How Did Buckett Pursue Discrimination Against Individuals With HIV/AIDS?

Philadelphia is a drama film written by Ron Nyswaner illustrating the cultural stigmas of HIV in the 1990s. This film was released in 1993 being one of the first films to acknowledge homosexuality and HIV. The premise of this film is surrounding a court case regarding discrimination of sexual orientation against a fictional character, Andrew Buckett (Tom Hanks). As Andrew Buckett was only recently diagnosed with HIV and had been a closet homosexual for many years meaning none of his colleagues knew about his sexuality or condition (Nyswaner, 1993). After the law firm discovers Buckett’s secrets, he is abruptly fired for “failure to turn in paperwork.” A germaphobia lawyer, Joe Miller (Denzel Washington), after some research and great consideration, decides to represent Buckett in his lawsuit against his previous employer. I would like to examine the metaphors surrounding HIV within this film and how that attributed to job discrimination against individuals with HIV. …show more content…
In 1992, the FDA began to approve a larger variety of antiviral drugs beyond AZT (Lopez, 2006). In 1990, President George Bush senior was anti-HIV and gay. He had implemented a policy against the entry of HIV-infected person into the country. At this time, no one diagnosed with AIDS was expected to live past 18 months (Lopez, 2006). Andrew Buckett, an AZT user was having adverse affects and was not expected to live much longer (Nyswaner, 1993). Lesions were a large indication of HIV at this time. Buckett developed multiple lesions on his face, which is how, in the film, Buckett was accused of having HIV and presumably gay, which resulted in the loss of his