Although treatment and awareness of HIV/AIDS seem like a given at this point of time, it is true that just a short 30 years ago, thousands of people were fighting for their lives due to a pandemic that was battling to be publicly recognized, let alone named. The film, And the Band Played On, directed by Roger Spottiswoode and based on the novel written by Randy Shilts, depicts the HIV/AIDS outbreak and the social ramifications that the pandemic caused. A majority of the film is told through the perspective of a group of doctors and researchers from the American Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and their struggles to find solid scientific proof and causation of this outbreak in order to bring about proper awareness, treatment, and prevention. During their attempt to find the source of the pandemic, the doctors and researchers enter in a number of battles with certain political, science, religious, and social figures which stand as obstacles towards finding the agent and solution for this outbreak. This paper will discuss the invaluable job And the Band Played On has done to educate about the AIDS/HIV pandemic while also discussing the greater societal and cultural impact it made on the country and its citizens.
Before moving onto other aspects of the film, this paper will first take a look into how the medical and scientific terminology, backed by fear-inducing imagery, accurately portrays the severity and spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The filmmakers are not afraid to bring scientific language into the movie, which serves to increase the educational value of this film. The movie begins with one of the main characters, CDC Dr. Don Francis, witnessing the virulence of the Ebola fever that ravaged the Ebola River valley in central Africa. An image of dead bodies, along with that of the sole dead doctor, being thrown into a fire with dramatic music playing in the background is shown. The words over this image say, “The Ebola Fever outbreak was contained before it could reach the outside world. It was not AIDS. But it was a warning of things to come”. This image sets a serious tone and also places a sense of fear into the minds of the viewers, foreshadowing the destructiveness of what is coming. This image repeated throughout the movie, reminding the viewers that although the deaths of the HIV/AIDS virus are hidden behind the sterile walls of hospitals instead of in mounds of deceased bodies, the casualties, and mass death is still the same. With the knowledge that the AIDS pandemic was equivalent to that of the Ebola scene they have just viewed, the viewers are primed to watch the rest of the film knowing that they are witnessing the workings of a viral outbreak. The rest of the movie accurately outlines the first recognition of an outbreak, the attempt to find the agent of the outbreak, and their public health surveillance of the disease. Periodically throughout the film, the number of diagnosed cases and deaths in the U.S. is shown on the bottom of the screen. The number drastically increases as the film progresses. Along with this, there is an image of a map of the United States with the infected states being highlighted that often appears in the background of many scenes. As the doctors are striving to find proof for their hypotheses, more and more states are highlighted on the map. Both of these tactics are used by the director to portray the virulence of the disease. The more time that passes, the more the infection spreads and the more deaths occur, which showcases the severity of the doctors’ and researchers’ battle against time. In conjunction with this imagery, there is a scene between the CDC doctors in which they are discussing new statistics and state that “the mortality rate can turn out to be 100%”. This statement leaves the doctors speechless and the dramatic silence that follows highlights the immensity of the extremely high death-to-case ratio. There are many scenes such as this that occur between the doctors in which scientific and medical terms are used. Even if the viewers do not understand these medical terms, the fear-inducing and dramatic imagery and music effects clue the watcher into the gravity of the outbreak. By expertly linking the science to fear imagery, the filmmaker is able to create a film that is scientifically and medically educational while still allowing those not fluent in medical terminology to follow the destructive nature of the outbreak.
It is impossible to have an accurate portrayal of a plague without including the greater cultural and societal impacts. And the Band Played On does a meticulous job of including these impacts of the plague including the themes of God’s wrath, disrespect of the rule of law, and the suppression of individual liberties for the greater good. The main protagonists of this film, the CDC doctors, and more specifically Dr. Don Francis, encounter many battles from political, scientific, religious, and social groups. From the political front, which can also be linked to the religious opposition, we see a complete ignorance of the epidemic at hand. Conservative and religious political leaders deny that the epidemic is occurring and do not give resources or awareness to the outbreak since it is only majorly affecting a social minority group, the homosexual community. The religious figures believe that it is God’s way of punishing the homosexuals for not listening to his rules. One religious figure in the film even states “[the] gay plague that’s sweeping across our country. Say, God is not mocked. You can’t fool God. You break all His laws and God Almighty will judge you”. Without the recognition and resources being allocated by the government, the protagonists were at a major disadvantage in completing their goal. The medical community also found opposition among their own coworkers. Instead of being focused on finding a cure for the disease, highly-respected Dr. Gallo was more focused on finding wealth and notoriety for himself, even if it meant ignoring the laws and telling lies. This was shown in the film when he stole findings from French scientists and skewed data in order to fit his previous studies, a prime example of one of the many cases of information bias that played out throughout the film. Finally, there is even opposition from the targeted cohort of people that the CDC is attempting to “save” from the epidemic, the homosexual community. In one scene of the film, the CDC is attempting to close down the bathhouses in San Francisco since that is where the high-risk group had the highest incident rate or risk of getting infected. These bathhouses were a gathering space for the gay community, and since the virus was thought to be sexually transmitted, the CDC believed it would be beneficial to close down these bathhouses in order to prevent further transmission of the disease. The gay community was outraged with this proposal, and since the government was failing to label and bring awareness to the epidemic, the proposal from the CDC looked like an attack on their individual liberties which were already so endangered, to begin with. In spite of all of the opposition, the end result was a mass unification and social activism from the gay community. As the last line in the film states, “Since then, through political activism, the gay community has brought about changes in many government AIDS policies and spearheaded the creation of a vast network of organizations to deliver services for AIDS sufferers”. This was the catalyst for the fight for equality and gay rights.
Director Roger Spottiswoode does a skillful job of bringing author Randy Shilts’ novel to life in a film that has proven to have massive educational value to future generations. Not only is the scientific portrayal of discovering an outbreak and the arduous trials of finding the index case, proving hypotheses, and creating a cure exceptionally accurate, but the greater social and cultural consequences of the pandemic are all finely incorporated. Starting off the film watching the mass destruction the Ebola fever caused in a third world country, and then comparing it to the immense amount of death caused by the HIV/AIDS virus in America, made it extremely hard for me to watch the film at times. When I saw how our country had all of the technology and knowledge to help its people, unlike in central Africa, yet was barred from doing so by certain governmental and interest groups, I was infuriated. When a country is divided and there is miscommunication and lies being told, nothing can be solved, no matter how grave or dire it seems. The ending, however, gave me hope that during times of grave danger, with proper communication and unification of the people, there can be steps made in the right direction.