to embrace inequity).
In trying to meet the editors mandate, I decided that
channel-hopping as a literary device would better serve the
subject, than attempting any sort of authoritative overview.
The arbitrary truth of clicking through fragments of a deeply
fragmented culture seemed more appropriate than trying to
string together in awkward linear fashion a few of the
conflicted factors that produce our culture, and culture (like
yoghurt) our productions. In no particular order: "Canadian"
movie stars, customs censorship, quarantine legislation, born
again TV, art critics who speak for artists, AIDS politics, safer
sex...
Regarding Requiem for Gaetan nearly two years later,
I'm predictably struck by how little, and how much, has
changed. Anti-gay violence, spurred on by the AIDS crisis,
continues to escalate. Family Ties is no longer on the air. And
the Band Played On by Randy Shilts became a best-seller,
and the mini-series rights were snapped up by the producers
of Dynasty. Jim Bakker is in jail. The Smiths broke up. The
AIDS numbers (of cases, of deaths) have doubled, literally.
Above all, an AIDS activist movement has emerged which is
fighting forthe rights of people living with AIDS, securing new
treatments and protesting discrimination.
Predictably, this fake video script didn't sit still. The
safersex-ads-by-famous-dead-artists were produced as interludes for The Pink Pimpernel, a tape I made this year
focusing on the struggle for AIDS treatment drugs. The elusive
Gaetan Dugas will be the subject of a forth-coming feature
film: a murder-mystery-musical exploring (and hopefully
exploding) the search for the "source" of AIDS.
It has become commonplace to note that the rich critical
discourse exploring AIDS and its representations (of which
this issue of Video Guide is a part) has in turn triggered an
awakening of complex critical theory addressing lesbian and
gay culture(s). Long gone are the seventies when cultural
homophobia was (somew~at) out of fashion and gay critics
seemed unable to get beyond the notions of "stereotypes"
and "positive role models". Nearly gone are the eighties,
when an ascendent right-wing and a hysterical mass media
succeeded in re-pathologizing gay desire in distinctly
nineteenth century terms, conflating our sex with disease,
danger and death. ls it this exceedingly polarized representational agenda which has forced us to sharpen our
critical tools, to subject "queer art" to the same theoretical
scrutiny that feminist theory (via Lacon, Barthes, etc.) has
demanded of women's art? Certainly AIDS has become, as
Jan Grover noted, a call to arms for a new generation of gay
men armed to the teeth with the dubious pleasures and
dangers of post-modernist theory, the results of which are to
be witnessed in the placards for AIDS demos, in the safer-sex
performance cabarets, in the outpouring of video art addressing the epidemic. Certainly the urgency of the moment
has forced people to both work faster and think harder.
Certainly questions of efficacy become more pressing when
the terms are literally life and death. Certainly the safety of
traditional cultural forms of inquiry (like the overview essay
addressing queer Canadian video art) become much more
problematic than they already were. Certainly the fragmented address of channel-hopping seems more appropriate to address the very queer place this fag still finds
himself in.
John Greyson is a Toronto video artist whose 19 tapes
and films include "Urinal", "The World Is Sick (sic)", and "The
ADS Epidemic". He recently co-curated a 6-hour video compilation of 22 AIDS tapes entitled Video Against AIDS, which
is available for next to nothing from: V/Tape Distribution,
416-863-9897. Special rotes for AIDS groups.

An item in the TV Guide catches my eye. A documentary
on the life and times of Gaetan Dugas, the French Canadian
airline steward reputed to be the infamous Patient Zero, the
man who brought AIDS to America. The page is torn though,
so I can't read the channel listing. It started five minutes ago.
I scan the channels with my clicker looking for it.
Channel 2: ... Lorne Green (a Canadian), dolled up as
the Marquis de Sade, turns to glare into the camera and
whisper profoundly (with an atrocious French accent) : "There
is no better way to know death than to link it to some licentious
image". CLICK

8

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

Is a Bore (boom boom)
Channel 3 :... camera surveys stairwell, panning over
As in "I've seen it all
splintered wood, broken plaster, debris. TV voice-over: "Last
night, a bomb ripped apart the stairwell of this well-known
a hundred times before" (boom boom)
Vancouver lesbian and gay bookstore. Although no-one was
CLICK
injured, an anonymous caller has claimed responsibility and
threatens to bomb the store again". Cut to TV journalist,
Channel 11 :... Talkshow host turns to camera: ''Today
standing in front of the cash register. "Little Sisters manager
we are joined by two art critics from London and New York,
says the bomb is probably connected to the controversial , who have agreed to appear on the condition that their
anonymity be preserved. We'll call them Mary and Peter (not
AIDS quarantine legislation enacted by B.C.'s Socred governtheir real names) for convenience sake". Cut to medium shot
ment yesterday" ... CLICK
revealing man and woman in shadow, their faces obscured.
Channel 4: ... head and shoulder shot of a hot young
Host turns to them "Mary you recently visited Toronto. How
stud in a leather jacket moaning in pre-orgasmic ecstasy.
would you characterise video art production there right
Camera tilts down and dollys around to hip-level side view
now?"
to reveal that he is wearing a condom while receiving a
Mary: Quite healthy, I suppose. Of course, many of the
blow-job. Freeze-frame text over image: "Andy Warhol says
artists still seem to be obsessed with sex, with sexual politics.
Live Out Your Fantasies with Safer Sex" ...CLICK
The Toronto Sex School, if you will (to quote one of our
Channels 5 and 6 (for some reason my cable tuner is
colleagues), remains unprecedented.
stuck between them) :...David Main of l 00 Huntley Street
(Toronto's own PTL Club) welcomes Jim and Tammy Bakker
Host: What's so special about Toronto? Peter?
for a "Just Say No To Drugs, Sex, AIDS, Adultery, Alcohol,
Tobacco and Adultery" Special. Sound and image cuts in with
Peter: Well, the issues of state censorship have obviously
concert footage of the Smiths on the other channel singing:
played
a central role. Not only is the provincial film and video
"Boyfriend in a coma. I know. I know its serious ... There were
censorship continuing, and continuing to resisted, but also,
times when I could have murdered him ... Do you really think
Canadian customs continue to seize tapes and magazines,
he'll pull through?" (At first glance, I think this might be the
especially those with gay content. The famous courtcases, of
Gaetan Dugas documentary because Jim holds up the Nacourse, revolve around the censoring of safer-sex ads in porn
tional Enquirer issue with Gaetan on the cover. It turns out
magazines. And now new federal legislation has been
there was also a story about Jim and Tam my in that
proposed which would virtually criminalize c;my image of
issue) ... CLICK
more than one naked person, no matter what their
preference. All these factors have helped video artists to band
Channel 7: ... Alex (the yuppy star of Family Ties played
together and fight for their rights by producing tapes about
by Michael J. Fox, a Canadian) is sitting at the kitchen table
sex and sexuality.
checking out the stock market. Mallory (his TV sister played
by someone, not a Canadian) enters, drops a book down on
Mary: I think also the presence of string feminist, gay
the table. Alex (picking it up): What's this.. you're actually
and lesbian movements has had an impact and the fact that
reading? (canned laughter) Gee, Mall, I didn't know you
the arts community, especially the alternative and media arts
knew how. (more laughter)
groups, have worked closely with these movements. For gay
artists, I think the struggles of the seventies and eighties were
Mallory: I'm reviewing it for my English class. It's that
a real inspiration - the trials of Body Politic which was an
book by Randy Shilts "And the Band Played On" - you know,
important gay liberation magazine, the baths raids, he washthe one that got such excellent reviews in both the straight
room and park arrests. Also, the internal struggles around
and gay press. (laughter)
pornography and racism, for instance.
Alex; But Mallory, what can you say .a bout it? There
aren't any .pictures) (laughter)
Mallory: Actually my angle is analyzing why it received
so much acclaim at this time. I want to explore the books
double messages: the simultaneous critiquing and validation
of the mainstream medical establishment;the appropriation
of gay liberation discourse to buttress deeply conservative
positions; and finally, his dangerously reactionary views
concerning sexuality an its regulation.
Alex: Gee, Mallory, are you on drugs or something
(laughter)
Mallory: Right now I'm working on how he constructs
the Gaetan Dugas story, turning him into a dangerous, exotic
Patient Zero, a latter-day Typhoid Mary. In particular, the fact
that he's Quebecois is perfect - not American, exotic, Other,
but still not too Other, because then Shilts would have been
called racist.
Alex: Whatever gets you off, Mall I (laughter) ...CLICK
Channel 8: ... Grainy, black and white image of two
naked men blowing smoke over each others bodies through
straws. Freeze-frame. text over image: "Jean Genet says Live
Out Your Fantasies .. With Safer Sex" ... CLICK
Channel 9 :... concert footage of Dionne Warwick and
Burt Bacharach on stage singing "That's what friends are
for." Cut to demonstrators picketing outside a concert hall in
Vancouver, chanting "That's NOT what friends are for".
Camera pulls out to reveal a TV correspondent speaking into
camera (same as Channel 3 - must be same show). ''This
celebrity fundraiser for British Columbia's Socred Party is
being picketed by angry gay demonstrators. They feel
Bacharach and Warwick, two celebrities who have helped in
the fight against AIDS, are being used to cleanse the image
of conservative Socreds, who passed controversial AIDS
quarantine legislation in December." Camera cuts to confrontation between protesters and indignant concert
goers... CLICK
Channell O: ...long shot of smoky nightclub. Craig Russell (star of Outrageous! a Canadian) is onstage, doing his
celebrated impersonation of Tallulah Bankhead:
Baudrillard (boom boom)

Host: Who are these gay video artists?
Peter: Well, I suppose we can name them - though I
wonder if they would appreciate such a narrow definition of
their work. Still - David Mcintosh, Colin Campbell, Rowley
Mossop and Tom Balatka, Michael Balser, Midi Onodera,
Richard Fung, Marusia Bociurkiw, Magaret Moores, Almerinda Trassavos, David Maclean ...
Mary: But I think it's also important to name straight
feminist artists, like Lisa Steele or Tanya Mars or the Clichettes, or men like Clive Robertson, Kim Tomczak, Rodney
Werden, because these people all work together...
Host: What impact has AIDS had on these artists?
Mary: Less perhaps than their counterparts in New York
or London - but then Toronto is still a year behind in terms
of response - in all of Canada there are less than 1500
cases as of last week ...CLICK
Channel 12: ... "ln news updates tonight, Air Canada has
filed a libel suit against Randy Shilts, a uthor of And the Band
Played On. Air Canada claims their image has been tarnished by the book' s claim that Patient Zero was Air Canada
flight attendant Gaetan Dugas ...CLICK
Channel 13: (seems to be the same show as Channel
11 )...medium shot of Peter and Mary in shadow. Mary is
talking.
Mary:" ... and of course, they' re all very defensive about
being Canadian, always pointing out second-rate movie stars
who are Canadian, that sort of thing. It's a rather predictable
inferiority complex, playing out neo-colonial past and
present, feeling they can't possibly compete with work being
done in London or New York or California.
Peter: I agree, and I think it at least partially explains
their predilection for fragmented narrative strategies. You
understand, their insecurities make them collage together
several stories at once,and they never adequately conclude
them. Closure requires confidence after all. Also, their addiction to quotation of popular and commercial sources, like
Hollywood. The self-conscious use of parody, or satire - they
never make emphatic or direct statements, everything is
displaced and diffused.

National
Mory: It's as thought they're terrified of committing
themselves, so often they put their words into unsuitable
character's mouths. Often there's this disjuncture - the
character is o fool saying something quite seriously. A sort of
perverse ventriloquism.
Host: Con you tell us why you hove to protect your
identities?
Peter: Well, it's not easy being o critic from New York or
London these days. The Canadians don't seem to appreciate
our interests in their work.
Mory: And we've both hod death threats for writing
about the bod acting that seems to characterise their
topes ...CLICK

Channel 14: ... Man attempts to seduce o straight-backed wooden chair. Choir refuses. (I recognize man os Claude
Jutra, a French Canadian, reprising his role in A Choiry Tole.)
Mon tries again, to no avail. Mon offers condoms to chair,
chair is interested Man puts condoms on four legs of the chair,
they roll around on the floor together. Freeze-frame. Text
over image: "Norman Maclaren and Claude Jutra say Live
Out Your Fantasies - With Safer Sex" ... CLICK
Channel 15: ... close-up of Gaetan Dugas, the black and
white photo from the National Enquirer. o disembodied
voice, a woman, bitter and clipped, a Quebecoise. "Look,
I've done o lot of research on my own. I've talked with maybe
two dozen specialists, here, in the U.S., in Europe. They all
say there's no such thing as patient zero. It doesn't make

sense medically, the epidemiology is all wrong. The cluster
groups around the continent, and the numbers, indicate no
one person could hove been responsible. Plus all the new
stuff about co-factors, about syphilis. And l'vetold o thousand
reporters - but do you think anyone printed it? Noto chance.
They just wont o photo of Patient Zero's mother. So forget
it."
Music fades, credits begin to roll. I've missed the whole
documentary. Maybe they'll repeat it later in the week. I
phone the station but the line is busy. On the screen, it says:
"All the facts and stories in the preceding program ore true."
I click my set bock to Channel 2, to Lorne Green as the
~
Marquis de Sode.

"THE WORLD IS
SICK (SIC)"

Review by Mark Turrel
"The World is Sick(sic)", by John Greyson
In the vacuum of relevant state, scientific, medical and
corporate action, to meet the diverse needs of PLWA's
(Persons Living With AIDS) and those frontline communities
facing the AIDS crisis, there has been on unprecedented
international response from grassroots organizations attempting to fill the void and transform the mechanisms of
health core and education. If video con indeed serve in the
mobilization, analysis, and documentation of this important
development, then John Greyson's The World Is Sick(sic)
successfully inserts itself into this process, in several ways.
The disclaimer that commences The World is Sick(sic)
introduces the producer's position to the subject, almost
intimate in setting up o conscious exchange between
producer ond viewer: "There ore many different versions of
what actually happened in Montreal; this unauthorized
author-centric version should be viewed with caution." A
layered dynamic tokes place in which the authority of the
official conference documented is refused, while the viewer
is constantly challenged to deny the authority of Greyson's
subjective refroming. This possibility of self-determination
demands that viewers become octive(ist) in formulating their
understanding of the subject and echos activist Simon
Wotney's statement in the tape that calls on PLWA's internotionollyto "refuse the authority of medico/ researchers, refuse
to accept the authority of the state."
Greyson elaborates further on his post employment 1 of
the images, mechanisms and language of the mainstream,
and frames this documentary of the Vth International Conference on AIDS with a humorous parody of news coverage
by C.B.C.'s The Journal, synthesizing o critique both of the
AIDS establishment ond the representation of AIDS in the
media. The role of reporter Andrea Austin Sibley (David
Roche) structurally links the tape and facilitates the scathing
critique of journalism's biases, language and conventions, its
assignment of authority to the state's scientific and medical
"experts", and its traditional distaste for "those scruffy activists" (as Ms. Sibley puts it). Though trying to maintain the
placatory media calm of her reporting intact, the
beleaguered journalist's descriptions of the state's and
science's selfless research efforts, are constantly interrupted
by the presence of the AIDS activists in attendance, thereby
calling the bluff on rampant AIDS careerism and government
negligence.
As documentary of the strategic intervention of AIDS
activists at the Vth International Conference on Al OS, the tape
lends itself to transforming the "face" of Al OS representation
through interviews, statements and performances, with an
international, multi-racial and mixed gender collection of
AIDS activists and community representatives. A sense of the
global proportions of the crisis is established, thereby challenging the usual North American narcissism that prevails in
coverage of AIDS. Paradoxically, the some footage informs

us of the need for appropriate approaches to education and
healthcare in the specific local community it is aimed at.
An overview of the diverse group representatives present
at the conference, include AIDS activists from England,
Mexico, Trinidad, Thailand, South Africa, U.S. and Canada,
with representatives from specific groups - prostitutes,
transsexuals, and those who use I. V. drugs - from Australia,
Canada, and the U.S .. This provided o long overdue forum
for the concerns and needs of affected communities ignored
by the state and/or misrepresented in mainstream media.
Contrasted in o unapologetically pointed manner, is
coverage of the official conference itself. Brian Mulroney is
depicted mouthing words that, in the context of both the
presence of the activists, and the tape itself, sound like
generalized, inane platitudes. Greyson puts to use o sort of
guerilla tactic in his camera work and post-production. A
banner - "Mulroney, You've Left Us to Die" - occupies the
lower half ofthe screen and a computer-generated Pinnochio
nose sprouts from his face, belying his words. Introduced as
part of the heroic struggle to find o cure for AIDS, are
interviews with unsuspecting corporate representatives from
the Conference's massive trade show for pharmaceutical
and medical technology. They divulge information on multimillion dollar profits, soaring projected sales figures, and
anticipated shares of the "market".
In the framing and defacement of Mulroney's image,
and the manipulation of the corporate representatives, ·
Greyson merrily enters a thought provoking realm of visual
activism. Akin to propaganda; pretensions of journalistic

ethics and mythical objectivity ore dispensed with and made
expedient to the urgency or necessity of relaying information.
It differs from propaganda in that the viewer becomes
consciously privy to the act of the message's construction,
rather than manipulated by its finished presentation. In much
of The World is Sick(sic), there pervades a playful sense of
representational revenge. Revenge not only against the AIDS
establishment, but also against the mass media. Wrth a track
record of sensationalism, racism, and homophobia, the
media hos ployed the role of little more than an opportunistic
infection, for those coping with illness.
Greyson's dramatization cleverly illustrates how both
literally and metaphorically the stage in Montreal was seized,
as the battalions of reporters and cameras captured the
activists' media stunt, creating an unprecedented opportunity
for the airing of grievances and demands.
Dense with information, The World is Sick(sic) is initially
overwhelming, but ovoids boring the viewer with rhetoric.
Rother, it seduces with o dynamic, colourful, visual barrage
of computer manipulated backdrops to interviews, keying,
and a constant shifting bock and forth between documentary
and humorous narrative. An original upbeat score demands
#AIDS Action nowH, o coll for activism presented with the
catchy hook of o music video. It suggests, almost, an attempt
to "glamorize" political activism, possibly marketing the notion to a consumer public with little patience for the traditional
didacticism of left-wing dodos.
The World is Sick(sic) has the potential to subvert, inform,
entertain, and politicize on otherwise decentralized, scattered
population to whom activism is o remote phenomenon. Yet
here we encounter the still unresolved conflicts inherent in the
prodoction and distribution of independent video: Will this
tape reach its potential audience? Another target audience
could be community groups already engaged in AIDS activism - presenting a positive picture of the range of
strategies different groups have adopted so far, and
demonstrating the manipulation of media that formed the
basis of the Montreal intervention.

Akin to seeing the "emperor's new clothes" from o more
knowing perspective, is Greyson's re"representation of the
media, AIDS establishment and the pomp of the Montreal
conference. Thus informed, having participated in this
decoding of authority, one is invited to participate in an active
response to the deadly moss deceptions induced by state and
media. If silence equals death, then this work at the very least,
creates o context and history for the activism of raising one's
voice and affirming the possibility of life in a future with AIDS.
1

"The Pink Pimpernel", by John <..;;reyson

Urine/, Moscow Does Not Believe In Queers, The ADS
Epidemic, The Perils of Pedagogy, Kipling Meets the Cowboys, The Jungle Boy.
~
VIDEO GUIDE 1989

9

Global

CONSTRUCTING
DOCUMENTARY
by Alexandra

Juhasz

"Prostitutes, Risk, and AIDS", by Alexandra Juhasz

The AIDS crisis is not merely a crisis in health, but one
of authority. To claim authority over AIDS justifies distance:
distance from contagion, from the "kinds of people" who ore
sick, from their differences, from their desperation, and from
responsibility for a crisis of biological origin but social protraction. By analyzing on NBC Special News Report Life, Death,
and AIDS (aired on January 21, 1986), I will discuss how the
moss media hos claimed authority over this crisis through a
controlling and distancing discourse. The implication of the
media's hold on AIDS ore more for reaching than the hours
pegged for news specials; for the television is on authority
which constructs, interprets, and thus contains and controls,
the social, political, economic, personal and medical. "It is in
the world of representation that we manage our fear of
disease, isolating it as surely as if we had placed it in
quarantine," cautions historian Sander Gilman, in AIDS and
Syphilis: The Iconography of Disease.•
I wish to consider the ways in which the codes and form
of television documentary work to advance the mainstream
media's agenda concerning AIDS; that a cautious and distanced relationship ta this crisis is permissible. Perhaps
surprisingly, documentary form has only recently been discussed critically, rather, it is usually taken as given that
documentary faithfully records real events for the lofty purposes of education or enlightenment. But, form that erases
itself still constructs meaning; and form that is hidden is only
vanished through familiarity. I would assert that the organizing principles of documentary have been so hard to see
because they reflect the basic power relations of dominant
culture. Thus, for example, the mainstream media's account
of AIDS perpetuates already exist~nt hierarchies of authority
in its very construction, if not also in rhetorical design.
Contrasting the formal and ideological constructions of Life,
Death and AIDS with those of alternative AIDS documentary
will help to illuminate the manufactured codes which the
mainstream dons as "natural" to present its "truthful" renditions of a subjective and political discourse about AIDS. If
alternative AIDS media wishes to contradict and re-define the
all-powerful but all-irresponsible agenda of the dominant
media regarding AIDS, a firm understanding of the formal
organization of mainstream representation is a most primary
tactic for mounting this oppositional practise.
AIDS documentaries, in general, mimic and confirm the
social formations upon which they report. Film and video,
mediums of mechanical reproduction, are most commonly
seen in documentary production to "reflect" reality. Although
the relationship between this reflection and truth and/or
objectivity has been challenged within the academy, as well
as within more popular productions like The Thin Blue Line,
The David Letterman Show and Broadcast News, most news
and documentary productions still bank upon the spectator's
willing disbelief about the constructedness and bias of
television reportage. TV soys, and spectators believe, that the
camera records what is out there to see. In a society where
hierarchies of power define all social relations, it is not
surprising then that the documentation of the AIDS crisis
reflects the already operating systems of power relations
which define the meanings and workings of this disease, and
society in general. Because, to date, AIDS has been a disease
whose course has moved largely along lines of race, class,
and sexual behaviour, the media need only report "realisti- ,
cally" what exists in the natural world to legitimize the
rankings of power found in their already working definitions
of the socially "ill" and "healthy".
Life, Death and AIDS depicts Tom Brokaw asking questions of a wall of four video monitors, each holding the head
of an expert. Only white, male experts' heads fill its monitors.
In mainstream documentary's terms, this can be explained
not as sexism or racism, but as the unbiased reportage of the
world-out-there - a sexist, racist place where women and

10

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

people of color ore under-represented in the ranks of experts.
But, there ore alternatives to the prime-time logic that insists
that the existing, dominant structures are the only possible
organizations of power. For example, the videotape Women
and AIDS, a tape I produced for GMHC's Living With AIDS
Show, with Jeon Corlomusto, reflects a world where the only
experts ore women, many of whom are women of color.
Professional women easily take the seats of their white, male
peers in the tape's typical talking heads shots. Similarly in
GMHC's Work Your Body and PWA Power, both made by
Carlomusto and Gregg Bordowitz, the experts of the tape ore
PWA's, who speak their needs and issues with force,
knowledge and insight.
Unfortunately, rectifying the imbalance of authority is
not always a matter of merely recognizing who doesn't speak
and making it possible for them to do so. For there are deeply
imbedded societal constraints which strongly withhold
authority of voice from many individuals. These constraints
are re-confirmed in television documentary where interviews
ore granted to those who always speak publicly. For example,
in Life, Death and AIDS, there is a limited line-up of individuals
who are granted the privilege to speak about AIDS: scientific
experts, doctors, a PWA (Person With AIDS) who was infected
through a contaminated blood transfusion, three gay male
PWAs, and archetypal Americans (firefighters, PTA Moms,
construction workers). The many people affected by AIDS,
but left unaccounted for in mainstream documentaries like
Life, Death and AIDS, ore those who ore never allowed the
power of speech in our society: poor people of color (especially women) who ore referred to, minimally, in the show by
blurred images of "ghetto" streets; mothers of infected
children, who ore infected themselves, but who ore represented only vicariously by the doe-eyed images of sick babies;
prostitutes and l.V. drug users whose status as "criminals"
ensure not their invisibility, but voyeuristic, confrontational,
and only sometimes "consensual" images; gay teenagers,
who, like all teenagers ore at a real risk for infection, but who
have always been silenced. In his article The Spectacle of
AIDS, Simon Wotney discusses the implications of
mainstream reportage which guarantees that the majority of
PWAs are rarely seen: This disappearance is strategic, and
faithfully duplicates the positions the social groups most
vulnerable to HN found themselves in before the epidemic
began.
The project of the alternative media becomes the complicated task of being at once sensitive to, while striving to
alter, the power relations which limit public articulation in our
society. So, for example, as it is true that it is particularly
difficult for women to speak in patriarchal culture, it is also
true that underthe right conditions, women con and do speak
quite powerfully. There ore many strategies by which the
alternative media con create safe spaces from which women
feel comfortable speaking. In Women and AIDS, for instance,
the voice of a woman who is identified as "Anita: A Woman
Who Is HIV Positive", is accompanied not by her face, but by
images of women grocery shopping, walking on city streets,
coring for their children. This tactic allows the hitherto-invisible woman into the production, while still respecting her
fears of discrimination (especially against her children) if she
would be identified on television. Another strategy is used in
The Second Epidemic, produced by Amber Hollibaugh for the
New York City Commission on Human Rights AIDS Discrimination Unit. Here, one sequence is devoted to the words
and image of Margie Rivero, a Puerto Rican woman who
speaks candidly about her experiences with AIDS. The voice
of one brave woman expresses her experience, while taking
on the weight of all of her silenced sisters as well. Similarly,
a videomaker like Carol Leigh, a prostitutes rights and AIDS
activist, makes tapes where she speaks for a large community
of women who (like l.V. drug users) ore silenced because
speaking about their concerns ond needs regarding AIDS
also exposes them to prosecution fortheir "illegal" behaviour.

In the few coses where the mainstream media trains its
cameras on the disenfranchised, it assumes that this is
enough to compensate for the imbalances of public discourse. However, the "realistic" images created by turning
on network cameras, perpetuate, not contradict, the real
power relations they record . The talking-head interview is a
case in point. This documentary staple is never, in fact, merely
o head making words, on unidentified language source.
Tolking heads hove professions and ranks which flash over
their features as titles. They are filmed in rooms, houses, and
offices which reflect their social standing and position. They
are gendered. They have facial features which identify ethnicity. They have diverse relationships to spoken English accents, lingo, vocabulary, age, media-savvy. In o society
where authority is more often gauged by the trappings of
doss, race, and gender, than by the content or specificity of
one's argument, hierarchies of authority are immediately
assumed when o camera is turned on to record a head talking
in its' reality. Life, Death and AIDS again perpetuates the
position that the camera has only the power to record, ond
not to create, an individual's relationship to authority in its
talking-head interviews with PWAs.
There are several PWAs pictured in their "real", but
coded, talking-head-backdrops over the course of the hour
long news special. The show's most lovely PWA by far, that
darling of the mainstream media, the "innocent victim" of
AIDS, is Amy, a suburban married woman who was a
recipient of a contaminated blood transfusion; and, who is
interviewed with her blue-eyeshadowed, pretty face, seated
next to her husband by a roaring hearth in their suburban
home. Unlike this woman, the first gay male PWA presented
is not shown in his home. Rother, he is interviewed seated in
a hospital room. But not for long. Quickly, a still image cuts
over his continuing voice. In the image, he is dressed in a
hospital gown. He stands in a sterile, grey room with steel
medical equipment. A doctor stares into his eyes. Certainly,
the image is "real", but why this particularly real space of
discomfort and disempowerment as the natural space for the
not-so-innocent gay man with AIDS? The l.V. drug-users in
the tape, "honestly" depicted in their world, are interviewed
in on empty, burned-out, city lot - their home is the dirty,
fenced-in space where they shoot drugs.
In all three cases the camera more honestly reflects the
program' s assumptions and prejudices about its interviewees
than it does their worlds and words. There are alternatives to
the biased but "true" reflections of reality that have been
created in Life, Death and AIDS. For instance, the crew could
have sought a different place for interviewing the gay male
PWA: his suburban house, as tidy, neat and lovely as any
straight blood recipient's. Gay men live in houses too.
Similarly, the l.V. drug users could have been interviewed
feeling their most safe, comfortable and in control - not
when they are sick ond shooting up to feel better - but in their
own apartments.
Thus for, I have tried to discuss how the social divisions
which rule our society can be either reflected or challenged
by a documentary recording of these "real" relations. However, most of the media's operations of ideology ore worked
through the much more subtle, and therefore dangerous,
manipulations of form. The formal organization of a work
communicates as much, if not more, than the words being
spoken. A close analysis of-the introductory segment of life,
Death, and AIDS displays the way that the authoritative voice
of the piece is established formally. Ultimately, the voice of
this program will subtly enforce for its intended "general
public" audience that they, in opposition to an undefined but
understood other, need not be overly concerned about AIDS.
At the time of the program's production in January
1986, the media was finding itself in a difficult predicament.
The earlier, easily understandable, I'm-not-at-risk-and-youare structure of AIDS-risk definition was no longer quite so

Global

AUTHORITY:
FORM AND AIDS

"The Second Epidemic", by Amber Hollibaugh and Aliso Lebow

clear cut, now that irrefutable scientific evidence was being
released which proved that heterosexuals were at risk for
AIDS. How could the media inform its audience that all were
at risk while assuring each individual television viewer (the
potential customer who can never be worried or angered
enough to turn off the TV and stop being primed to buy) not
to worry? In Life, Death, and AIDS we watch NBC take on
the difficult task of discussing the relative risk for "normal
Americans", while at the same time convincing them of their
relative safety, and their concurrent non-response.
How is this worked formally? The show begins with the
image of a thin tall woman, dressed to party, with high brown
ha ir. Her male friend is touching her protectively from behind.
"Remington Steele will not be seen tonight so that we can
bring you the following report. What has already been
introduced in these "insignificant" five seconds? First, we arc
being forced to miss a night of high hetero-romance-andmystery so that NBC's "we" can bring the audience "you"
something more serious, less enjoyable, and luckily only a
special report. Next week, and for many following, we' ll have
Remington Steele again. The thwarted crimes and deals of
wealthy blonds is ultimately much more important to NBC's
"we" and to us too. NBC the network, the force that rules the
programming flow, tells us its attitude towards the "Special":
begrudged, sighing tolerance: for this one special night we' ll
all be serious: enter a computer-generated screen of grey
with small black shapes forming jail-bar-like lines.

because there is only an infinitesimal amounts of the virus in
saliva. Martha Gever confirms this in her analysis of alternative media on AIDS, Picture of Sickness: Stuart Marshall's
Bright Eyes:
"Each news story, investigative report, panel discussion,
talk show, or "realistic" drama about AIDS circulated by the
moss media contributes to the shape of the narrative by which
the epidemic is made comprehensible to "the public" ... And
what the mass media has produced reveals its complicity in
constructing th e very fe ars it presumes judiciously to
mediate."
Life, Death and AIDS feeds our fears and says we' re right
to be wrong.

11

Then, Tom Brokaw's voice sounds as a photograph of
Rock Hudson lifts into the upper left corner of the grey grid
screen. Neither are identified, but both are to be recognized
and accorded their respective authority. "They were actors,
teachers, scientists, bartenders. And then, there were those
who never had a chance to be anything, opens Brokaw.
Hudson is joined on the grey field with the images of three
more unidentified adults, constructing o square of photos. A
photo of a little baby flips onto the square' s centre. The voice
a nd images are telling us two things: all these individuals
represented in photographs ore dead - "they were"; and
these who died were doing totally normal and blameless
things until they died, one of them merely being a baby.
11

"In the end," continues Brokaw, "they were oil victims
of AIDS." The five faces fade into an image of a crowd of
people walking on a city street: TV's representation of the
mainstream. "In a way, we ore oil victims of fear and private
anxiety." These words are accompanied by portrait-shots of
individual Americans: a cowboy with a hot, a woman in a car
with babies. We now know much about the show' s agenda :
l )it wishes to let us know that normal, blameless people have
died of AIDS, so that 2)we know that, as members of the
mainstream universal crowd referred to in the street image,
we should have some fear and anxiety, but that 3)as individual, unique, normal people, the identifiable faces of
American, each of us is different from the 11victims 11 of AIDS
because we have to worry only about worry and not about
death.

The show then does the unpardonable. For a good five
minutes Tam Brokaw speaks the fears and anxieties of
"normal" Americans without dispelling them: "Worry about
AIDS is port of being a parent now", "Police, firemen, hospital
workers, deal with their own fears", "Even some of the faithful
ore frightened about receiving communion through a common cup." These wards are accompanied by predictable
images: mothers at a PTA meeting, police learning how to
give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation though a protective mask,
a priest holding up the communion chalice. Brokaw speaks
"our" irrational fear about AIDS; the images illustrate and
confirm our wrong-headedness. Nothing interrupts this flow
of idiocy to allay these uninformed and needless fears:
children are not at risk of infection at school, you cannot get
AIDS through mouth-ta-mouth or sharing a common cup

Brokaw then tells us what we Americans said in polls
about AIDS fears. We' re worried. Boom, boom, boom,
boom, goes the sound track. An image of the Statue of Liberty
comes up. (Worry, but don't worry, this is the land of the
free.) Then, the words: NBC News Special Report. (Worry,
but don't worry, this is the land of NBC News) Finally, at last,
the title: LIFE. New word: DEATH. And then covering these
biggies over slightly: AND AIDS. (Think about AIDS just as
you do about life and death: worry but don't worry.) Once
again, the ever unidentified voice of TV-land: "Here again is
Tom Brokaw." The magic hand of TV raises the lights, and
there, in fact, is Tom Brokaw, again, just as promised, this
time seated on a circular, carpeted platform in a high-tech
chair: "Good Evening," he says, safe and alone in a soundstudio. "Our hope is to de-mystify this disease. We will consult
leading experts to answer your questions about AIDS." Tom's
going to answer our questions about life, he'll tell us all about
death, then he' ll de-mystify us on AIDS.
Finally, ten minutes after the Remington-Steele-pardon
the field is set; the show tells us how its going to tell to us. At
the top is NBC: controlling our vision, turning up the lights,
paying Tom Brokaw. Trust the TV. Coming a close second is
Tom and us. Sure, sometimes we' re wrong-headed, but it's
best to be cautious. Tom's advice for us, stick with the
Americans: cowboys, PTA Moms, firefighters. Then come the
experts. We'll listen to ' em, but we' ll a lways trust good old
American distrust more than any fancy-dancy professor or
doctor. You gotta be sceptical, take care of yourself and your
own.
Why all this time and trouble to create a space of
scepticism? The program let us know that, really, Brokaw
can't demystify us about life, death or AIDS - what is he,
God, after all? And so, therefore, Life, Death and AIDS
argues that AIDS, like life's other big and great mysteries, has
no answers, only questions. NBC handles this issue as it does
all other major political crises: positions the issue into a place
of mystery and cosmic solutions, therefore maintaining a
de-politicized audience who believes that only God can
intervene (or at least multi-national superpowers) and tells
the audience that the right way to handle an issue with no
answers (life, nuclear war, poverty, death, racism, AIDS) is to
rely on your instincts, your gut. NBC has pre-arranged an
hour where the audience, and Tom Brokaw, have been
granted permission to evaluate this issue from the gut - the
sexist, racist, homophobic, frightened way that they always
do. The form legitimizes its prejudice.
Now enter PWAs. Unlike Brokaw, who exists on the
carpeted platform, unlike the experts, who exist in TV
monitors in Brokaw's module, even unlike the normal
Americans asking the uninformed questions who are shot live
on-the-street - the gay male PWAs, (who live with one of the
doctor's in a monitor and are introduced only as
"Dr.Volberding's patients") ore given their own, special format: the pre-recorded mini-report by NBC's Science Correspondent. This totally controlled, pre-packaged form is the
documentary code's version of the sterilized, segregated

space of quarantine : no worry of live mishaps, embarrassing
spills or smells, unsightly scars or blemishes, it's not live, it's
controlled and edited. Here we meet the married blood
recipient in her cosy home, the "junkies" of the surveillance
camera, the brief images of prostitutes observed from afar,
and the strange and mysterious Africans.
Need it be mentioned that the camera and microphone
treat each of these symbolic AIDS "victims" differently in NBC
AIDS reportage? The lady gets to introduce herself: "Hi, I'm
Amy. I have AIDS." She is also allowed a steady tripod
two-shot with her husband. The l.V. drug users are never
allowed a name, they are condemned by the words of the
judgemental voice-over the science correspondent, and
when they are allowed to talk, it is in response to one of the
crew members who shout questions at them from a safe
distance. The camera is either too-close, or too high, watching them as distinct body parts, and not human beings. The
prostitutes and Africans imaged in the program are not even
granted the privilege of an interview, let alone a steady,
centred shot. They are caught unawares by a camera as far
way from them as possible while still able to vaguely catch
an image. The words we hear with these images, are of
course, the frightened and punitive voice of the science
correspondent.
The program concludes with Brokaws words: "If you ore
heterosexual and don't live a freewheeling lifestyle ... vour
chances are 1/1 ,000,000 ... All of us, of course, hope there
will be a vaccine ... I'm Tom Brokaw, for all of us at NBC
News. Good night." The message: all of us (us who are not
infected, us at NBC News) need not worry, but we do hope
that those who do need to worry get a vaccine soon. We
don't like them, but we are Christians. But, how do alot of
"us" feel when we hear NBC's message? According to Suki
Pots in her article Needed (For Women and Children):
"While block and Hispanic women ore disproportionately and increasingly affected by AIDS, the media insensitively
and incorrectly tells us that the heterosexual spread of AIDS
is not really a threat. How does a block or Hispanic woman
feel when she hears this?"

The black and Hispanic women who are actively confronting AIDS in their communities, and perhaps in their
homes, are not the people for whom TV is made. Therefore,
for such women to see a PWA on TV, even if it is someone
who looks like them, is to see someone to be disliked and
mistrusted. Besides being incorrect and misinformed, this is,
more dangerously, not at all an effective strategy for the
dissemination of risk-reduction education to the populations
most at risk. But clearly, saving people's lives is not the
mainstream's agenda.
Alternative media makers must learn from the dominant
media - learning what not to do, learn how to show the
same crisis differently, learn how to help people by providing
information not evaluation. Alternative media makers must
call into question the social divisions and prejudices inscribed
into mainstream documentary. We must talk to each distinct
11
us" of TV-land, making community specific programming
addressing the specific needs of the many people affected by
AIDS. The trajectory of control over AIDS is governed by
access ta speech and control over images: the powers of
defining, naming, showing. We can speak and we con make
images. We can re-cast the hierarchy of authority over AIDS
with new images that re-figure the meaning and trajectory
of this disease.
• The citations in this article are all from the collection of
essays AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism, ed. Douglas
Crimp '(Boston: MIT Press, 1988).
I I

II

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

11

Global

IN CONVERSATION

IN CONVERSATION

with Isaac Julien
and Pratibha Parmar

with Isaac Julien
and Pratibha Parmar

Block filmmakers, Isaac Julien and Protibho Parmar,
discuss the making of their respective films: This Is Not An
Aids Advertisement and Refroming Aids.
Originally printed in Square Peg, London, 1988.
Isaac: Could you tell us a little bit about your introduction
to filmmaking and the context that you see yourself in.
Protibha : I become interested in filmmoking quite a long
time ago, but I never felt that, as a Block woman, I hod access
to the process or production of fi lmmoking. It was very much
as a consumer that I took port in film . My background was
in written and academic work around race, gender ·a nd
sexuality. I initially became involved in filmmoking as a
researcher for documentaries around different aspects of the
Black struggle in Britain. They were both broadcast and
non-broadcast productions; some for Channel 4, and some
independent productions. The whole mystique around how
programmes come together, how films ore mode was blown,
in a sense, and I become hooked - I felt I wonted to become
a producer of images. I wanted to make my images of Asian
women because I was fed up with the stereotyped images I
saw in film and photography.
Before film though, you'd written seminal pieces in "The
Empire Strikes Back" and were one of the initiators of Sheba
Feminist Press as a racially-mixed publisher, so in various
ways you've combotted the media and created your own
spaces, where you could do these - so film is a continuation
of that work.
Very much so. I' m not in the process of becoming a
filmmaker in a vacuum, I've come from a background in
writing and publishing, which sought to make Block women's
writing much more available. I've always been involved with
images, whether through the written word or visual images,
creating spaces which hove been denied to us, and challenging the marginalisation and tokenism that goes on.
Your debut film "Emergence" marries those two activities
together.
Emergence come out of my personal need to soy something visually about what I'd termed the Diaspora experiences
of the different Block communities. I tried to show through
their creative work, the interventions which different Block
women hove mode in their various artistic fields. There's
Audre Lorde, on Afro ~Americon feminist poet, a Guyanese
Chinese poet named Meiling Jin, Sutopo Biswos, an Asian
artist and Mono Hotoum, a Palestinian performance artist. I
sow links between their work. I wonted to bring them together
through the film . It was very much about challenging the
notion of Block women as objects; we're there as subjects of
our own making. The form in which the film was mode and
the language it's trying to create is a move away from the·
traditional mainstream types of documentary. It doesn't hove
a voice-over, there's a prose poem that links it, something I
wrote which describes my vision of the connections between
these women. The video was self-funded and couldn't hove
been mode without the support of the Block Audio Film
Collective.
Your film "Refroming Aids" becomes a set of parallel
questions around race, gender and identity. Why did you
make the film?
There are going to be a lot of people who are very
surprised that as an Asian woman, I've made a film which is
looking at Aids and hos not just Block women's voices but
·white gay men and white women talking as well. I wont to
challenge the whole notion of what we as Block lesbian
filmmakers ore supposed to make just by definition of who
we ore, our identities. People have expectation boundaries of
your identity. But we've got other things to soy, we live in a
much broader scenario. Our territory should be as brood as
possible.

about the experiences of lesbians and gay men in the
borough, to show the kinds of initiatives the council was
making in meeting the needs of lesbians and gay men. I felt
although that was important, the political moment for me
was defined much more by what hos been happening as a
result of Aids, especially the backlash. Lost summer, to do
anything around our community, the politics hod to be about
Aids, how Aids hos fuelled the backlash against us. I wonted
to create a space where different lesbians and gays could toll<
about the content of that backlash, showing how Block
lesbians and Block gay men hove been affected, soy, specifically around immigration, where Aids hos been used to
further restrict the entry of Block people into the country. I use
the images the media hos created of the disease, but show
that we're not just toking that on passively, that there ore
photographers and filmmakers creating our own representations. These ore not necessarily to do with Aids but ore
a response against that media image. I also tried to point out
the historical links between ideas about racial difference,
social difference and sexuality. In British colonial history,
homosexuality was seen as a disease, and colour too, where
racial types other than white ore seen as outside the norm.
OK Aids hos created the backlash; but, it is used in existing
historical context, using prejudices, notions of racial types,
sexual types and sexuality. It's not new; there's a strong
·
history to these ideas.

where work like "Passion of Remembrance" comes in where
you enter the dialogue with the Black community on topics
around sexual an gender identity.

We 've also worked together on a piece for The Media
Show called "Media Representations of Haringey". That tape
started to explore some of the contexts for the backlash we
envisaged, with the pre-election campaign centred around
sexuality, race, and specifically around education, using
those references to describe how undesirable voting for
Labour would be. It was the early representations of Aids and
the "Don't do it" type posters, coupled with the Tory posters:
propagandist, using images and representations of sexuality
to celebrate love and desire.

That's why I work at Sankofo, the Black film collective.
My reference point compared with other gay filmmakers is
totally different. "Reframing Aids" for example will be different from a Channel 4 programme precisely due to different
experiences, how they manifest themselves in subiectivities,
Black subiectivities. I know a lot of white gay filmmakers - we
are not talking about a separatist world - it's to state that
these multiplicities of identity do exist within the gay movement, and we're bringing those things together on our own
terms. The white gay film community has to take those things
on. Divisions are sometimes there, although I'm a part of both
the white gay and the Black gay film communities, I've had
to make a choice.

This ls Not An Aids Advertisement is important as a tape
because it shows the multiplicity of identities within the gay
culture, you show Block and white gay men, different groups
of gay men etc.
In constructing desirable representations of gay men at
a time when others equate gay men with notions of illness
and disease, which we can't deny is happening to our
communities, we ore seeing a response to those dominant
messages, which say you should feel guilty about your
desires. The basic hidden message of safe sex in many cases
is no sex - an anti-sex message in a post-sex climate which
we seem to be inhabiting. Our filmmaking is a reply to all
those adverts and billboards. The first part of "This Is Not An
Aids Ad" contains images of death, sensuality and loss - it
occupies the same space as other pieces. There's an
American tape called "Testing the Limits" which has a very
politically-activist agenda, but asks: how can you describe
loss of friends or the total redirection we are taking in our
identity, which we all have to negotiate now. Our tapes take
a stance; there's an edge to them. I felt a responsibility to
respond as a gay Black filmmaker. There are analytical or
theoretical response:s to the representation of Aids, which
people like you, Stuart Marshall and Simon Watney are
doing, then there are pieces which are more ambivalent and
emotional like the work of Connie Giannaris or John
Greyson. This work is more celebratory and is in a sense not
responding directly to that dominant image, but is setting its
own brackets. I'm quite interested in the emotional, which is

Groce Bailey in "Reframing AIDS" by Protibho Parmar

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

It would be a different move to try to talk about relationships between, say, the Black Qay communities and the white
gay community, or the Black communities and Black lesbian
communities. All these are slightly fictionalised in the sense ·
that they're all culturoi terms, there are lots of crossover areas
and dialogues taking place constantly, but it's on whose
terms ...
We see our own references, we don't wont to use the
white lesbian or gay communities as our reference. Both of
us come from different political traditions - I've been involved
with the Block movement -we both feel to a degree that the
white lesbian and gay community hos been our main reference point, but we've not sought to prioritise our energies
into challenging the quite prevalent racism we've found there.

I feel more a port of a Block film network with virtually
no contact with other lesbian filmmakers. That's been my
area of support - people like Isaac and the Block Audio Film
Collective.
Why is that? It's not imperative, but you get support from
where you can. Other white gay filmmakers have helped me,
but it's been difficult at times. I've had problems with absences of Black representation in "gay movies", or even if that
representation is there, it's within a silence which is
problematic. You have support from white gay filmmakers
but it sometimes diminishes - you start challenging too much
or occupying a position they don't feel you should occupy,
where they can't feel sorry for you! A lot of support comes
from Black theoreticians, not all gay, but sometimes your
most vicious attacks come from sections of the black community. Different scenarios will develop around areas where
a certain amount of tokenism can exist when you don't need
that tokenism any more.
Funding hos been so difficult for me because Sonkofo is
funded by Channel 4 through a commissioning editor, so
unlike most other lesbian and gay filmmakers it hos not been
so hard. The lost scenario represents some of these anxieties
where we ore competing for funding and bottling against
censorship.
I'm in quite a different situation as on independent,
individual filmmaker. It's only in the lost year or so that it's
been easier, but I took the challenge to become a freelance
filmmaker. I've been lucky so for because some people know
me and my work and I've been approached to either research
or make these films. To try to get bits of funding is not that
difficult, but getting full funding for proper productions is very
hard - and it's very time-consuming making applications!
There's such a tight boundary as to who gets funding and
who doesn't. As on individual it's much harder than as port
of, soy, a Block film workshop. Within that there's all the
who-knows-who, and having to struggle against, for example, men who ore anti-Block, anti-feminist and within
mainstream funding agencies. It creates very volatile situations, especially for lesbian and gay filmmake rs. With the
advent of the Clouse• it will only be more difficult to make
films. Films like Reframing Aids couldn't be mode in the future
if this becomes low.

I was originally approached by Converse Pictures to
direct and research a video called Out In Lambeth, to be
"Young, gay and pro'ud" "Policing the classrooms" and "Sex
education taught in schools" and so forth - a whole hidden
agenda specifically around race and sex. It was important
then to make "Reframing Aids" to re-contextualize the representations of sexuality and race, to show them being re-invented. I tried to combat it through "This ls Not An Aids
Advertisement" which is an ad for gay desires. I'm being a

12

It's caused a lot of raised emotions and discussion
putting Block gay sexuality on the Block political agenda. It
doesn't attempt to speak to the white gay community; you
start to speak to the Block community. It' s a break away from
other films which ore always a response to demands from
the white community.

Guest Editor's Note: Protibho is referring to Clouse 28,
a Local Government Bill in England, that hos since been
passed into low. The low bans the "promotion" of
homosexuality. The wording leaves interpretation of
"promoting homosexuality" completely open. The low also
stops local governments from funding any gay person or
group thought to promote homosexuality.

Global

"MINING THE.ORO DEL BARRIO"
A COMMUNITY APPROACH TO AIDS EDUCATION
Using film or video for education is nothing new. We all
remember fondly the moment when the teacher would walk
in the classroom pushing a cart from the AV department and
announce that instead of class, a film or video would be
shown. It always seemed to make the hour go faster and the
learning process an enjoyable one.
The power of the medium is particularly well suited to
minority health education and even more so to AIDS education. This is because effective AIDS education directed at
minorities requires a show and tell medium that can also role
model positive behaviour change while reflecting the language, culture, values, and lifestyle of the target audience.
This is especially important for minority communities
because they are usually left out of the traditional media
channels. Government agencies will often translate materials
in order to save money and the result is, almost inevitably, a
useless one. People simply cannot relate what they are being
taught (to their lives), and the educational message falls on
deaf ears. A documentary full of facts and data may be of
interest to a white person whose educational and social level
match the expectations of the documentary's producer;
however, the same documentary will probably put a Central
American refugee to sleep, even if it is well translated.
At the core of the community learning process lies the
principles of empowerment or the validating of a people's
ability to develop understanding relevant to their needs. This
may sound simple, but it is an essential concept for minority
communities whose life experience has been the opposite.
Breaking the barrier of powerlessness, which is created by a
dominant culture that continually states "you cannot", is basic
to developing healthy communities.
This is where community based videos come in. Most
media presents images of the dominant culture, and the
general feeling within a minority is that of worthlessness. The
opposite occurs when they see their lives represented on the
screen. This not only validates their cultural experience, but
becomes a mirror of their reality where they can see themselves, their family and their friends reflected. A minority
group that rarely sees itself on the screen will feel extremely
empowered by the images alone. It says "you, and your
culture are worthwhile".
Within the Latino community, social and moral values
have been traditionally taught through stories which are
repeated from generation to generation. That tradition is
founded in the Amerindian cultures which, contrary to
European history, maintained traditions and values through
oral history. We like to hear stories, and we like to learn when
there is a story involved.
Because of this important value, we believe that the use
of a dramatic framework tan be the most effective format in
Latino AIDS education. It is also the best framework, because
it can create positive role models or characters whose positive
actions result in a better outcome.

"Ojos Que No Ven", by Jose Gutierrez and Jose Verqe/in
knowledge and experience. This knowledge is then applied
to the creative process. This process has three benefits: first
it enriches and ensures the cultural accuracy of your characters and story, second it becomes a tool for community
empowerment, and third, it gives concrete dramatic elements
with which to build the story. Many of the lines used in Ojos
are taken almost literally from the testimonies.
Once the story and the characters were conceived and
a first draft screenplay written by scriptwriter Rodrigo Reyes,
the script was submitted to a series of focus groups or
community review panels, that included both health
educators and a representative sample of the target
audience. This is a key element of the process because you
can test your material and your creative ideas against reality.
There is no one better than the people who will be watching
the video to tell you whether it is appropriate for them.

But using a dramatic structure does not guarantee a
culturally appropriate video. Creating such films or videos
requires a marriage between a community based agency,
who provides direct access to the community; and, a
producer who is sensitive to the issues and who has the
cultural background to ensure that the piece to be produced
will have the necessary cultural relevance.

The end product of this process, is a video that is sensitive
to the needs of the health educator an to the needs of the
community. The video has been extremely successful with
Latino audiences because the video reflects their reality. This
identification process would have been unlikely had the
community not participated in its creation.
In order for AIDS education film and video to make an
impact on minorities, they must combine cultural sensitivity
with a format that will draw in and involve their target
audience. Community based development and production,
with ongoing community involvement, are essential to the
process. The resulting material is an educational video that
serves as a tool for empowering the individual and the
community.
ADINFINITUM FILMS
221 Liberty Street.

San Francisco, CA 94114
U.S.A. (415) 558-9023

Community involvement is perhaps the key element that
guarantees creating a sensitive video. As a case history, one
concrete example is our AIDS educational video entitled Ojos
Que No Ven or Eyes That Foil To See . This video was
produced by Adinfinitum Films Bilingual Film & Video for
lnsituto Familiar de la Raza, and was the first AIDS video
made in Spanish by and for the latino population. The video
utilizes the popular telenovela format and follows the lives of
several neighbours in .a Latino barrio who, in one way or
another, are at risk of becoming infected with the AIDS virus.
In an entertaining and often humorous way, the audience
learns the facts about AIDS. However, the story is not solely
about AIDS; but, also about family and community relations,
about destroying myths and replacing them with facts, and
above all, about a people becoming empowered to improve
their lives in the face of a crisis.
Although the plot of Ojos was a fictitious one, most of
the stories came from real life, and all the characters are
archetypes of real people. It was a process in which
filmmakers went out to the community, camera in hand,
collecting testimonies that later were included in the treatment
or story line. For instance, we had decided that the main
protagonist would be Dona Rosa, the mother of a young gay
man and an adolescent girl. Consequently, we interviewed
many Latino women with these characteristics and created a
composite character. We also used some oftheir experiences
as a basis for dramatic development. This was a perfect
example of what our executive producer, Yolanda Ronquillo,
calls "mining el oro del barrio", or "mining the
neighbourhood's gold"; the harvesting of a people's

11
,

"Ojos Que No Ven by Jose Gutierrez and Jose Verge/in

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

13

Global

VIDEO AND THE VTH INTERNATIONAL
ACCESSIBILITY OR ABSTRACTION?

The role that video plays within a contemporary context
of AIDS, and as a socio-cultural/socio-political communication tool, has become a predominant theme in the discourse
on the representation of AIDS. As a training mode, a means
of mediation, a tool for analysis, and as an instrument of
intervention, video was primordial. The so-called video
revolution and AIDS activism, especially in North America,
have gone hand in hand. Issues of the ease of production,
the role of television in cultural diffusion and, more importantly, accessibility, have been cited to explain this
phenomenon. But does video fulfil this role? If so, how might
that process best be facilitated? What conclusions might be
drawn from the use of video at the Vth International Conference on AIDS? Was there a serious exchange made
between scientists and artists, or between the aesthetic activists and the communities represented at the conference, or
between the Conference and Montrealers?
The Vth International Conference on AIDS held in
Montreal in June 1989, sought to expand the horizons of
scientific exchange and AIDS. In an attempt to rectify the
Americo-centrism and narrowly defined bio-medical sciences
that have characterized the previous four conferences, the
Canadian conference organizers endeavoured to facilitate
cross-fertilization. To make the conference much more interdisciplinary, the programming consisted of nine modules,
one of which was defined as audio-visual presentations. In
each of the modules a greater international representation
was undertaken to help delegates to see AIDS in terms of a
global epidemic.

local preoccupation to favour French material and the wish
to include various pan-Canadian material. General considerations had to be made for image and sound quality, but
we wished to address a sense of relevance and target
audience possibilities by providing wide-ranging options
throughout a spectrum of aesthetics-activism-information.
The committee was interested in providing a programme
that was not parallel, but complementary to, the programming of the other eight modules to ensure minimal thematic
conflict. Individual slots of maximum ninety minutes were
constructed on various themes. The selections were made so
as to encourage comparisons and critical functioning and yet
"fit" within time restrictions.
The Monday programme, for example, began with a
session on Counselling which included a twenty minute video
from Britain and an hour video from Ruanda. The second
session, Sex, Politics and History, as well as the third, Women
and AIDS, were a pastiche of some of Video Against AIDS
with o Canadian Public Health Association and Westcoast
Canadian tape. The other sessions programmed through the
week included PWA Power (Persons With AIDS), Discrimination, Loss and Mourning, Activism and Cultural Resistance,
Video Clips (spots), Core givers, and Prevention .

By presenting an audio-visual module in the official
programming, and by including an arts and AIDS component
(SIDART), video presentations were an integral part of this
attempt to increase accessibility and fecund exchange. This
article, an introspection made by one of the organizers of the
audio-visual presentations, briefly describes this process as
well as addressing the potentials and limitations of such an
attempt.
The AV module was established late in the process of the
organization of the Conference. The response to international solicitation through letters sent through various AIDS networks was at first very slow, and the working committee
turned to actively search out videos to fill perceived or real
programming categories. As the conference approached,
more and more videos poured in. The selection for programming became a larger and larger collective headache.
General selection criteria served as general guidelines.
The AV committee sought to vary production origins so
that independent as well as mainstream works were represented; that community-based productions were seen
alongside institutional productions. Because of the international considerations, a wide representation of national and
linguistic origins seemed essential. This included an obvious

"Refroming AIDS", By Pratibho Parmar

During any single time slot at the conference, there were
at least fifteen options for delegates. The programming had
to be constructed to avoid thematic overlap and permit a
daily flow of ideas and exchange. On the final day of the
conference, for instance, a conference delegate could have
gone to the morning oral session on Innovations in AIDS
education and prevention, an early afternoon oral session on
HIV testing and counselling in AIDS prevention, before finishing the afternoon with a video session on prevention which
included videos from three countries: a video for IV drug
users, one for sex trade workers, one for gay men, one for
health care workers, and one for youth.

The interaction of video and the Vth International Conference also included noon hour sessions on various themes.
Three, in particular, Erotica, Sofer Sex and Behaviour

Cosmo",

14

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

- Video Against AIDS

Video Against AIDS

Change, HIV and Ideas: Theatre as o Transmission Mode,
and Music, Performance, and Social Change, used videos to
juxtapose theory with practice. The theatre session included
a video from South Africa which reenacted the use of oversize
puppets in AIDS education. In the third session, a video with
Californian sex trade activist, Carol Leigh-Scarlet Harlot, and
a video by Helarion Ngeuma, popular Gabon singer, were
programmed with an audio tape by New York's Michael
Callen, a slide show from Zambia and a performance by a
mime troop from Trinidad.

The reaction to the sessions, both video and noon hour,
was enthusiastic and extremely positive. Most overflowed with
avid spectators. These official sessions, moreover, were
paralleled with evening round-table discussions by a wide
range of artists and aesthetic activists including videastes,
filmmakers, authors, producers, and critics.

French and Spanish sessions were included in the week.
Interwoven with evening films were a Creole video session,
a session on women and AIDS, a session on culturnl activism
and community development, and a session juxtaposing a
New Zealand Film, Death In the Family, with a video on long
time PWA activist and former Vancouver PWA Coalition
president, Kevin Brown.

"Doctors, Liars and Women : AIDS Activist Say No to

"A", by Andre Burke -

The quantity and variety of work and ideas presented
make it impossible to summarize each session. Much of the
discussion that followed the talks, although insightful, consisted of berating and badgering. People were too often more
concerned with getting their own preoccupations and frustrations out, than discussing with the ideas and products of
presenters. Homophobia constituted the most consistent
point of discussion. These question periods did serve, however, as a ventilation period and a time for periphery analysis
of particular aspects of the main Conference (such as the
video show in the opening ceremonies showing six teenagers
- verging on angels - from around the world) .
Some of the highlights might be discussed in terms of
three aspects of video: cultural practice, educational practice
and aesthetic practice.
Given the overwhelming surfeit of American videos, the
fact that the majority of delegates were American, and a
predominant ethnocentrism amongst Americans present (as
typified in Larry Kramer's post-conference article in the
Village Voice, We come to teach, not to /earn) it is extremely
difficult to discuss video as a cultural practice that is somehow
distinguishable from American cultural practice. One of the
dominant recurring themes of the week, however, was the
necessity of cultural or community specificity in AIDS aesthetic
activism. Californian Jan Zita Grover most eloquently dealt
with this idea, concluding her talk, "until individual artists ally
themselves more consistently with groups already
knowledgeable of and committed to fighting highly specific
local bottles for treatment and against discrimination, most
of their efforts will remain little more than o decorative
commodity."

VIDEO AND THE STH INTERNATIONAL

Global

CONFERENCE ON AIDS:
by Ken Morrison

The noon hour session on eroticism provided insightful
reflections on a specific example of cultural practice: porn
video. Bernard Arcand (Quebec city anthropologist) forcefully argued that a "a society which generates pornography is
probably best suited to face on epidemic such as AIDSN.
Cindy Patton (author and Boston community education
manager), citing examples of specific programmes on which
she works, observed that the slowly proliferating virus and
the remarkable forms of rapid communication, the microscopic and the global, are mutual metaphors. The former,
she noted, risks the production of pan-cultural homogeneity.
She contended that "sexually explicit materials must circulate
within the borders of a microcultureN, but the "use of traditional routes of sexual language con be used as a highly
effective discourse for social change". Simon Watney (British
author and AIDS aesthetic activist) talked about the "crisis of
management of sexuality in western cultureN. He asserts that
educational materials must be developed in the context of
"diversity, choice and what Michel Foucault calls the 'practices of freedom'N in order to deal effectively with all consensual erotic needs. Gregg Bordowitz (Gay Men's Health Crisis)
introduced examples of his recent educational porn saying
"getting the message out is a cultural project which necessitates forms of direct action". Wieland Speck, Germon
filmmaker, showed recent works: some for preceding regular
porn features and one, done in conjunction with the National
AIDS Community Organization, with well-known artists
"visibly" involved in the production to facilitate its acceptance
for use in group discussions.
The evening session on television provided numerous
insights on the use of video as an educational tool. Moderator
Simon Watney set the tone in his opening remarks by
maligning the pervasive practices which, for motives of

"Se Met KoN, by Patricia Benoit - Video Against AIDS

moralism and bigotry, attempt to scare people into patterns
of sexual behaviour, and finish by putting people at risk by
refusing to recognize diversity or by presenting HIV as part
of ordinary life. Shane Lunny, independent Vancouver
producer, evoked the power of drama and presented segments of a recent video for youth. Jon Baggaley, followed
quickly, contending that "drama con be useful but unequivocally not in the case of health campaignsN. Neither the
terrorism or seduction of the slick advertising agencies gives
positive results to a resistant a udience whereas slight humour
or simple, affectation-less, plain speaking messages have
been shown over and over again to be most effective.

Henning Jorgenson presented several clips from a Danish
National Campaign Think Twice about condom usage. These
clips were full of humour and were extremely well received
by those present. Jurg Shaub presented examples from a
Swiss national campaign.

Diffusion mechanisms are indeed a major problem
when discussing video. Television is not necessarily open to
alternative visions. The Conference, moreover, did little to
question or to suggest alternative means of diffusion.
Granted, there was a large attempt to open dissemination:
videos were shown J o delegates on overflow screens
th.roughout lunch hour and, for Montrealers in general, video
clips were shown throughout the week in the bars around
Montreal. Weiland Speck, moreover, talked at length of
prefixing porn videos with short clips. But a larger social space
for videos needs to be found. In the long run it serves no one
that videastes show/tell simply to each other.
Measuring incestuous activity and artistic integrity will be
a continual dilemma, but given the potential power of video
and the devastation caused by AIDS, the time seems ripe for
more self scrutiny and social conscientiousness. Lastly, there
is an enormous need for alternatives to American standards
and practices. Some of the ways that this might be achieved
is through hooking into international networks and exchanges, through encouraging and programming more local
Canad~an and Third World productions, and through concentrating on notions of community specificity.

"The Second Epidemic", by Alisa Lebow and Amber
Hollibaugh

Accessibility as a measuring stick, the Vth International
Conference on AIDS serves to show the shortcomings in
much of the available AIDS video material and in most of the
diffusion mechanisms at present.

Paula Treickler outlined the "seven deadly sins" of network television coverage of AIDS. These included oversimplification, fear and power mongering, a primitive approach to representation, primitive notions of identity, narcissism, cultural imperialism, and what she called the Uriah
Heap Syndrome (obsequious humility and massive arrogance) . Pratibha Parmar concluded the session talking
about the social context of sexuality, racism, and sexism in
Britain when making her video Reframing AIDS. She raised
concerns about the racism that is produced in gay and lesbian
activism and discussed the parochialism inherent in North
American and European AIDS representation and activism.
There is, she enunciated, a definite absence of internationalism in the discussion around AIDS.
Although video as an aesthetic practice related to AIDS
was not specifically discussed during the conference or
SI DART; video, as mentioned, has been primordial in the ·
cultural visualisation and verbalisation of AIDS. Within the
videos presented at the conference, moreover, we saw
several options for video forms. Western videos presented
were often characterized either by traditional documentary
forms or by the use of superimposition. Using images from
dominant mediums (especially television), results in the juxtaposition of images and ideas which attemptto present AIDS
within a larger context. Often these videos functioned in terms
of breaking up the narrative in an aesthetic form of
deconstruction. Many of the videos from the Third World, on
the other hand, did not reflect dominant Western aesthetic
standards and were therefore often less popular.
Th~ video presentations at the Vth International Conference on AIDS seem, on first regard, to hove been a
success. But upon closer examination, is this necessarily the
case? Between dull didactic documentary and indigestible
disjointed deconstruction, where is the accessibility?

"The ADS Epidemic", by John Greyson

IfOUND APACK
OF CONDOMS

-,,

UNDER THE VERANDA ..

\

Given the majority of the videos made available to the
Conference, there is a definite need for imaginative and
digestible alternatives to most of the AIDS videos of the past
few years. That being said, one must mention some of the
numerous exceptions to this rule, such as many of those
presented in Video Against AIDS - John Greyson' s The Ads
Epidemic or the videos shown from Denmark, for example.

-

CONFERENCE ON AIDS:
VIDEO GUIDE 1989

15

....

Global

PINNED AND WRIGGLING: HOW SHALL I PRESUME?
I have learned the hard way how powerful is the person
wielding a video camera.
I became the cynical adult that I am today in the Fall of
1982 and video was the straw that broke this particular
camel's back. I was diagnosed with AIDS in the Summer of
'82 and by Fall had joined the first support group for people
with AIDS ever formed in New York City. At the time, the
American public could not have been less interested in the
fact that a mysterious, deadly disease was making "queers"
drop like flies. A group of us decided that we needed to put
a human face on the disease in order to make the American
public force the government to respond to the crisis.
There was a bitter debate which almost split the fragile
support group. Many people with AIDS argued that television
would only sensationalize AIDS, presenting us as pathetic
victims devoid of humanity. Those of us who eventually went
public argued that while it was true that the media was
sensationalistic, we might be able to harness its tremendous
power to manipulate feeling and public opinion in a positive
way. We thought we understood the risks of taking on the
media machine. Little did we know.
My trial by fire took place in the Fall of 1982. I agreed
to do an interview for CBS National News. A crew of four
showed up at the building where the support group met.
Despite the foct that we had made it clear that they couldn't
photograph the actual group (since most of its members were
adamantly opposed to being publicly identified), they
pleaded and cajoled to be permitted to photograph the group
in progress. They said they'd be willing to put bars over the
eyes so that people wouldn't be recognizable. We were smart
enough not to fall for that one. The three of us who were
willing to go public took the crew into the back room and did
interviews separately.
I remember being secretly thrilled. This was the big time!
I vaguely recognized the woman who was going to interview
me. She must be "famous"! I was impressed to be the focus
of all the frenzy.
The crew set up the lights and took meter readings. A
microphone was tastefully concealed beneath my tie. They
checked sound levels. The famous interviewer touched up her
own make up, but didn't offer to put make up on me.
Looking back, there may have been two reasons why I
wasn't made up: (1) they might have been afraid of catching
AIDS from touching me; (2) as I was to learn, the harsh lights
necessary for video can make a person look very sick and
washed out. Given the topic of the segment, this may have
been the desired effect.
The interview began and I was asked for the first time
the "how does it fee/ to know you're going to die" question
which would be repeated hundreds of times by different
interviewers over the years. I was vaguely aware that someone was writing down the questions she was asking, but I was
more acutely aware of the cameraman aiming this nuge
camera at me.
When she asked her last question, I was ecstatic. I
thought: this is a piece of cake; I really got a chance to say
what was on my mind. I started to unpin my microphone and
she shouted that I shouldn't move because they had to finish
the shoot. I said, I thought we were finished. And she
explained that they now had to film her asking the questions
and get some reaction shots and B-roll.
I was stunned. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks
that there was only one camera in the room and that it had
been focused on me the whole time. Incredulous, I watched
for the first time the way news is usually generated. I saw the
interviewer get several cracks at asking the questions which
her assistant had written down for her. But the questions were
slightly different than the one's I'd answered. I realized with
horror that these modified questions were going to be edited
into the piece and that most Americans wouldn't realize that
the question I would be shown answering was not the
question I had been asked.
As I sat there being mauled by the process, I mentally
reviewed every news broadcost I'd ever seen in the 27 years
I'd been alive. Until that moment, it had never occurred to
me when I was watching an interview or a documentary that
there weren't always two cameras - one recording the
questioner and one recording the person being questioned.
It was my first hint of how news and images and people are

16

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

Michael Callen in "The World is Sick(sicr, by John Greyson

manipulated by video.
When the story aired that night, the first shock was haw
short the segment was: 90 seconds! My portion of the
interview had taken a half hour, and all that was presented
was a 20 second sound byte consisting of two different
thoughts edited together, as if one flowed from the other.
Ishould have known better. Certainly the release I signed
should have tipped me off that the power imbalance between
the camera and the person being videotaped is about as
great as that which exists between a landlord and a person
desperate to find a habitable apartment in Manhattan at a
reasonable rent. I am regularly asked to sign away all my
rights, in perpetuity, and to specifically acknowledge that the
interviewer has the right to do anything s/he sees fit with my
words and image.
Actually, I can be quite mischievous. I know how to speak
in such a way that it is extremely difficult for an editor to twist
my remarks. I sprinkle qualifying phrases throughout my
remarks in an attempt to imbed the context in the footage.
If I'm mid-sentence and I realize that what I've just said could
easily be taken out of context, I'll sneeze or pick my nose or
wave at the camera and say "I'd like to start over, ·please."
I have learned to do my homework before I go before
the camera. Whenever I'm interviewed, I always decide on
one or two points I want to make. I then translate these points
into quotable sound bytes, and no matter what question(s)
I'm asked, I find a way to get my own points across. I've
become quite smooth at it. For example, whenever the
inevitable "How does it feel" question comes, I now use it as
an opportunity to introduce whatever I want to talk about. I
just pause dramatically and say, "You know, that reminds me
of... " and then proceed to drop in my sound byte.
The whole concept of a sound byte amuses me. Interviewers live for sound bytes and I've become adept at

knowing when I've said something that will end up in the final
cut. Most interviewers are completely disinterested in me and
what I have to say. For them, this is just another story another job to do. They've usually preconceived of the
segment and simply need me to keep talking until I say
something which can be twisted to fit the preconceived story.
Ican usually tell when I've given them what they want because
they often smile slightly.
One sound byte anecdote is particularly amusing. I was
being interviewed by someone who had previously worked
in radio. I was her first interview on camera. While the lights
were being set up, we chatted about the story and I said a
number of things that got her very excited. But when we
actually started filming, she didn't feel that the answers I gave
were as good as the ones I'd given during our informal chat.
So she kept asking the same question over and over and
finally began mouthing the words she wanted me to say while
I was speaking. This was very disorienting, since I don't read
lips. I turned to the cameraman and said, "Maybe you should
just interview her, since she seems to know more about what
it's like to live with AIDS than I apparently do."
My favourite part of the video process is getting B-roll. I
find it hilarious and love nothing more than walking in my
neighbourhood or doing the dishes with a camera following
me around while I try to look inconspicuous and ignore the
camera. Actually, I am annoyed that no mainstream
television station has been willing to include any clips of me
being physical or affectionate with my (male) lover. During
the filming of B-roll, they always tell me to be natural - to
just do what I usually do and ignore the camera. Well, what
I usually do around my home is soak up the healing presence
of my lover. I'm like a heat-seeking missile in his presence.
But the moment I touch him in any way which implies that
we're sexual or that we love each other, the producer always
says "Well, I think we've got enough 8-roll now.". Apparently,
gayness is still not fit for prime time. We wouldn't want to
scare the horses, now, would we?

Global

by Michael Callen

I love the fact that European TV crews understand that
people who sell their souls on camera should be recompensed like the prostitutes we often are. If I'm going to put
up with a video crew rearranging my furniture, shutting off
my telephone and a ir conditioner and blowing my fuses, I
should at least get something for my trouble. But American
television crews never pay. It is presumed that in America,
one does it for the glory. What is amusing is that the
explanation given by American crews for not paying for an
interview is that doing so would imply that people were simply
saying what they were being paid to say. This implies that
American journalism is somehow more honest and truthful
because subjects are not paid for their interviews. The real
joke is that the European system of paying is actually more
honest because it emphasizes that most media is simply a
business, and that business is primarily entertainment, not
the pursuit of truth.
Theory amuses me. I love to read it. My idea of a good
time is to sit on the john with the latest volume of postFreudian, neo-Foucaultian French Feminist anti-essentialist
film theory and laugh my head off. What are these people
talking about?
So I am aware that there is a common language of
deconstruction popular among the video avant guard, but I
don't really understand it. So if in my ignorance I have tread
on or naively restate cherished principles, forgive me. My
knowledge about the "corrosive power" of video is first hand,
the result of being regularly constructed as an "AIDS victim"
for the amusement of various video crews and the 6 o'clock
news. I have had to learn the hard way that with video, seeing
should not necessarily be believing.
One has to put up with video because we live in a moving
picture age and images have the power to shape how people
think about, and respond to AIDS. As editor of the People
with AIDS Newsline, I worked closely with lesbian photographer Jane Rosett. We were very conscious of how the
images of people with AIDS published in the newsletter subtly
shaped readers' perceptions about the lived experience of
having AIDS. We made a conscious choice to use the power
of propaganda inherent in photographs to challenge the
prevailing image that AIDS is only about dying. We published
pictures about people who were living with AIDS. And we
made a commitment to illustrating the diversity of AIDS by
publishing photos of woman, people of colour and children.
In an introductory essay to Surviving and Thriving With
AIDS: Collected Wisdom (Volume 2), Jane articulated the
philosophy which guided our choice of images. Although the
following was written about still photographs, the observations apply with even greater force to video, which in a sense,
is simply a series of still pictures strung together:
"For some reason, we believe what we see in a way that
we do not believe what we read ... When we read someone's
words we know them to be an opinion; but when we
see ... photos, we accept them as fact. [P]hotos are ... overcredited as somehow portraying 'the' truth as opposed to
merely 'one' truth. Because we do not question them enough,
photos carry an inordinate and corrosive power which can
be dangerous, especiaf/y when used to tell stories about
AIDS. Dangerous and destructive to the dignity and diversity
of all people with AIDS, none of whom can actually be
pigeonholed into a single image. [We need] to have our
critical guard up and question when we '.read' [images]."
Most people who view video are not aware of the video
editor's tremendous power to manipulate context and content - of, as you would no doubt say, constructing reality.
When I began my bizarre career as a publicly identified
person with AIDS, I was a typical, trusting child of the late
SO' s. Raised on a steady diet of TV. As a midwesterner of
simple faith, I was shielded from the way the world really
works. Like most Americans, I actually believed what I saw
on television because, well, seeing was believing, right? I was
precocious and clever enough to be instinctively suspicious of
anything I read, but for some reason, this natural scepticism
did not extend to television.

I knew that words on a page were edited and censored;
and the main problem with reading was that you couldn't
judge the sincerity of the writer because you couldn't see
her/his face. This is what is so deceptive about video. Because
you can see the face of the person speaking, you think you
can have greater confidence in your judgement about the
sincerity of what you heard and saw. But what is missing, and .
so misleading, is the silent but deadly presence of the video
editor. Rarely does one stop to think that the all-important
context of what the talking head is saying is lying somewhere
on the cutting room floor.

•••
My problems with video aren't limited to what ends up
on the screen; I've had my share of discrimination and abuse
from the crew itself. The most recent instance occurred when
I went to NBC Studios to do an interview about long term
survival. I was asked to wait in one of the guest lounges by myself. I was quite aware that the guests for other
segments were all together in another room. I was aware that
assistants were taking the other guests to have make-up put
on; I wasn't offered the option of make-up. Several
newscasters (some of them famous) poked their heads in to
say hello and were very friendly, but I was aware that I was
being isolated. But because I felt it was very important to get
the message out that not everyone with AIDS dies, I decided
1not to make a stink.
Eventually they came to get me for my live segment and
took me into the studio. I sat and chatted amiably with the
interviewer, with whom I had worked in the past. Out of the
shadows appeared a soundman who tossed a microphone
at me and told me to pin it on myself. I noticed that he was
wearing rubber gloves. I have never met a sound person who
didn't prefer to pin the microphone on a guest him or herself.
I asked him to please do it for me. He refused. The producer
was waving frantically that our segment was supposed to start
in one minute. I looked around the studio and all the people
who had been so friendly to me moments before were
looking down at the ground, pretending that what was
happening wasn't really happening. The woman who was
about to interview me pretended to fix her hair.
I was faced with a terrible choice. I could storm off the
set, I could get angry on camera, or I could swallow my anger,
pin the microphone on and use my minute of airtime to
spread a little hope. Shaking with anger, I chose the latter
course. But I left the studio and immediately called the ACLU.
As a result, NBC was forced to agree to educate its employees
about AIDS.
I should also mention some good experiences, mostly
with non-commercial video. Groups such as the Testing the
Limits Video Collective in New York City and video artists like
John Greyson, Jean Carlomusto and Greg Bordowitz are
acutely aware of how the power of video has been turned
against people with AIDS. These and other politically sensitive
video artists have worked tirelessly to harness the power of
video for the good of people with AIDS.
One example illustrates the point that there is nothing
inherently evil about video; it can be used as a powerful tool
for positive change. I recall how sensitively I was treated by
my friend Stuart Marshall when he did his AIDS video, Bright
Eyes. He actually included me in the process of creating the
video and we had many discussions, theoretical and practical. He discussed the concept with me beforehand and told
me how my segment would fit in the finished project.
He also pointed out something that had never occurred
to me. Originally, he wanted me to simply recreate a speech
I had given in Congress. He wanted to film me in some
ornate, impressive court room he had identified as the ideal
location. But when the government who had given permission to film in the courtroom found out that it was an AIDS
documentary, they decided Stuart couldn't film there. So he
hit upon a brilliant, radical idea. He filmed me giving my
speech while walking in a beautiful rose garden. When he
told me that the location had been switched to a garden, I
was initially disoriented. What was the purpose of giving a

serious speech while walking outdoors?
He explained that most people with AIDS were filmed in
settings that pathologize them - usually in a hospital or
being examined by their doctor. Neither of us could think of
a single example where a person with AIDS who looked
healthy was shown outdoors, much less in a beautiful setting
which didn't suggest disease and death. Stuart said he
wanted to startle the viewer with a new context; he wanted
to emphasize visually as well as aurally that I was living with
AIDS, not dying from it.
Most commercial television and video explicitly and
implicitly reinforce the message that people with AIDS are
victims, and that AIDS is invariably fatal. The founding
statement of the PWA self-empowerment movement (know
as the Denver Principles) is quite eloquent on the need to
constantly challenge the image of people with AIDS as
victims:
"We condemn affempts to label us as 'victims', which
implies defeat; and we ore only occasionally 'patients' which
implies passivity, helplessness and dependence upon the care
of others. We are 'people with AIDS'."
I was at the founding of the people with AIDS self-empowerment movement in Denver, Colorado, in 1983. When
the California contingent insisted that we make part of our
manifesto the demand that we be referred to as "people with
AIDS" instead of "AIDS victims", I must confess that I rolled
my eyes heavenward. How California, I thought.
But time has proven them right. Americans, whose ability
to think has been desiccated by decades of television and its
ten-second-sound-byte mentality, think in one-word descriptors. Someone on the TV screen must be labelled: a feminist,
a communist, a homosexual, an AIDS victim. The difference
between the descriptors person with AIDS and AIDS victim
seems subtle until one watches oneself on TV. To see oneself
on screen and have the words AIDS victim flash magically
underneath has a very different feel about it than when the
description person with AIDS appears. Its very cumbersomeness is startling and makes the viewer ask: "Person? Why
person? Of course he's a person ... " . In that moment, we
achieve a small but impqrtant victory. Viewers are forced to
be conscious, if only for a moment, that we are people first.

•••
I don't like being constructed by video, but I'm unwilling
to allow my personal displeasure to keep me from constantly
challenging America's conceptualization of AIDS and people
living with AIDS. I do what I can to control how I am presented
on video and trust that anyone with half a brain understands
that most of what they see on TV is prepacked pap.
I loathe being pinned and wriggling, formulated in a
f1Xed image by some video editor. I hate to see the context
and complexity of my views distorted. AIDS is an incredibly
complex issue. It is the nature of television and video to shove
off complexity, and so most video presentations of AIDS
suffers from this tension. Ya plays, ya take your chances, I
suppose. But how shall I presume?

fcminisl lhc.,ry

ll.lOlllcn·s writing
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(604)m-m1

VIDEO GUIDE1989

17

Global

MAKING IT: AIDS ACTIVIST TELEVISION

"They Are Lost To Vision Altogether", by Tom Kalin

by Jean

I convinced my employer, Gay Men's Health Crisis, to
send a crew down to Washington to document the events of
the weekend for the Living With AIDS Show. We hod a
demoralizing experience at the . Names Project Memorial
Quilt. As we waited for two hours to get a place on the cherry
picker, (the crone that lifts camera people high enough to get
a wide shot of the quilt), we were constantly "bumped" from
each successive passenger load in order ta let the network
media up. Finally, it was our turn, but the National March
representatives who were operating the cherry picker radically reduced our time so that more network media could get
up there. We barely got our shot.
We then headed over to the rally to get a space on the
media bleachers; but, we were stopped as we went onto the
bleachers by another representative of the National Morch
on Washington. He said: "You can 't go up there until all of
the major media crews have a place. Then if there's room
we'll /et others up." I lost it. "Look", I said, "I've been doing
a show for people with AIDS for the past two years. Where
have they been? Now, they're up on the bleachers and I'm
on the ground/". The representative shrugged his shoulders
and said "I'm just doing my job. ".
Being treated as a second class citizen, not by the
dominant media; but, by the organizers af the Notional Goy
and Lesbian Morch on Washington was truly disheartening.
Although people are starting to take notice of AIDS Activism
and alternative media, there ore pervasive attitudes that the
network media, or the gallery art world, ore still the sacred
cows in terms of being accepted or "making it".
The past several years have witnessed a steady escalation of attacks an the rights of gays and lesbians. The
Hardwick decision on sodomy hos been handed down. Street
violence is up. The AIDS crisis hos shown us what it is like to
be treated as a disposable population, or on invisible one.
Now the U.S. Senate is actively suppressing art work that
depicts the gay and lesbian experience. The assumption is
that by legalizing our oppression they will silence us and drive
us underground. Not so. As AIDS activists become more
informed and effective, individuals and groups ore adopting
more pro-active strategies. We will continue to protest the
censorship af the Helms initiatives.

18

-

Video Against A IDS

Carlomusto

Washington D.C. , October 1987. The Notional Morch
on Washington for Goy and Lesbian Rights.

-

"Danny", by Stoshu Kybartas

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

We shouldn't forget that Robert Mapplethorpe's images
of homoeroticism and S/M weren't the first ones that Helms
went after. Two days ofter the Notional March on
Washington in 1987, Senator Jesse Helms launched an
attack on the Goy Men' s Health Crisis for printing the Sofer
Sex Comix. Censorship is wrong whether its aimed at the
Corcoran Gallery or at on AIDS Service provider. The fight
against censorship in the arts should include supporting
a lternative forms of cultural production. As marginalized
populations we need to think of alternative forums for
presenting information. Public access coble is one of the ways
we con toke direct action to end the AIDS crisis.
As of August 1989, over 90,000 people hove been
diagnosed with AIDS in the United States a lone. City, State
a nd Federal government hove done little to effectively meet
the needs of those who lives ore threatened by AIDS. In the
face of this growing crisis, a political AIDS activist movement
hos sprung up a ll over the country to fight government
inaction on AIDS. All over the country we have seen how AIDS
exacerbates a lready existing problems. AIDS will probably be
one of the catalysts that brings a notional health core policy
to the United States. The AIDS crisis a lso forces us to think
more about democratizing the media. Too few corporations
have control of the information in this country and they ore
getting larger and fewer. How can we expect the dominant
media to break through the racist, sexist and homophobic
government in which it mutually invests?

In contrast to network television, AIDS activist television ·
explores the possibility of production within the context of an
activist movement. Gross root media production is port of the
process of constantly defining and presenting our movement.
The Living With AIDS Show is an example of a growing
number of AIDS Activist media production. Living With AIDS
is devoted entirely to ending the AIDS crisis. The show is
co-produced by Gregg Bordowitz and myself. Our strategy
is to present life saving information about treatments, safer
sex, IV drug use; to document the efforts of AIDS activists and
to provide on analysis of the political, social and economic
conditions that hove allowed AIDS to reach pandemic
proportions. We hove people speaking for themselves about
their experiences. They ore addressing others like themselves
who could benefit from a shoring of knowledge and survival
strategies. The programs central philosophy is that we ore all
living with AIDS.

Activist television such as Living With AIDS doesn't speak
to a "general public" that is presumed to be white,
heterosexual, middle-class mole. Activist television doesn't
homogenize material; it speaks to specifically affected
populations. It is geared to do this because it is created by
these very communities. Living With AIDS not only produces
work; also we curate the works from other community based
organizations such as the Brooklyn AIDS Task Force or LUC ES
(a coalition of latino community activists). We've shown
collectively produced works such as Testing the Limits and
Damned Interfering Video Activist's (DIVA TV) Target City
Holl. We've a lso curated work done in a more personal
framework like Tom Kolin' s They ore Lost To Vision Altogether, Stashu Kobotus' Dann y and Issac Julien' s This Is
Not An AIDS Advertisement.
Recently Ted Koe ppel did a show on Nightline ca lled A
Revolution In A Box in which he hailed the potentia l of small
fo rmat video camcorders. Of course, th roughout on hour of
sensationalizing the prospect of the camcorder, there was
something too threatening to examine - public access
television. The idea that a group can exist a nd generate its
own cultural production outside of the dominant culture is too
hot for even the most liberal producer to handle.
Nightline showed people in Poland's Solidarity movement using small format video as on organizing tool, but it
would not recognize the potential of public access coble.
Over 54% of homes in the U.S. are wired for cable. Many
cable systems have at least one public access channel. These
ore open to anyone living or working in that community, thus,
there is the opportunity for people to present the concerns of
their own communities. Nightline also chose to ignore the
struggle of coble access advocates all over the country who
are trying to get the cable franchises to honour their mandates to provide public access television facilities. The subtext
of Nightline's Revolution in a Box was clear - revolution is fine
as long as it is somewhere else.

As AIDS activists become more informed and effective,
we ore exploring the social, economic and ideological implications of making media. These strategies not only include
toking our activism to the streets. We also need to bring it
bock into the homes. Coble access television provides this
link. Freed from the chains of the network media that
constantly suppress and distort our identities, we can explore
the ways we can use television to present our experiences.

Global

MEDIA NElWORK
An Educational Guide on AIDS Video/Film
by Maria Maggenti, Robyn Hutt, and Sandra Elgar

Ask any independent media producer if they are satisfied
with the distribution of their work and their answer will almost
always be a resounding "NO".
Ask any community organizer or educator if they are
satisfied with the resources available to access information
on "alternative" media and their answers will be equally
negative.

the guide ; in what context it should be used; pointing out
strengths and weaknesses; and suggesting possible audiences. They are the "reviewers" referred to in many ofthe entries
of the guide and their vision, knowledge, and front- line
experience created the standards by which work was included
or rejected.

One organization that is attempting to overcome some
of the disparities between the producers and the consumers
of independent media is Media Network. Located in New
York City, Media Network was "founded on the belief thot
media profoundly influences the woy we see ourselves ond
the world around us." One of their mandates has been ta
produce user-friendly guides to issue-oriented, cultural and
political media. They have produced guides addressing a
wide ronge of topics, from reproductive rights to nuclear
disarmament. Their most recent project, which will be completed before the end of the year, is an educational guide to
responsible and culturally sensitive AIDS film and videotapes.
In January of this year, Media Network distributed nationally a questionnaire which listed over two hundred AIDS
related films and videos. The community groups who
received this questionnaire listed the films and videos which
they are familiar with and could recommend for use in other
communities. It was evident from the responses that the
majority of independently produced projects were not reaching these organizations and subsequently their constituents.
The material in this guide is unique in that it is a
compilation of work that is often hard to find, not well known,
or not widely distributed. It is also unique because every tape
in this guide was assessed by a series of community screenings. Hundreds of hours of film and video were reviewed in
New York City. Participants included People With AIDS, ARC
and HIV sero-positivity, AIDS educators, healthcare professionals, AIDS activists, community organizers, and independent producers. The screenings were loosely divided into
such categories as Women, Adolescents, IV Drug Use,
Coping and Activism. Reviewers evaluated approximately ten
tapes, stating whether or not the tape should be included in

AIDSFILMS LIBRARY
Few effective prevention education programs are being
targeted to people of colour living in urban areas - the
populations hardest hit by AIDS. In the absence of a vaccine,
behaviour change is our only hope of stopping the spread of
HIV. Yet there are very few programs to teach these behaviour changes and fewer that are targeted specifically at
those who need them most.
Vida is a twenty minute AIDS prevention education film
for adult Latinos, produced by AIDSFILMS, a non-profit
education company. Vida pictures the process of empowerment in the life of Elsie, a young single mother, who is forced
to consider her own risk of HIV infection when a former close
friend becomes sick with AIDS. Inspired by the importance of
family in her life, and prompted to take care of herself by a
close friend, Elsie gives her new boyfriend "the hardest
choice" - no sex without condoms. Vido vividly portrays
Latino women within their own communities - at work, in
their homes, at the beauty parlour - reflecting cultural
traditions and relationships which play a vital role in personal
choice and the process of empowerment.
Are You With Me? portrays the relationship between a
mother and her 19 year old daughter and the relationship
both women have with the men in their lives. While effectively
naming the importance of family in African American communities, Are You With Me? also takes on the questions of
condom negotiation, changing sexual habits, and the differences and similarities between two generations of women.
Are You With Me? positively portrays women taking control

"Testing the Limits (Pt. 1)", Testing the Limits Collective

The material in this guide is a wide ranging and urgent
response to the failures of mainstream media to de_al with the
AIDS crisis. The community of video and filmmakers who
have come out of the AIDS crisis have created work that, by
and large, self-consciously attempts to contradict and challenge mainstream assumptions about sex in the age of AIDS,
political fortitude in the age of AIDS, and PWA self-empowerment in the age of AIDS. This takes the form of short, explicit
safer sex tapes for gay men, straight couples and lesbians as
well as longer, more ambitious documentaries that chronicle
the burgeoning AIDS activist movement and the politics of
the epidemic. In addition, as the crisis itself expands and
intensifies, affecting especially communities of colour and
women, there are more and more tapes designed by, for,
and about the particular experiences of Black people, Latin
people, and women affected by AIDS.

Like the People With AIDS self-empowerment movement, alternative AIDS media has often taken as its premise
the necessity of self-representation and self-determination.
Thus, many of the best tapes and films in this guide came
from the inside, as opposed to the curious and often
frightened outside, that informs" mainstream media approaches to AIDS. Yet there are gaps - work that deals with
gay white men still predominates and work that examines
that particular experience of lesbians in the AIDS crisis is still
far from complete. Material designed for communities of
colour is not always empowering or accurate and sometimes
falls prey to stereotype and prejudice. And though women
are the fastest growing group of people with HIV infection
and AIDS, there are still far too few tapes that address women
and women's needs. However, the great strength of alternative media is that it often springs directly from the communities affected by AIDS; and thus, often presents information that is not only genuine and accurate, but often on the
cutting edge of what is happening in the many communities
that are the AIDS community.
This guide is designed as a resource for those individuals
and groups who wish to develop programs about AIDS that
serve not only to inform but to provoke, enlighten, enrage,
and engage audiences. Entries are organized in a simple,
alphabetical format. The index is divided by both subject and
intended audience. Written entries often close with "viewing
suggestions" that offer a possible combination of material
facilitating a dialogue on the diversity arid complexity of an
issue.
By including material which is provocative, empowering,
educational and inspiring, Media Network has attempted to
create a guide that is useful for as many community-based
organizations as possible. Hopefully, this guide will prove to
be a valuable resources for both the communities affected
by AIDS and the independent producers whose work is a
response to that crisis.

AIDS Prevention Education Programs

of their sexual health within the traditions and conventions of
their own communities.
By portraying believable urban teenagers within their
own community settings, Seriously Fresh provides culturally
tailored skills training and scenarios of personal empowerment intended to help teenagers make life saving changes
in behaviour. Recognizing the complex inter-relationship of
issues such as substance abuse, sexuality or peer pressure,
Seriously Fresh adopts a fast-paced range of styles to depict
a range of issues and individuals in a series of related
vignettes.
-Vida, Are You With Me?, and Seriously Fresh are part of
The AIDSFI LM Library, a collection of short prevention films
targeted specifically at urban African American, and Latino,
gay, bisexual, and straight adolescents and adults. The films
are designed to "trigger" emotional and problem-solving
responses in the viewer, and model effective behaviourial
solutions-to those dilemmas. Thus each film helps the viewer
develop a repertory of social and emotional skills for initiating
and maintaining safer sexual and drug use practices, which
they can use when similar situations occur in real life.
To be most effective, AIDSFILMS' prevention programs
are framed in imagery and language that demonstrate
behaviour, are emotionally compelling, and consistent with
the popular television and movies, cultural traditions,
celebrations and interpersonal dynamics these groups
choose to view and live out. These films are written, directed

and produced by members of communities of colour. Finally,
the AIDSFILMS Library is performance based - actively
demanding that porticiponts rehearse and improve the social, psychological and practical skills through which behaviour changes.
The AIDSFILMS Library is being produced by AIDSFILMS,
the not-for-profit education corporation responsible for
producing the critically acclaimed nationally televised films,
AIDS: Changing the Rules, hosted by Ron Reagan, Beverly
Johnson, and Ruben Blades and El Sido: Combiondo Los
Reglos, hosted by Esai Morales, Maria Conchita Alonso, and
Ruben Blades. AIDSFILMS works directly with both an extensive network of community based agencies and individuals;
and, outstanding African American and Latino talent to
research, develop, write and direct each targeted film.

--

-

AIDSFILMS will distribute these films and their accompanying collateral materials an~ discussion guides through a
wide network of affiliations with city and state health departments, social services agencies, and family planning clinics.
For more information contact:
AIDSFILMS
50 West 34th Street, Suite #686
New York, N.Y. 10001
Phone (212)629 6288

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

19

.

Global

SOME NOTES ON

"Testing the Limits (Pt. 1)", Testing the Limits Collective
In a recent protest at the New York Stock Exchange,
Thursday, September 14th, ACT UP* New York demanded
that Borroughs-Wellcome drop the price of AZT. The day
before the protest a producer from a weekly news program,
anxious to have access to this "hot news item", contacted us,
Testing the Limits, to purchase our footage from this event.
Underlining the fact that this protest did not come out of a
void, we suggested that she preview footage from events
which place the Stock Exchange protest within a larger
political context.
On Monday, September 18th, Borroughs-Wellcome announced that it would lower the price of the drug by 20% (still
only a token amount). Later this month the same news
program will open with a segment which discusses profiteering by pharmaceutical companies in relation to potentially
life saving drugs and feature PWAs and other AIDS activists
on its panel of "experts". Ten years into the AIDS pandemic
the influence of marginal communities is being felt at the
centre.
When we refer to centrality/marginality we are basing
this on the suspicion that what is at the centre often hides a
repression. In order to ensure that the status quo remain
intact, those groups who are considered marginal are excluded from the "public discourse". It is true that inhabitants
of the margins ore otcasionally invited into the centre (as the
previous anecdote illustrates). Indeed, the mainstream relies
on counter culture for innovation. The strongest brand of
centralization, however, allows in only terms which could by
accommodated within an argument based on consistency.
As AIDS activists our objective is not to achieve token inclusion
- a ten second slot on the 6 o'clock news - but to radically
affect change.
It would be naive to assume that we are revolutionizing
the system. We still live in a market economy, pharmaceutical
companies continue to make decisions based on profit margins, politicians continue to endorse racist, sexist, and
homophobic legislation which reflects a New Right agenda,
and mainstream media continue to run stories which reiterate
government press releases rather than critiquing their inaction. But we must acknowledge the inroads which are being
made and recognize that the distinction between the centre
and the margins is not as absolute as those in power would
have us believe. Although we do not have the vast resources
or economic stability required to reach a mass audience in a
short period of time, marginal groups, directly and indirectly,
can affect change.
Historically, successful challenges to the status quo
emerge from a collective grassroots response, rather than an
individual effort. In addition to direct action groups, community-based clinics and researchers, and advocacy groups,
independent producers have responded collectively to the
AIDS epidemic. To illustrate this response we will focus on
three New York based media collectives, DIVA TV, Gran Fury
and Testing the Limits Collective. 01'/e should note that
collective production is not limited to these groups nor to New
York City. We hove chosen to write about those groups with
whom we are most familiar) .
Recently there has been a marked interest in cultural
empowerment and the AIDS crisis. We have spoken, ·
alongside other media activists, on panels with such titles as

20

VIDEO GUiDE 1989

AIDS Art Activism: Cultural Empowerment, and AIDS Media:
Counter-Representations. In every instance we are referred
to, and represent ourselves, as producers of alternative
media. This raises the question of what is alternative media;
what are we alternative to and where are we situated.
Setting ourselves up as an alternative, presupposes that
we are the other - we are producing from the margins (as
women we have always functioned from the margins, so this
position is only too familiar) . And in this instance, dominant
media or mass communications are at the centre. This
seemingly negative assumption situates us in a reactive, never
pro-active, position. However, by employing deconstructivist
strategies - appropriating popular conventions from the
mainstream - we recontextualize familiar paradigms. Within
this structure we create our own voices and images. As
conscious producers of agit-prop, our work does not simply
function as a critique - it is used as a tool for community organizing. Challenging the notion that the centre offers the
official explanation, members within communities affected by
AIDS become their own voices of authority. We are no longer
content to sit back and comment on the failure of the press
to understand the impact of AIDS in our communities.
Testing the Limits is a collective of independent media
producers which formed to document emerging forms of
activism arising out of people's responses to massive discrimination, lack of education, pharmaceutical profiteering,
unavailability of healthcare and treatments, and government
inaction in the global AIDS epidemic. Over the last three years
we have amassed over three hundred hours of material
comprised of forums, protests, community outreach, testimony and interviews which constitutes a history of the AIDS
movement which would have otherwise gone undocumented. In addition to producing documentaries, educational videos, and commissioned tapes, we make our material
available to other producers (independent, cable, and network) and community groups.
Just recently we conducted an interview with volunteers
from the People With AIDS Coalition hotline for our forthcoming documentary. This hotline is unique in that it consists
entirely of people with AIDS. It is their philosophy that the
ultimate authorities on AIDS ore those who ore directly
affected by the disease. Several days after the shoot, members of Testing the Limits and PWA Coalition volunteers
viewed the dailies and collectively decided the way in which
they would be represented in our documentary. Subsequently, the coordinator of the hotline is now assembling,
from this material, a short training tape which will be used to
educated new volunteers. This illustrates some of the possible
levels of activism which con occur within one shoot. People
with AIDS can directly affect the construction of their own
images and educate their own communities. Thus, a voice is
facilitated for communities who have been historically denied
access to or representation by dominant media. To be
oppressed is to live without a voice: the potential for disenfranchised communities to organize through the introduction of media should not be underestimated.
We should note that Testing the Limits has been working
within the AIDS activist movement for over three years. We
are not suggesting that acknowledgement from the affected
communities happens without responsible representation of
and/or direct involvement with those communities.

Our primary goal for Testing the Limits: NYC (Port One)
was to create an organizing tape by activists, for activists.
Our decision to produce a broadcast quality tape did not so
much reflect our mandate, as it demonstrated our naive
enthusiasm. We were committed to making every effort
possible to get the information "out there". The response to
the documentary (and to such documentaries coming out of
the AIDS activist community as Women and AIDS [Carlomusto/Juhasz], Doctors, Liars, and Women [Corlomusto/Maggenti]) far surpassed our greatest expectations.
As our strategy for production is documentation through
participation, so too is our distribution strategy - the majority
of our distribution is handled by the collective itself. Although
the art community was the first to respond to Testing the
Limits: NYC (Part One), our initial distribution effort targeted
groups working within the diverse communities affected by
AIDS (many of whom were documented in the tape) . Since
the tape's completion, it has been screened in such varying
settings as; community centres, healthcare clinics, colleges,
universities, galleries, museums, lesbian and gay bars, film
festivals, cable and broadcast television. It continues to be
used for community outreach, and in many instances has
been screened when new direct action groups are forming .
Through such widespread distribution, many communities
· are introduced to grassroots efforts which traditionally go
unnoticed.
One of our goals for community-based distribution is to
disseminate information to as many forums as possible
outside the circuit of commercial cinema. The viewing of our
tapes is just one part of the experience of a screening. Equally
as important as the information contained in our tape, is that
screenings can facilitate a context for diverse groups of
people to come together who might ordinarily never meet. It
is at this point that a screening can provoke participation by
providing a context for discussion.
Growing out of the AIDS activist movement is a new
wave of activist generated media. Most of the members of
Testing the Limits are participating members of ACT UP.
Similarly, Gran Fury and DIVA TV have emerged from its
general membership. DIVA TV is, in fact, an affinity group
within ACT UP, which formed specifically to provide countersurveillance and documentation of the March 28th, 1989,
Target City Holl protest. And this group hos continued to
produce work as a loose association of individuals committed
to media activism.
Over the past two decades there has been increased
access to the tools of mass communication - in part, a result
of the creation and dissemination of less expensive, more
portable film and video equipment. This new technology has
heightened production of independent media at the community level. DIVA TV use their media production as a tool
for direct action. Most members of DIVA TV own or have
access to small format equipment (VHS Camcorders, video-8
and super 8 cameras). Unlike Testing the Limits, they require
almost no budget for production. This enables them to quickly
produce a variety of short tapes which are then circulated
within the AIDS activist community. However, their tapes are
not limited to this community, they have been screened in
galleries and on a weekly Manhattan cable show Living With
AIDS, produced by Gay Men's Health Crisis. Although this
group does not necessarily produce each tape collectively,
they meet regularly to view rushes and tapes in progress in

Global

COLLECTIVE PRODUCTION

"Testing the Limits (Pt. 1)", Testing the Limits Collective

order to share ideas and footage. Their tapes reflect the
multiplicity of images and view points obtainable only when
many cameras are shooting the same event. For instance,
the tape they produced from the Target City Hall demonstration was ordered into three distinct sections. Some women in
the group chose to document women's involvement in civil
disobedience. As they interviewed women being released
from jail, the story emerged of how their civil rights had been
violated by verbal harassment and illegal strip searches (this
abuse was limited exclusively to the women arrested). This
material was edited into one portion of the tape focusing on
women. Another section was shot in a cinema verite style as
the camera person followed one particular affinity group
throughout the entire action. The final section is a broader
analysis of the entire ev~nt. Although this protest received
coverage on almost every network new program in New York
City, DIVA TV's footage was not a reflection on, but rather,
part of the protest itself.
While DIVA TV and Testing the Limits documented/participated in the City Hall action, members of Gran Fury
distributed, to office bound pedestrians, free copies of The
New York Crimes; not to be confused with The New York
Times. Earlier that morning this same paper was placed in
Times vending boxes in the surrounding area. Gran Fury
meticulously reproduced the papers front and bock cover.
But with articles written under such headlines os: "N.Y.
HOSPITALS IN RUINS; CITY HALL TO BLAME", "WOMEN
AND AIDS : OUR GOVERNMENT'S WILFUL NEGLECT",
"WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE OF COLOR? RACE EFFECTS SURVIVAL " , "AIDS AND MONEY : HEALTHCARE OR
WEALTHCARE?" for the first time, readers of The New York
Times actually received accurate AIDS information. This is
only one example of the way in which Gran Fury appropriates
mainstream conventions for an activist message.
Gran Fury consciously works outside a conventional art
gallery context. This philosophy is powerfully articulated in
the centrefold of a catalogue from the show AIDS: The Artists'
Response. "WITH 47,524 DEAD, ART IS NOT ENOUGH. Our
culture gives artists permission to name oppression, a permission denied those oppressed. Outside the pages of this
catalogue, permission is being seized by many communities
to save their own lives. WE URGE YOU TO TAKE COLLECTIVE
DIRECT ACTION TO END THE AIDS CRISIS."
It is impossible to walk more than two blocks in the city
without coming across some remnant of their work. Placed
over a sexist advertisement for Johnny Walker Scotch is a
florescent yellow sticker, "MEN USE CONDOMS OR BEAT
IT", covering the coin slot of a pay telephone is a bright red
handprint with the message; "THE GOVERNMENT HAS
BLOOD ON ITS HANDS ONE AIDS DEATH EVERY HALF
HOUR". Cleverly using advertising strategies much of their

work falls within the parameters of consumptive art. Their
messages can be read on billboards, bus advertisements,
posters, t-shirts, buttons and stickers. (It is important to
acknowledge that most of the profits from sales [many items,
such as stickers and posters, are given away) go directly to
ACT UP). Recently buses in the San Francisco area and in the
boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan have been
sporting a Gran Fury ad which is a direct appropriation of
the United Colors of Bennetton ad campaign. Using signifiers
which are immediately understood within the paradigms of
advertising, they insert a sign conceived to inform a broad
public and provoke action. Pictured are three couples kissing;
a man and a woman, two men, and two women. Above these
couples are the words, "KISSING DOESN'T KILL: GREED
AND INDIFFERENCE DO". In addition is a rejOinder which
reads, "CORPORATE GREED, GOVERNMENT INACTION,
AND PYBLIC INDIFFERENCE MAKE AIDS A POLITICAL
CRISIS". · Much interest has been stirred by Gran Fury's
"Bennetton" ad. It has been reported that Bennetton has
received phone calls requesting their Gran Fury Department.
To say the least, they were surprised to discover that they
have been associated with an ad campaign which they
perceive to be promoting homosexuality. People are taking
notice.

mainstream. I feel that I am helping to build a movement that
is mine rather than fit into somebody else's."
*ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), a diverse,
non-partisan group united in anger and committed to direct
action to end the global AIDS epidemic.
ENDNOTES
1Gayatri Spivak, "Explanation and Culture: Marginalia,"

In Other Worlds Essays in Cultural Politics, Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc., N.Y., N.Y. 1988, pg. 114.
2
It was shocking for us to discover that the ad provoked
outrage, not for its message, but for depicting a black man
kissing a white woman.

We would like ta thank David Meieran for his contin11P.ci

w~~

~

In a city which assaults us relentlessly with sexist,
heterosexist, classist, racist, homophobic images, it is empowering to realize that thousands of people are confronted
daily with messages of popular resistance.
In the preceding discussion we have attempted to
demonstrate how marginal communities are affecting
change. But we must note that the premise upon which this
article is based does assume a certain white middle-class
bias. This is unavoidable as that is our experience and it would
be false to assume that we can speak from any other context,
consequently certain presumptions must be recognized. If a
community or a group from a community did indeed have a
d~sire to produce their own images they would not necessarily
have the means to do so. Video has radically altered the face
of community-based media production. Substantial inroads ·
have been made by communities with regard to media
activism. But we must not delude ourselves, thinking that what
is affordable or accessible to one group is similarly affordable
or accessible to all groups. However, creative, often collective, strategies are being tried all the time: victories may be
hard won but change is imminent.
Speaking at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
town meeting in Washington, D.C., Maxine Wolfe, a member
of ACT UP, articulated a growing sentiment among AIDS
activists; "For the first time, rather than feeling that I am ·
reading from exclusion and responding from the margins, I
feel that I am acting from my center but not from the

VIDEO
GUIDE

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

21

Global

DO IT!
by Jean Carlomusto
and Gregg Bordowitz

"Midnight Snack", by Jeon Carlomusto and Gregg Bor dowitz, GMHC.

Safer Sex Porn For Girls and Boys Comes of Age
Reprinted from Out Week, August 28, 1989
The scene is o kitchen. Middle of the night. A guy gets
up to get o snack. As he probes the refrigerotor, he is joined
by his lover who gives him o rim job through o dental dam .
One of the guys then licks whipped cream off the other's
balls. Finally, one rolls o condom onto the other's cock,
squirts honey all over it and sucks the hard, candied cock.
In o living room, o woman is lying on the couch watching .
television and masturbating with o vibrator. She looks up to
see another woman standing over her holding o towel which
she unfolds to reveal dental dams, gloves, sex lube and o
dildo. One girl goes down on the other, using o dental dam.
The other dons o glove and proceeds to finger-fuck her
partner.

This is our job. As the audio/visual deportment of the
Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), we're charged with the
task of producing safer sex video educational materials for
the purpose of getting the message out that you can have
hot sex without placing yourself at risk for AIDS. These videos
are to be instructional. They have to demonstrate how specific
acts, such as anal, vaginal and oral sex, can be made safer.
The material has to be culturally relevant - rendered in ways
meaningful to specific audiences. Lastly, the material has to
exist in a form that makes it easy to distribute as widely as
possible. And, with all this to consider, we still have to make
the girls wet and the guys ho rd. Not the easiest task. But we' re
driven. To start, we had to come to a clear "safer sex"
definition.
Safer sex of course is a means of disease prevention. But
too often discussions of safer sex are reduced to debates
solely about various modes of HIV transmission - debates
which overlook the fact that there are many other sexuallytransmitted diseases and viruses that may compromise one's
immune system. Safer sex then is a set of individual decisions
one makes about one's sexual life in view of one's health
concerns. And since pleasure - the ultimate goal - also
contributes to one's well-being, the message has to make
clear that any sexual act can be made safer; that we can
safely get laid, get it on, get off and do it!

--

The safer sex videos we produce are a series of "shorts",
approximately five minutes each. The shorts are like music
videos - extremely slick images rapidly edited in a variety of
ways, on different formats, to resemble some of the most
current trends in video production. The shorts are non-narrative in structure, and dialogue is kept to a minimum, as
every explicit scene is guaranteed hot and explosive.
Each video is designed by a task group which chooses
the scene, the situation and the acts to be performed. Each
group produces a short with specific community or audience
in mind. There is a Black men's task group, a Latino task
group and a lesbian task group. In addition, there are
scenarios developed to represent the many ways we all get
turned on: anonymous sexual encounte·rs (two boys meet and
fuck safely in a public bathroom); bisexuality (two girls and
two guys get it on safely sharing sex toys as they work out an
infinite number of possibilities); sadomasochism (heavy
bondage and discipline between two BIG MEN) ; and drag (a
drag queen fucks her hairdresser before the show. Safely, of
course.)

22

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

A guy in cop drag is showing his nightstick to o construction worker-type. The construction worker rolls o condom
down the shaft of his night stick, squirts lube on it and bends
over. The cop sticks it up the workers ass. Then the roles
switch. The worker uses leather straps to put the cop in
bondage. He puts o condom on his erect cock and ass fucks
the cop. When finished, he puts on o glove and fist fucks the
cop. End.

Although we will all admit to having fantasies, few of us
ever disclose what it is exactly that is running through our
heads as we make love or masturbate. We are very protective
of our fantasies for obvious reasons. Our partner may feel
threatened if the fantasies don't involve him or her, or we
fear that bringing these dark fantasies into the open will
somehow lessen their clandestine allure. We internalize our
own brand of homophobia that shies away from images of
sex because they seem inappropriate. Instead, these images
are locked in our minds where they stay suppressed, except
during moments when we want to fan the coals. As safer sex
educational video makers, we must employ fantasy to teach
about sex.
The recognition of lesbian sexuality, as well as the Centre
for Disease Control's persistent refusal to include data on
woman-to-woman transmission of HIV, were the primary
motivations in creating the lesbian safer sex video Current
Flow. Lesbian identified sex positive imagery is scarce. While
there are hundreds of porn tapes for gay men, there are few
created for lesbians. Although many videotapes depicting
lesbian sex created for straight men are available on the
shelves of even the most mundane video rental stores, only
a few tapes trickle in from the West Coast mode for, by and
about women . And even fewer of these deal with safer sex
for lesbians.
This is both oppressive and dangerous because in order
to educate lesbians about safer sex we have to establish what
it is. Saying "use a dental dam" is not the same as saying
"use a condom" since many women don't even know what
a dental dam is. And how could they possibly know? It is a
latex square manufactured for dentists performing oral
surgery! (People such as Denise Ribble and the women of
ACT UP's Women's Caucus are getting the word out hat this
little square of latex can preventtransmission of HIV and other
sexually-transmitted diseases and viruses in vaginal/cervical
fluids, or in menstrual blood. This task is enormous.) Our goal
was to show some ways lesbians could have safer sex acts.
In o short for black men who have sex with other men,
directed by Charles Brack, o businessman gets into a cob.
The driver flirts with him. He reciprocates. When they arrive
at the destination, the man in the suit can't find his wallet.
Searching his pockets for money he finds some condoms. The
driver accepts this currency and fucks his fare on the back
seat. Taxi!

Undoubtedly, the AIDS crisis necessitated revolutionary
action by the lesbian and gay community. Countering the
repressive forces behind the state-sponsored "just say no"
campaigns, the community produced its own discourse about
sexuality. Now, with this experience in mind, safer sex education must be developed to address ever-widening circles of
people among the communities hardest hit by AIDS. Resources must be made available for communities to develop their
own forms of education.

The purpose of the shorts is to function as advertisements
for safer sex. They can be used in bars. They can be
distributed to supplement other porn tapes as trailers. They
can be compiled onto one tape and edited with supplemental
information in a video safer sex workshop. Lastly, they can
be presented at safer sex teach-ins as the instructors find
appropriate.
Safer sex educational video is a form of direct action.
We recognize that sexuality cuts across socially-constructed
boundaries between races, classes and genders. We make
representations that legitimate specific acts - anal, vaginal,
oral sex - and we create an atmosphere conducive to sexual
experimentation. In the face of increasing censorship amidst
a morally conservative climate, we militantly advocate sex in beds, kitchens, bars, restrooms, taxis, anywhere you want.
If it's safer sex, do it! That's the message.

I

I

II ;! I •IJ'l ! :r{·l I1'2 #:Ill
OPEN HOUSEi
Friday, December O ne
Noon to Five P.M .
1

Sat urd ay, December Two
Eleven A .M . to Five P.M .
Come help us celebrate the official
opening of our new offices at

1272 Richards Street
.,.. Spea kers, Videos, Poster Displav
Call 687-S220 for more information

FILMSI
Friday, December One
,,..THE BOYS IN THE BAND

Saturday, December Two
,,..PARTING GLANCES
M idnight screenings
Pacific Cinematheque
·1131 Howe Street
Suggested donation per film: S4
All proceeds go to

WORLD

AIDS
DAY

DECEMBER ONE, 1989 If.

Global

"SPREAD THE WORD"
Interview with Australian producer Tracey Moffatt

by Sue Jenkins
Tracey Moffatt of Australia, was recently in Vancouver
for the In Visible Colours International Film and Video Festival
- organized by Women In Focus and The National Film
Board - where several of her videos were screened. ("A
Change of Face", "Nice Coloured Girls","Watch Out'', "Solid
Women", "Spread the Word")
Sue Jenkins: Could you tell me about how you first got
involved in visual media?
Tracey Moffatt: I studied filmmaking at the Queensland
College of the Arts in Brisbane, Australia. In 1983, I moved
to live in Sydney and worked as an independent photographer and filmmaker, producing my own projects and
photographic exhibitions, as well as projects for Aboriginal
organizations. In my own work, in the three mediums of
photography, film, and video, I'm trying to depart from a
realist representation of Black Australia. For example, I'm not
wanting to produce conventional documentaries or dramas
about Aboriginal people. I'm continually trying to explore film
form . When I talk about or present my work, as I have at this
Festival I like to include my health videos because I consider
them as important as my art video and film.
You produced "Spread the Word" three years ago?
Yes, it was partly a response to the Australian
government's Grim Reaper commercials. People needed
something informative, that didn't scare them. I was approached by the Aboriginal Medical Services who asked me
to produce a video that would educate Aboriginal people
about AIDS. The title comes from an AMS poster that reads
"Spread the Word, Not the Disease". The messages in the
tape are very clear, and misconceptions are thoroughly
discussed. I was told to assume that they knew nothing about
AIDS, so that's how I approached the it.
You are well established as an independent producer
working in Australian television, so it follows that they would
ask you to do it. How did you go about your research?
Pat Swan, an Aboriginal psychiatric nurse with the
Aboriginal Medical Services, and a doctor, gave me the facts
on AIDS, and I wrote the script, and produced it. Although,
the information in the tape could probably be updated
somewhat, it's still effective in getting basic messages across.
The tape has been well received. It's been sent to all the
Aboriginal organizations in Australia, including community
groups and art centres, and medical services screen it in their
waiting rooms. For some it's purely educational, for others
it's entertainment. People can get together and watch it on
their home VCR' s.
It's a very colourful video! You used a blue screen
studio ...
Yes, I like being in the studio, and using chroma-key. In

the studio situation there's a lot of control, and I like it that
way. It took us two days to shoot Spread the Word. All the
people involved were non-actors who I casted because White
casting agents aren't connected to Aboriginal people.
Did you have a lot of control over how and what you
shot, and the editing of the video?
Yes and no. I had to have the script approved by the
entire staff of the Aboriginal Medical Services. Although I
originally had the gay boy appearing as the first character in
the video, I eventually re-arranged the order because there
was concern that this character might offend the Christian
black community. It was actually a very collective process.
Everyone at the AMS was involved, but after awhile, I just had
to say "Okay, that's it - no more changes, I've got to finish
this video!"
What was the budget for this production?
We had $30,000 to work with. The video (9 min) cost
$1 7 ,000 to make, and we used the rest of the money to make
posters, and dubs for distribution. The World Health Organization has bought 1000 copies of Spread the Word to
distribute in English-speaking African countries that can not
afford to make their own videos. The video is meant for
Australian Aboriginals, but at least African people are able to
have black people talking to them about AIDS.
We had a huge opening and a good press conference
when the video was finished. The white press gave us very
positive coverage, as did the Aboriginal press.
So, you might be asked to do another video on AIDS, an
update ...

a voice for
Vancouver's
lesbian
and
gay
community

••
Angles
welcomes
new writers
and artists

Yes, well I do act as a consultant for all kinds of projects,
and I'd certainly be interested in helping out, though I haven't
been approached yet. I have just completed a video about
Hepatitis B and immunization called It's Up To You. It educates people about the dangers of Hepatitis B and the
importance of immunization. This virus is running rampant
in the Australian Aboriginal community, probably due to
living conditions, lack of hygiene, and then unprotected sex
with an infected partner.

1170 Bute Street
Vancouver
V6E 1Z6

Can you tell me a little about Sydney, Australia and some
,of the current attitudes around the AIDS crisis?

688-0265

Well, Sydney is the 2nd largest gay city in the world, after
San Francisco. In February, we have a huge Gay Mardi Gras
Festival that goes all the way up Oxford Street. For awhile
back there, it got a little quiet, but there's since bee11 a
resurgence of gay pride. Lots of people come to the Festival,
families ... everyone. In Australia, we have freely available
condoms, and free disposable needles in some pharmacies.
There's even condom earrings!

ULISES CARRION

1941 - 1989

"/ don't understand why people still have problems
about what is art and what isn't... AI/ of it already existed.. .what artists have done is to give intention to those
existing forms and placed them in a historical context.. .I pick
out of my reality those elements which are important to
me .. peop/e, media, processes ... / don't work with material or
objects anymore, but with cultural phenomena ... Don't you
think that my gesture, my choice of Lilia Prado, is just as
arbitrary as Duchamp's gesture?
.. .Lilia Prado is my readymade!"
- excerpt from Video In Schedule of Events, April/BS

Lilia Prado was a Mexican film star during Carrion's
youth. The tape Lilia Prado - Superstar is a mix of documentary and acted accounts of the Lilia Prado Superstar Festiyal
which Carrion organized in Holland in 1984. It concentrates
on the complexity of events around the "star" syndrome.

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

23

--

-

~--

Global

SAFER
SEX
SAFER SEX is anything you do that does
not involve the exchange of sexual fluids
between partners.
Protected intercourse means fucking with a
condom on, before any penetration - vaginal and/or anal.
The latex condom creates a barrier and helps prevent the
transmission of the Human lmmuno deficient virus (HIV) and
other sexually transmitted diseases (STD's).
Masturbation, or jerking off alone or with another
person (or persons!) is perfectly safe because no sexual fluid
gets inside the other partner(s).

Kissing, as deep as you want to go is not a risk for
HIV transmission. It is possible to pick up other germs (mono,
herpes) from mouth to mouth contact.

A condom can only be unrolled and used once. If you
stop to take a break or take it off - start fresh with a new
one.

2. Minimal possibility of HIV transmission
Every few minutes check and feel for the bottom ring of
the condom, or if the sensations change while you are
screwing, stop and check that the condom hasn't broken or
slipped off... lf it has, start fresh and use more water-based
lube, or try something else ...
It' s safer to ejaculate or cum outside of your partner,
even if you do wear a condom during penetration and
intercourse. Sexual fluids outside or on a body pose no risk.

This information is reprinted from a pamphlet from AlbS
Vancouver, a non-profit community organization that
provides support services to people with HIV and AIDS, and
education and prevention to the public. For more information
about Sofer Sex or AIDS coll AIDS Vancouver Helpline 687AIDS.

Squeeze any air out of the top of the condom, leaving
space for the cum to go.

Massage, body rubbing and other skin-to-skin stuff
is perfectly safe. Before there could be a risk of HIV transmission, the sexual fluids of one partner would have to get into
the other person's open bloodstream, inside their anus, penis
or vagina. Try using warm oils and lotions between you just be sure to clean up any oil before using condoms
later... oil and rubber don't mix.

Some condoms come prelubed with gel or a fine dry
powder. You'll need to use lots more water soluble lubricants
(KY Gel, K Gel, Probe) to prevent friction and increase
pleasure. Never use any oil based lubricants (vaseline, baby
oil, hand lotion) since oil damages the condom and causes
it to break.

Gently unroll the condom down the penis, smoothing
any air out the bottom.

After sex, hold the base of the condom. Withdraw gently
and throw the used condom in the garbage.

frame. Check out some of the other hidden spots: ears,
necks, armpits, breasts, nipples, ankles, feet - the list goes
on and on ...

You have to have an erection before you try to put on
the condom. If the penis isn't hard, it's too early.

Acting out fantasies is a dream come true! Pick

Avoid any penetration before you have the condom on.
Disease can be transmitted without orgasm or ejaculation.

a time when you will be uninterrupted (depending on the
fantasy) and set the stage. Make sure all sex toys (dildoes
etc.) are cleaned with hot water and soap (or a wash of l /l 0
bleach) before sharing and inserting inside the other partner.
Better still, use individual condoms or get enough toys so
everyone gets their own!

It's all in how you say it:
• Safer, safe: means the things you do hove little or no risk
of spreading HIV.
• HIV, Human lmmlino deficiency Virus: The virus thought to
cause AIDS.
• STD's Sexually Transmitted Disease: There ore more than
30 dangerous diseases that con be spread when having
unprotected intercourse. HIV may top the list, but there ore
epidemics of syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhoea, hepatitis and
others.
• Oral sex means any kind of mouth contact with your
partner's sexual organs (penis, vagina).
• Sexual intercourse or fucking means penetration of the
vagina or onus (rectum) .
• Cum is the sexual fluids of a man or woman, before orgasm
for lubrication or ofter orgasm when semen is ejaculated from
the man. The actual moment of orgasm is sometimes called
Ncumming".

Condoms when used properly are the only
effective protection against both disease and
pregnancy. They come in different textures,
colours and even flavours. Try out different
brands and find the ones you like best. Because they are made of rubber, condoms
stretch - onesizefitsall. Therearebrandsthat
have a snug fit, and there are extra thick
quality, ideal for anal sex.
Every condom in North America is electronically tested
before its sold - most breaks and failures ore due to human
error. A safe is only as good as the user.
Most boxes of condoms have a clearly marked "expiry
date" on the outside. If they are stored in a cool, dry, place
they will last 2 or 3 more years.
Don't keep condoms in your wallet, car, or pocket too
long. Changes in temperature and handling can cause them
to break down later, when you want them to work.
Open the package carefully, first pushing the ring of the
condom away from the corner you're tearing. Watch out for
sharp rings and fingernails!

24

VIDEO GUIDE1989

Theoretical risk ............ ... ......... ....... ..... ............ ......... .. yes
Evidence of transmission ......... .... ....... ........ ..... ..... .... none
Low possibility of HIV transmission
Theoretical risk ...... ..... ........ ......... ..... ............. .. ......... .. yes
Evidence of transmission ......... .. ........ ......... .. ... ... .. ... .. small
3. Very high possibility of HIV transmission

Nonoxynol-9 is a spermicide chemical that also hurts or
kills HIV and some other viruses. There hasn't been much
research about long term use and side effects.
Because the anal tissues
are highly absorbative, it may be dangerous, over time, to
use this kind of chemical. If you use condoms well, and cum
outside your partner's body there isn't much chance of
exposure to the tissues where transmission occurs.

Oral sex is safest when you create a latex barrier with
condoms or dental dams. As long as there are no sores,
ulcers or bleeding in your mouth, going down on someone
without a latex barrier is a low risk for HIV infection. Wait an
hour after flossing before giving a blow job.

Skin is the largest organ of the body and covers a wide

Theoretical risk. .... ........ ......... ......... ....... ... ....... ..... ... . none
Evidence of transmission ... ... ...... ... ... ...... .. .. .... .... .... .... none

If the man is not circumcised, pull the foreskin back. A
small dab of water-based lube on the head of any penis will
add sensation and pleasure.
Condoms only unroll one way, so check which side is
up, and which way goes down.

UNSAFE
SEX
UNSAFE SEX is having penetration and intercourse
(anal and vaginal) without a latex condom. This puts both
partners at risk for any STD'S the other person may have.
EXPOSURE TO SEXUAL FLUIDS during oral sex
from a man or woman (even swallowi ng) is a low risk for HIV,
but it could put you at risk for other diseases: herpes simplex,
syphilis, and gonorrhoea.
ORAL ANAL CONTACT, or rimming, is when the
mouth or tongue make contact with the anus, and can put
someone at risk for hepatitis, parasites and other germs.
DIRECT CONTACT WITH BLOOD from another
person should always be avoided, and treated carefully.
Fresh flowing blood has to get directly into someone else's
bloodstream before there is a chance of HIV transmission.
Blood can carry lots of other risks - hepatitis is 100 times
easier to get.
SAFE SEX GUIDELINES FOR LESBIANS
Most lesbians do not have a high risk of contracting or
transmitting the HIV virus at this time. For lesbians, learning
and practising safe sex is the healthiest way to stay sexually
active and prevent AIDS from growing in our community.
Lesbians at Risk for AIDS

l . Lesbians who share needles or any other paraphernalia
(spoons, works, syringe) when using IV drugs. This is the
single most important risk category for lesbians.
2. Lesbians who have had unprotected sexual contact with :
- men who have been actively gay or bisexual since 1979,
- people of either sex whose sexual histories are unknown,
- people who use IV drugs,
- people who are hemophiliac, or who have received blood
transfusions between 1979 and 1985.
3. Lesbians who have received blood transfusions or blood
products between 1979 and 1985.

Theoretical risk ...... ........................ ....... .. ... .. .... .... .... . high
Evidence of transmission ... ....... ..... ... ............. ........ .... high
Sofer Sex Guidelines for Lesbians
No possibility of transmission of HIV: Massage, hugging,
social (dry) kissing, voyeurism, masturbation, frottage or
tribadism (body-to-body rubbing), exhibitionism, body licking
and kissing (except mucosa! linings), erotic bathing or
showering, unshared sex toys, nipple stimulation (without
drawing blood), external urination, external defecation,
receiving cunnilingus with a barrier•, receiving anilingus with
a barrier, S/M or virtually any other activity that does not
involve the exchange of body fluids.
Minimal possibility of transmission of HIV: Wet kissing,
. performing cunnilingus without a barrier outside menstruation, receiving cunnilingus without a barrier, performing
cunnilingus with a barrier, performing or receiving anilingus
without a barrier•, finger-fucking (giving or receiving) with or
without latex glove, fisting• (inserting or receiving) with glove,
ingestion of feces.
Low possibility of Transmission of HIV: performing cunn i Ii n g us without a barrier during menstruation,
sadomasochistic activity where blood is drawn and proper
blood precautions are followed**.

Very high possibility of transmission of HIV: Sharing sex
toys without proper cleaning or without protection (i.e. use a
condom and remove and replace ,if shoring), sharing drug
injecting equipment (or works) or skin piercing needles
without proper cleaning•••, finger-fucking (both giving and
receiving) without gloves, when hands have cuts and
abrasions.
Breast milk is a proven vehicle of HIV transmission from
mother to baby, although it' s thought to occur rarely.
• barrier - It's easy to make a latex barrier from a
condom. Using scissors, cut off the reservoir tip, and cut
along the condom. Now you hove a square piece of
transparent latex. Otherwise, dental dams ore available from
your dentist! Finger cots ore available at most major pharmacies and the wholesale price is $3.25 for 144 finger cots.
• onilingus without a barrier : con put someone at risk
for other diseoses:herpes simplex, syphilis, and gonorrhoea.
•• blood precautions: prevention of the exchange of
blood, and avoidance of blood on the partner's body.
*** cleaning with hot water and soap or a wash of 1I10
bleach
Additional note - Fisting: "The practice of inserting the
hand or fist into the rectum or vagina, is not by itself on
e fficient means o f HIV transmission. However, studies indicate a high level of correlation between receptive manual
intercourse and HIV infection. This is due to the extensive
trauma which fisting causes the anal or vaginal canal ... if
followed by the use of shored sex toys, fisting results in a very
favourable environment for HIV transmission. This is so even
ofter a single episode. The trauma to the mucous lining may
lost for several weeks ofter the event". (Canadian AIDS
Society)

If you have sex with men, learn about, and always use
a condom.

If you have a new sexual partner, learn about her history,
and share your own. Do either of you fit a high risk description? Your responsibility is as vital as your new lover's to reveal
important information about exposure.
AIDS antibody test ; Certain specific AIDS antibodies
tests con help you find out whether the AIDS antibodies ore
present in your system. You con coll your health deportment
and ask where you con get on anonymous AIDS antibody test
that will be as specific as possible to your concerns.

This information comes from three sources : the
Women's AIDS Network/San Francisco AIDS Foundation, a
pamphlet by Mr.and Ms. Leather of Vancouver, and
predominantly from the Canadian AIDS Society's Safer Sex
Guidelines: A Resource Document for Educators and Counsellors/1989 (a 43 page document with numerous appen dices) . If you are confused (and in B.C.) call AIDS Vancouver' s
helpline at 687-2437, or the B.C. Centre of Disease Control
at 660-6170 (828 West l 0th Avenue).
SAFE SEX ENVELOPES supplied by AIDS VANCOUVER and
the P.W.A. Society.
Condoms courtesy of the B.C. Centre for disease control.

l . No possibility of HIV transmission

''ALL PLAYER
LD
H
BE
ER ''

....

MIND ALTERED

MEDIA

©

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

25

•

World Health Orpni:ation
Regional Office for the Amt:rias/

Telephone:
Teleliax:

Pan .~erian Saniwy Bureau

Telex:

:3td

;25.
Sireet. N.W.
Washmgrcn. D.C. 2003i
United States of America

THIRD ANNUAL Ams CONFERENCE
An Interprofessional Continuing Education Program
For Health Professionals, Educators and Counsellors

•

(The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power]

November 26, 27, 28, 1989

UBC

~

RGHT BACK. RGHT AIDS!: ACTIVIST WORK ·1 first
became aware of ACT UP wrote curator
Bill Olander of The New Museum (New York),
like many other New Yorkers, when I saw a poster
appear on lower Broadway with the equation:
SILENCE= DEATH. Accompanying these words,
sited on a black background, was a pink trianglethe symbol of homosexual persecution during the
Nazi period and, since the 1960s, the emblem of gay
liberation. For anyone conversant with this
iconography, there was no question that this was a
poster designed to provoke and heighten awareness
of the AIDS crisis. To me, it was more then that it
was among the most significant works of art that
had yet been done which was inspired and
produced within the arms of the crisis.11

Hyatt Regency Hotel
655 Burrard Street
Vancouver, B.C., Canada

Division of Continuing Education in the Health Sciences
The University of British Columbia

NAT EVENTS
SEE TI-IE QUILT AND UNDERSTAND

Suppon The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt

•

AIDS VancouverThe NAMES Project
#509- 1033 Davie Sttcet
Vancouver, BC V6E- IM7
(604) 687-2437

GLOBAL EVENTS
The 4th lntemational /"~
Contemporary Art Fair ..r~. \r-.·.i,
December 7-11, 1989 · · ·
Los Angeles
Convention Center

•

Worid Health Organuat10n
Regional Office ior the Eastern
POBoxl5li
Alexandm :1511
Egypt
\liorid Health C~i:auo~

Telephone:

Teleiax:
Telex:

ietepnone:

R~1ona1 ...)ff1ce ror !'Kluttl·~t .~1a
Teleiax:
~·aric:i Heaim House
M~terranean Teie."<:

lncirao=ma Estat•
~cma Gandhi R<>ad
'-'ew Delhi ; ! OOC2
lndia
•

World Health Ory.iru:anon
. Teleph.>ne:
Regional Office ior the ~iestem Pactiic Tei.ia>e:
PO Box 2932
Teiex:
1099 Manila
Philippines

48-202 23. '48-202 24
1:03) '48-38 916
5'!028, 54684

33 1· ;504
i9 \l J}l-S6Ci
3 l ·6; •.J95

521-8421
(63Z ) 521-1036
276;2

AIDS
A worldw;de effort will stop it

VENUES

Donations to:

The Canida Quilt wu the bnin-child ofHaligonian Plul McNait, who iYd seen The Quill
on television and decided IO volunteer hil nelp 11 ilS Bosion stop. Paul came blck resolved
to orglllize a UlUI' nonh of the bonier. an a:·bitnry line of demarcation 1n the face of a disease
that knows no boundaries. The Canida Quill tour began in early June in Halifu and has
'1opped in MonllCll, Onawa. Toronto. Winnipeg and Calgary before arriving in Vanc~uver.
Canlldian panels will have been added aloog 1he way, and upon the 1our's completion will
form a new Quill comprised solely of Canadian oanels. as many as three itundred in all. sadly
represenang only approximately~~ of all those Canadians who have died of AICS.

(202) 861-3200
(202) ID-5971
248 338or+400S7

SllENCE= DEATH
William Olander

inaugural endeavor. tho Fund has made a
con1ribution in Bilrs name to ACT UP-tho
AIDS Coalition To Unloash Power-while its
affiliate organization, Gran Fury. is contribut·

voRt<-Bill Olander, Senior Curator al
Tho New Museum ol Contemporary Art in
New York died on March 18 from complica-

NEW

tions of AIOS His rteep concern for anists
and their work, his unorthodolll and incisfve

CORPORATE GREED,
GOVERNMENT INACTION,
AND PUBLIC INDIFFERENCE
MAKE AIDS APOLITICAL CRISIS

ing to thl!t Museum a neon rendering of their

now famous "Silence= Death· symbol. Origi·
nally a part ol ACT UP"s hr rhe Record
Show...• curated by Bill for tho Museum's
Window on Broadway in 1987, the neon sign ·
will be a umi·permanenr installation in rhe
Museum'• lobby, visible through tho lobby
window from the street.

approach to cur a ring, and his commitment to
the Museum have made 1 lasting impact
Ir. recognition of his provocative curerorial ..ision. The New Museum hes esllb·

lished lh• William Olander Memorial Fund
for 1ho purchase and support ol works and
projac1' in 1he fields ol pho1ography, video,
performance and culhlral activism. As its

-from a letter by Marcia Tucker.

New Museum Oirtttor

PUBLIC INFORMATION by GRAN FURY is conceived to inform a broad public and provoke direct action
to end the AIDS crisis.

Over 2,500 guests will attend a spectacular $150ticket Gala Preview on December 6th of ART/LA89 The
4th International Contemporary Art Fair. Los Angeles
Pediatric AIDS Consortium, supporting children and
mothers with AIDS will benefit.

)
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World Health Organi zation
Global Programme o n Al OS
Health Promotion Unit

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What is
World AIDS Day?
World AIDS Day i.s a day on

CREATIVE TIME CITYWIDE is made possible with
public funds from the National Endowment of the Arts,
New York State Council on the Arts, New York City
Department of Cultural Affairs,and with private support
from the Chase Manhattan Bank, Chemical Bank,
Citibank, Con Edison, The Cowles Charitable Trust, LEF
Foundation, Mobil Foundation, Philip Morris Companies,
Inc., The Plumsock Fund, and Creative Time's Members
and Friends.

OAIOa'
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whichcocxpandandscrengthen
the worldwide effort to stop ~ ~
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AIDS. It means talking about
~
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HIV infection and AIDS. car- • ~
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ing for people with HIV infection and AIDS. and learning
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aboutAlDSrosustainandrein~CE ~ S

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force the global effort to stop its
spread.

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BOL INT
"IONAL
SYMBOL
'.RNATIO
\IDS SYM
\JTERNAT...__ _ __

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J "lease cut me on >he Worlci .•IDS Doy moiling lisr.
:i 1 om already on rhe mailing 1ist.
?•ease send me o Worlci P.IDS '::oy Action Kil ;n: :J ~nglish
N<:me
Orqonizanon
~dciress

I om planning !he following -~sl

r.,, Worid AIDS Ooy:

L----------------------~

World Health Organi:ation
20. Avenue Appia
CH-11 l1 Geneva 27
Swtaerland

Telephone:
Tela:
Tele&x:

791-2111
415416
791.0746

• World Health Orpnization
Regional Office for Airica

Telephone:

83-38-60

Tel=

5217 or 5364

•

POBoxNo. 6

Br=aville
Cmgo

26

:J French

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

Just for the Record is a television show that was first
broadcast in May of 1987. Its conception was fuelled by
a defeat of a city ordinance which would have banned
discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. This
defeat - by a vote of 5-2 - served as a compelling
reminder of the overwhelming amount of fear, hatred
and ignorance in the public attitude towards
homosexuality.
Just for the Record is intended to be educational,
informative and entertaining. It is aimed directly at the
gay community, but strives to be of value to the community as a whole.
Since its inception, 37 programs, each 30 minutes
long, have been aired on the New Orleans Public Access
Channel. We have covered a broad spectrum of topics,
concentrating mainly on local issues. We have also
covered various issues concerning AIDS.
For more information write: JFTR, P.O. Box 3768,
New Orleans, LA 70177, USA

SCANNING SCANNING SCANNING GUIDE
DISTRIBUTE

STD

Y9.~J.t{P

Street
Smarts

INNER CITY
151 Gerrard Street East,
Toronto, Ontario M5A 2E4
(416) 922-3335.

STD Street Smarts is a 30-minute educational video
produced by, for and with "street youth" by the STD
Prevention Project of Youthlink-lnner City. With frank
language and explicit imagery this video addresses difficult issues such as sex and injection drug use in the age
of AIDS. It is non-judgemental in its portrayal of young
people acquiring, using, and sharing knowledge about
safe sex and needle use.
STD Street Smarts is accompanied by a comprehensive facilitators' manual.
It is available for $20/copy (including manual) from
Youthlink-lnner City (cheques or money orders should be
made payable to Youthlink-lnner City.

V!TAPE

Our goal at Dawn House Society is therefore to
establish a free-standing hospice in order to provide
compassionate and dignified care to those persons in
the final stages of Al DS . Dawn House Society will
provide a viable option for Al DS patients where none
currently exists west of Toronto, realizing that
when one's disease is no longer responsive to the
traditional aims of cure and prolongation of life,
providing care and comfort can be just as significant.
To obtain further information, please write or
call:
Dawn House Society
1130 Jervis Street
Vancouver, B.C.
V6E2C7

BOOKS
..

CANADIAN

AIDS

...

.

SOCIETY

§!2

Please enclose payment with order {price
includes postage and handling). Make
cheque/money order payable to: Canadian
AIDS Society. Send to : CAS Distribution ,
SOCIET!:
CANADIENNE Box 55, Stn F, Toronto, ON M4Y 2L4,
Canada.
DU SIDA

(604) 688-3955

SEXUALLY-

TRANSMITTED
DISEASES
AND1HEUSE

NETWORK

OF CONDOMS

Carter Products, 6600 Kitimat Road, Mississauga,
Ontario LSN IL9

+

The Video Data Bank
We are very proud to announce a new VHS video
compilation entitled VIDEO AGAINST AIDS - a three
tape six hour collection of some of the most inciteful,
informative and moving works on AIDS by independent
producers. VIDEO AGAINST AIDS comes complete with
a full set of program notes written by Bill Horrigan and
John Greyson with cassette jackets designed by Gran
Fury. Request your free brochure.

This three program set is for purchase only in VHS.
VTAPE

VIDEO DATA BANK

183 Bathurst Street, 1 at Floor
Toronto, Ontario MST 2R7
(416) 863-9897

280 South Columbus Drive
Chicago, llllnols
USA 60603

or call toll tree:

1~

[The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power]

E'l ~ ~·l il lift
0 I ha¥e enclooed a check for
-

$20

-

$.'J()

-

$100

_other

D Please acid IT\V name to :p.1r mailing list

ACT UP, 496-A Hudson Street, Suite G4, NYC 10014

8lExACliiii°ifi
From 1986 to 1988 the World Health Organization
helped establish a foundation for concerted action. At the
national level, AIDS committees have been formed in
virtually all countries and active collaboration with WHO .
has been realized in support of national programme ·
development in over 150 countries. AIDS information
and education are of major significance in all of these
programmes.

--

A worldwide effort will stop it.
TESTING THE LIMITS, a collective of lesbians,
gays, and straights. formed to document AIDS
actMsm-people's responses to government
Inaction on AIDS. The collective Is committed
to alternative media production which supports the efforts of all people affected by AIDS.
For purchase or rental of tapes, donations.
or more Information, send to:

Artist Milton Glaser designed this AIDS symbol and
poster for WHO. Printer's slicks and camera-ready copy
of the poster and information brochure AIDS: A
worldwide effort will stop it are available in French,
English and Spanish (brochure and poster) and in Russian, Arabic and Chinese (poster only) for reproduction
by AIDS health promotion programmes. Other art work
to symbolize the phrase Na worldwide effort will stop itH
is in preparation.
If vou wish to be added to the mailing list for AIDS Health Promonon ExclJ•ng•pleese fill
this form and retum to WHO/SPA. CH-1211 Geneva 27. Swi12ettand.
......£
J09TITU

31 W. 26th St.. 4th Floo~
New York NY, 10010
(212) 545-7120

-

INSTITUTION - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - AOORESS

STREET

STAT£
COUNTllY

LANGUAGE

PWA
COALITION

l\HO

Naflonal Hospice Organiz:mton

VANCOUVER

P.O. Box 136,
1215 Davie Street,
Vancouver, B.C. V6E 1N4

On behalf of the Board and Members of the Vancouver Persons With Al DS Society and the Advocacy
Committee, we would like to thank you for your
support of the "Fantasy AIDS Rally".
This rally and the support it generated was very
encouraging to everyone involved. A better tonic than
a month of A.Z.T . Thanks again for your participation and commitment.
A tax receipt can be issued for any donation over
$20 to the Vancouver PWA Society .

~

/0°~fDs I /

~S~f"O;
v;I)

Oo

The International Development Research Cen1:e is a
public corporation created by the Parliament of Canada
in 1970 to support research designed to adopt science
and technology to the needs of developing countries. The
Centre's activity is concentrated in six sectors: agriculture,
food and nutritional sciences; health sciences; information sciences; social sciences; earth and engineering
sciences; and communications. IDRC is financed solely
by the Parliament of Canada; its policies, however, are
set by on international Board of Governors. The Centre's
headquarters are in Ottawa, Canada. Regional offices
are located in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and thlr"Middle
East.
Please direct requests for information about IDRC
and is activities to the IDRC office in your region.
ll•ad Offict
IDRC, P.O. !lox 8500, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada KlC 3H9
R•gional Offict for Southu•t and Ea•t A•I•
•
IDRC. Tanglin P.O. !lox IOI, Singapore9t24, Republic of Singapore
R•gional Off let for South A•la
IDRC, 11 Jor Bagh, New Delhi 110003, India

TESTING THE LIMITS

RESOURCE

.

A Resource Document for Educators and
Counsellors

The National Hospice Organization updates its
a·udiovisual catalogue on programs that deal with many
aspects of core for the terminally ill.
We are searching for programs that include, but ore
not exclusive to, the following categories: counselling,
social services, bereavement, AIDS, nursing and clinical
issues, financial planning, management and volunteer
development.
Would you please send us either a catalogue of your
productions or fill out that attached form for programs
that would be appropriate for inclusion in the publication.

Mail to: National Hospice Organization
1901 North fort t1ger Dr .• Suite 307
Arl1n9ton, YA 22209
Attn: Audiovisual Catalogue

Rtgional OHict for E.. lrm and Southtm Africa
IDRC, P.O . Box 62084, Nairobi. Kenya
Regional OHict for th• Middlt Ea•I and North Africa
llJRC/CRDI, P.O. !lox I~ Orman, Cl7.a, Cairo, Egypt
Rrgional OHict for W~l and Ctnlral Africa
CRDI, 8.P. 11007, CD Annexe, Dakar, Senegal
Rrgional Ollie• for Uitin Amtrica and th• Caribbran
CllD, Apartado Mrro 53016, llogotl, D.E.. Colombia

Learning AIDS
The long-awaited
and completely up-to-date edition
of the only reference source of its kindlisting over 1,700 AIDS educational
and reference tools
Published by
The American Foundation for AIDS Research
Issue Price: $24.95

R.R. BOvVKER
THE INFORMATION REFERENCE
CQ\1PANY

·~~:

' 7 ·: 'B

245 West Seventeenth Street
New York. NY 10011~1

1-800-521-8110

--·

-.·
.

'4""\~

in Canada, 1-800-537-8416
in New York, Alaska, Hawaii
call collect: (212)-337-6934

.ioi~~J.~'
~- ..::~ ·

... ' '

~~~4MR
~

/

14,R

World: R.R. Bowker (U .K.) Ltd.
P.O. Box88,
Borough Green, Kent TN15 8PH,
England. Telex: 95678 Fax: 0732 884079

VIDEO GUIDE 1989

27

1102 Hoiner Street

Vancouver, B.C.

~·

-

1102 HOMER STREET
VANCOUVER, B.C. V6B 2X6
(604) 688-4336