Longtime Companion Film Analysis

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The film I chose to do for this film review assignment was Longtime Companion. The movie premiered in 1989 and during that time our society was just beginning to understand that AIDS was a disease and research was being done on how to treat this disease. In the early 1980’s and up until the release of the film, those that had been diagnosed with AIDS had a very poor prognosis for survival. Also when the movie was released, society was beginning to realize that AIDS not only affected the gay community, but every member of our society. Today we now understand that AIDS does not discriminate and that this disease effects our entire society. AIDS raised the diversity issue that the gay community was not the only ones affected by this disease. As we began to understand and define what AIDS was, we began to understand that the AIDS epidemic was a diversity issue that affected our entire society. The story, Longtime Companion, was written by Craig Lucas and the film was directed by Norman Rene. The film takes place in New York City and Fire Island, New York. As the movie starts, it is July, 1981 in Fire Island where a group of gay friends have gotten together for the Fourth of July holiday. The movie depicts the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and how it devastates the lives of several gay men living during the 1980’s. The movie is broken up into nine chronological segments which show the emergence of AIDS, as we know it today, and how it effects the lives of gay men during this time. The diversity issue discussed in the film is the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and its effects on the gay community. In the early 1980’s, the disease was known as a “gay cancer” and known only to effect men in the gay community. Early on it was thought that this “gay cancer” may be caused by the use of “poppers”. As the epidemic began to spread, AIDS began to be understood as a disease, but the transmission of this disease was still unknown. Because this disease was new to our society, fear was not only instilled in the gay community but in all parts of our society. AIDS was becoming a diversity issue which contributed to fear, prejudice, and discrimination in our entire society. Because the cause and transmission of AIDS was not fully understood, healthcare workers, patients, funeral directors, and other members of society, including gay men, began to discriminate and live in fear of being around those who were diagnosed and dying from AIDS. The title, “Longtime Companion”, showed how the gay community was discriminated against by use of this this term. The film takes its title from the very words that were used by the New York Times used to describe the surviving same-sex partner of someone who had died of AIDS during the 1980s. Several times in the film, fear, prejudice, and discrimination are shown towards the surviving “longtime companion”. One example of this occurs when the surviving partner of a gay man who dies of AIDS tries to get a new acting job and is discriminated against because of the fear that he may also have AIDS Many times the “longtime companion” is believed to also have AIDS since their partner died from the disease. In the movie, one of the main characters is …show more content…
I remember experiencing many of the same feelings as the characters in the movie. The feeling I remember experiencing the most was one of fear of being discriminated against because I was gay. The onset of the AIDS epidemic also brought about the added stigma of being part of the gay community. I believe the way that the film presented the issue of the AIDS epidemic chronologically was done well. When the AIDS epidemic first started, just the fact that AIDS was defined as a “gay cancer” that effected those in the gay community presented AIDS as a diversity issue. Because transmission of the disease was not originally known, there was fear, prejudice, and discrimination against those with AIDS and those within the gay

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