In addition to a spectrum of privilege, United in Anger also downplays the divisive nature of activists’ various motives and priorities. Juhasz draws attention to this division by explaining the two options she saw available to AIDS advocates: “one activist choice was to build community organizations that were better suited to reach the communities underrepresented by ACT UP. Another was to work inside of ACT UP” (Juhasz 71). Thus Juhasz argues the goal of activism proposed by ACT UP was mutually exclusive of that which would benefit minorities interests (in particular, women and people of color). This binary division, albeit extreme, highlights the fragmentation of interests accompanying the AIDS movement, and counters Cheng’s claim that ACT UP confronted such issues of racism and sexism.
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What we observe in United in Anger is a sense of this harmonious and reciprocal unity for in line with Cheng’s argument: for example, when the men are protesting alongside women to change the definition of AIDS to include their gender. However, given Juhasz’s testimony, this footage does not tell the whole story.
Aside from ACT UP’s insider vs. outsider dynamic, we can also analyze another form of segmentation that is otherwise regarded as one of the groups’ major strengths, the formation of “affinity groups” (00:22). United in Anger does acknowledge the somewhat discordant agendas and priorities that each group supported, but minimizes the disparity between the support each received. For example, there were many activists solely concerned with the short-term “drugs into bodies” agenda who viewed the end goal simply as the development of a treatment and/or cure to AIDS. In his interview in United in Anger, Gregg Gonsalves acknowledges this motivation stating “people came to ACT UP out of the fear of God that they were going to die...and looking for treatment information ” (Hubbard 01:11) But to many others, the AIDS movement was a vocalization of, and reflection on, the
What we observe in United in Anger is a sense of this harmonious and reciprocal unity for in line with Cheng’s argument: for example, when the men are protesting alongside women to change the definition of AIDS to include their gender. However, given Juhasz’s testimony, this footage does not tell the whole story.
Aside from ACT UP’s insider vs. outsider dynamic, we can also analyze another form of segmentation that is otherwise regarded as one of the groups’ major strengths, the formation of “affinity groups” (00:22). United in Anger does acknowledge the somewhat discordant agendas and priorities that each group supported, but minimizes the disparity between the support each received. For example, there were many activists solely concerned with the short-term “drugs into bodies” agenda who viewed the end goal simply as the development of a treatment and/or cure to AIDS. In his interview in United in Anger, Gregg Gonsalves acknowledges this motivation stating “people came to ACT UP out of the fear of God that they were going to die...and looking for treatment information ” (Hubbard 01:11) But to many others, the AIDS movement was a vocalization of, and reflection on, the