The success of the TV show It’s A Sin exposes the failure to learn the lessons of the past

The success of the TV show It’s A Sin exposes the failure to learn the lessons of the past

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But this is not a sequel in a story by an overloaded Covid wing. The year is 1985 and this is a scene from “It’s a Sin”, a British television miniseries that explores the AIDS crisis over a period of ten years through the lens of those who lived it.

The parallels between the devastation caused by AIDS and the tragedy of Covid-19 today are clear. Thousands of lives lost, people dying alone in the hospital, without the opportunity to say goodbye to loved ones, staying only with the medical team to offer comfort in their final moments. Funerals without crowds of mourners, misinformation and confusion about the growing crisis spread quickly across the world.

But – when it comes to the public health response – have governments and politicians learned the lessons of the past?

Marc Thompson, who was diagnosed with HIV in 1986 at the age of 17 and now works to promote public health in underprivileged communities in the UK, does not think so. “I have not yet spoken to a government minister working on Covid’s response who asked the question about what we learned from the HIV and AIDS crisis,” said Thompson.

Even if the comparisons are obvious, the context is different. At the height of the AIDS crisis, many victims died alone, not out of fear of contamination – although they certainly existed – but, as the series by writer Russel T. Davies makes clear, out of shame.

Funerals for victims of Covid-19 are infrequent because the coronavirus thrives at social gatherings, regardless of whether it is to celebrate or to celebrate. Many AIDS victims were buried alone simply because of the stigma attached to those who contracted the disease.

Nurses with PPE care for patients in a California ICU. The parallels to the AIDS era are clear.

When one of the gay characters on Davies’ program dies of AIDS complications, his family gathers to burn clothes, photographs, books and memories, as a way to uproot them – and the shame that was so commonly associated with the disease – from their lives.

There are also marked contrasts between crises.

“Only when the UK government woke up to the fact that the heterosexual population would be at risk [from AIDS] Did they really speed up their response to the threat of the crisis, “says Lisa Power, co-founder of Britain’s leading LGBT lobby group, Stonewall, and a consultant on” It’s A Sin “.

“One of the reasons why there was such an immediate response to Covid is because it affects the general population. It is much more random than HIV in those who infect,” she says. “Everyone has a grandmother. But not everyone had a gay friend at that time, and not everyone has a gay friend now.”

Response to AIDS hampered by homophobia

Thompson says the lack of urgency in responding to the AIDS crisis occurred largely because “the bodies most affected were those that were not valued”.

HIV and AIDS activists in the UK say the fact that the response to coronavirus was significantly more timely than the reaction to AIDS boils down to widespread homophobia and a social and political disrespect for marginalized groups.

“ACT UP and Larry Kramer used to refer to AIDS as a negligent genocide,” said Ben Weil, a PHD activist and researcher on the exclusion of gay men from the blood donation programs of the UCL science and technology department in London . “Covid is a genocide of people clinically vulnerable and handicapped by negligence.”
AIDS activists in the 1980s complained about a weak government response.
Power says that the press in the 1980s and 1990s fostered a culture of shame around HIV and AIDS, while the (mistaken) belief that heterosexuals were not at risk encouraged a lackluster reaction by UK governments and United States, led at the time by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan.

“The press, and the tabloids in particular, were essentially saying that this disease would only affect gays and ‘drug addicts’ [intravenous drug addicts] and it wasn’t something to worry about, because they didn’t matter, “says Power.

Weil agrees that the media – on both sides of the Atlantic – played a key role in influencing the seriousness and speed with which the two diseases were addressed. “When 100,000 people died from Covid in the United States, it was the front page of The New York Times, but it took several years and many AIDS-related deaths for them to make the AIDS crisis a standout story,” says Weil.
He argues that the fundamental difference between responses to AIDS and Covid-19 depends on who society at large, and particularly those in power, believes deserves protection. “Every risk is political,” says Weil. In the early stages of the AIDS crisis, gays were not seen as a priority. In the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, many nations were slow to respond to the threat of residential facilities for the elderly, with devastating consequences.

For those who have gone through both crises – particularly those who remain part of the battle against the stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS, the sheer contrast in responses, highlighted by “It’s a sin”, is revealing – but it’s the similarities, and the repetition of serious mistakes of the past, which concern them most.

It’s a strange time to watch “It’s a Sin,” says Thompson. It is both an “emotional clock, occasionally stimulating and fun,” he says. The series – which has received very enthusiastic reviews in the UK since its launch in January – will be aired on HBO Max in the United States from 18 February. (CNN and HBO share the same parent company, WarnerMedia).

Watching "It is sin" Can be "emotional, stimulating and fun," an activist says.

Throughout the series, there is exuberance and euphoria shared among members of the LGBTQ + community as they navigate between their late teens and early twenties at loud parties and what Thompson describes as “dirty little pubs where the dance floor sits next to the bar “.

However, where there is blatant pleasure and delight in “It’s a Sin”, there is also sadness when the shadow of AIDS that hangs over the first episode gradually envelops the characters.

The series generated a positive and perhaps unexpected benefit for public health: activists in the UK used their success as a launching pad for new campaigns around the importance of HIV testing and treatment effectiveness. The enthusiastic cast of the young gay actor program conveyed this message in TV interviews and publications on social networks.

Still, like AIDS, Covid-19 robbed us of collective joy and suddenly forced us to face trauma and death daily – and how the parallels between the two epidemics don’t end there, with some important lessons from the past remaining unaware, HIV and AIDS activists are experiencing a sense of déjà vu.

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