And the Band Played On

Recently, I have been reading a lot about the AIDS crisis, starting with Douglas Crimp’s Melancholia and Moralism, which is fantastic. In one of Crimp’s essays, “How to Have Promiscuity in an Epidemic,” he critiques Randy Shilts’ book As the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, a journalistic book about the crisis. Crimp writes that Shilts irresponsibly places blame for the crisis on gay men and promiscuity, particularly in his creation of “Patient Zero.” I wanted to read And the Band Played On because I’ve been reading so much critical writing about politics and art in the AIDS crisis, but I don’t know much of the history. I was also interested in reading the book to see if I agreed with Crimps’ critique.

I’m almost 200 pages in now, and I think Crimp was definitely right. It’s clear from Shilts’ focus on promiscuity as what is at fault. For example, he repeatedly refers to bathhouses as “the commercialization of promiscuity,” to the point where it almost becomes a euphemism. On a few occasions, he describes gay men who were promiscuous before anyone had even heard of AIDS as “playing on the freeway.” For example: “Perhaps the new virus was like some lurking jungle predator, striking the stragglers first. That would explain the extreme life-styles of the early cases; they were out dancing in the freeway, ensuring they would be the first to get run over.” (153). On page 157, Shilts writes, “Jim Curran passed up the opportunity to meet Gaetan, the Quebecois version of Typhoid Mary. Curran had heard about the flamboyant attendant and frankly found every story about his sexual braggadocio to be offensive. Stereotypical gays irritated Curran in much the same way that he was uncomfortable watching Amos n’ Andy movies.” (157) Here, gay men acting “stereotypical” is equated with blackface. Perhaps a more appropriate metaphor would be straight men acting a gay men and portraying these stereotypes, but that is not what is happening here. Curran is a straight doctor who is the head of AIDS research at the CDC. Shilts has created a story where a straight doctor is one of the heroes of the AIDS crisis, yet expresses such offensive sentiments. He wants to save gay men’s lives, but he doesn’t want to meet them if they act “stereotypical.”

What I actually like about And the Band Played On is how (unintentionally, I presume) campy the writing is. For example, Shilts writes, “The sun melted the morning fog to reveal a vista so clear, so crystalline that you worried it might break if you stared too hard.” (11). Or, a few pages later, “His body was superbly toned. He carried himself with increasing confidence, much like the body politic whose ideals he was articulating.” (14). Personally, I find this writing laughably bad. This amusement is helping me enjoy the book through the offensive sentiments.