How to Survive a Plague – Film Review

Silence = Death.

David France’s 2012 Oscar-nominated Best Documentary tells the story of two late-1980s New York gay activist coalitions — ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group) — who wouldn’t shut up till America took notice of the AIDS epidemic an did something about it.

All their campaigning in the mid-90s turned AIDS from a 100%  death sentence into a manageable condition through demanding that the country spent more money on research and the scientists focused on getting the drugs out to the sick ASAP and helped them to focus their attention of what really mattered. The result was eventually the drugs cocktail that helps so many people live. Six million people are alive today because of what they did back then.

This is an important and inspiring documentary, and it’s right to be proud of and celebrate these gay activists and their friends, colleagues and sympathetic scientists who made a difference after years of campaigning. The survivors tell their stories, and with pride. These are real heroes, and the villains like the Catholic Church, the greedy drug companies, Ronald Reagan (who by 1986 hadn’t mentioned the disease publicly), Mayor Ed Koch, homophobic senator Jesse Helms and George Bush are carefully named and shamed.

(C) Derek Winnert 2013 derekwinnert.com