Positive Images: Gay Men and HIV/AIDS in the Culture of 'Post Crisis' (Library of Gender and Popular Culture)

A tidal wave of panic surrounded homosexuality and AIDS in the 1980s and early '90s, the period commonly called 'The AIDS Crisis'. With the advent of antiretroviral drugs in the mid '90s, however, the meaning of an HIV diagnosis radically changed. These game-changing drugs now enable many people living with HIV to lead a healthy, regular life, but how has this dramatic shift impacted the representation of gay men and HIV in popular culture? Positive Images is the first detailed examination of how the relationship between gay men and HIV has transformed in the past two decades. From Queer as Folk to Chemsex, The Line of Beauty to The Normal Heart, Dion Kagan examines literature, film, TV, documentaries and news coverage from across the English-speaking world to unearth the socio-cultural foundations underpinning this 'post-crisis' period. His analyses provide acute insights into the fraught legacies of the AIDS Crisis and its continued presence in the modern queer consciousness. Cover 1 Author bio 3 Endorsement 4 Series information 5 Title page 7 Copyright information 8 Epigraph 9 Tables of contents 11 List of Illustrations 13 Acknowledgements 15 Series Editors’ Foreword 19 Introduction 21 Belated Diagnosis 23 Crisis/Post-Crisis 27 ‘Post-Crisis’ 34 Chapter Outline 40 Crisis Discourse 46 AIDS and Metaphor 49 Queer 51 Characterology and the Legible Body 53 Epidemic Histories and Literary Genealogies 56 Meaninglessness 63 Melodrama 64 After Antiretrovirals 66 1 Gay Redemption 67 ‘The Big A’ 67 The Gay 90s Revisited 72 Abjection and AIDS 81 The Next Best Thing 83 Watering, Working and Not Wearing Much 88 Look What Happened to Me 95 Abject Lessons 103 2 Positive Men Are from Mars, Negative Men Are from Venus 109 ‘Sero-melodrama’ 109 How Queer is Queer as Folk? 113 Perfect, Except for One Thing 120 Positive Men Are from Mars, Negative Men Are from Venus 131 Melodrama, Narrative Complexity and Post-Crisis Ambivalence 142 3 Crisis Re-Runs Barebacking, Chemsex and Post-Crisis Sex Panic 145 Chemsex 145 Déjà vu 150 What is Barebacking? 153 The Neal Hearings 165 ‘HIV Man’ 167 ‘Re-Crisis’ 171 Neoliberal Biopolitics and the Logic of Epidemic 177 Ambivalent Afterlives 180 4 AIDS Heritage in The Line of Beauty 184 Queer High Pop Heritage 188 The Heritage Debates 190 Heritage Ga(y)ze 195 Homeless Love 203 Belonging 207 Eviction 211 AIDS Heritage and Post-Crisis 216 5 AIDS Retrovisions Dallas Buyers Club and The Normal Heart 221 Turning Away 221 Turning Back 225 Updating Sentimental Melodrama in Dallas Buyers Club 229 After the Orgy: The Normal Heart as Teleological AIDS History 233 Backward/Forward 239 Conclusion 242 Notes 257 Introduction: Crisis/Post-Crisis 257 1 Gay Redemption: Domestication and Disavowal in The Gay 90s 264 2 Positive Men Are from Mars, Negative Men Are from Venus: Sero-Melodrama in Queer As Folk 268 3 Crisis Re- Runs: Barebacking, Chemsex and Post- Crisis Sex Panic 272 4 AIDS Heritage in The Line of Beauty 279 5 AIDS Retrovisions: Dallas Buyers Club and The Normal Heart 283 Conclusion: Feeling Generational 284 Bibliography 287 Film and Television References 304 Index 307 A tidal wave of panic surrounded homosexuality and AIDS in the 1980s and early 1990s, the period commonly called'The AIDS Crisis'. With the advent of antiretroviral drugs in the mid'90s, however, the meaning of an HIV diagnosis radically changed. These game-changing drugs now enable many people living with HIV to lead a healthy, regular life, but how has this dramatic shift impacted the representation of gay men and HIV in popular culture? Positive Images is the first detailed examination of how the relationship between gay men and HIV has transformed in the past two decades. From Queer as Folk to Chemsex, The Line of Beauty to The Normal Heart, Dion Kagan examines literature, film, TV, documentaries and news coverage from across the English-speaking world to unearth the socio-cultural foundations underpinning this'post-crisis'period. His analyses provide acute insights into the fraught legacies of the AIDS Crisis and its continued presence in the modern queer consciousness. A tidal wave of panic surrounded homosexuality and AIDS in the 1980s and early 90s. With the advent of antiretroviral drugs, however, the meaning of an HIV diagnosis changed radically. These transformative drugs enable people living with HIV to lead a healthy, regular life. But how has this shift impacted the representation of gay men and HIV in popular culture? Positive Images is the first detailed examination of how the relationship between gay men and HIV has transformed in the past two decades. From Queer as Folk to Chemsex, Dion Kagan examines literature and visual culture across the English-speaking world to unearth the socio-cultural foundations underpinning the 'post-crisis' period. His analyses provide acute insights into the fraught legacies of the AIDS crisis and its continued presence in the modern queer consciousness--back cover.