Review of How to Survive a Plague (2012) by Marco P — 03 Aug 2013

At first I was shocked to see such a liberal movement behave as if it were condoning the Beer Hall Putsch of Adolf Hitler. These people were on the streets, pushing others around, muscling their way into clinics and pharmaceutical companies in a very aggressive fashion. They were dying of AIDS, at the time an incomprehensible disease that seemed to affect mostly gay men. They wanted to continue living their lives, that's why they were fighting and demanding for a cure.

I was turned off, to say the least, by this documentary. It reminded me of why I didn't like interacting with militant gays in the US-- they can be very loud and overly dramatic to the point you can't get a word of reason in anymore. Even the platform back in the day was vague: FIGHT AIDS. What the hell does that even mean? How does one fight AIDS? The only way I see it is by not having sex, and if that can't be achieved, be very careful who you sleep with or just be monogamous. The impression I got from these people was that they knew they were living bohemian lifestyles that were anything but boring, they wanted to fight the disease by finding a cure so they can keep living bohemian.

I gave this three stars because the resolution they have in the end is that they realized that throughout the 80s and half of the 90s they were naive enough to think that they can demand cures of people, which instead backfired.