OW 73 - Outweek.net

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The struggle with ABC to retain
artistic and political integrity ot the
project has been tar more tiresome
HIV. . .
"In a horrifying way," proclaims Watney, "American 1V
sides with the virus talking all this sanctimonious cant
about family values as if every person in the country with
HIV didn't themselves come from families. What is this imaginary
family they talk about? It doesn't exist, except in their
warped heads,"
The question, from another angle, is: What would happen
if ABC did air the program
iri its entirety? What
would happen if a Black
woman (Neneh Cherry)
appeared on network 1V
advising people to not
"share the needle"?
"Frankly, 1 think nothing
would happen," responds
Watney. "I think that
the majority of people
watching American TV
would be very grateful to
know that they're watching
a TV channel which takes
the epidemic seriously. But
the fantasy is, of course,
that they are going to be
burned. down by irate fundementalists.
.
"The terror of offending
seems to be largely one of
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projection. Doubtless there
are many hundreds of thousands
of upright fundamentalist
Christians in the US, but Both artists and
they can tum the channel."
activists walt
Ernest Hardy, a music with baited breath
critic based in Los Angeles,
disagrees. "ABC is in almost a
na:-win situation, because no
matter what they do, they are
going to infuriate a very large
nU'mber of people. On the
for the ABC show
to aIr. "If It'.
being censored."
predicts Simon
Watney. "I hope
one hand, if they present the
the roof will
package as intended, with a
go off. I hope
very high level of information
ACTUP/LA will
on AIDS, the right wing is
be there
going to sw.ooP down on
smashing
them with all claws extended.
If they don't do this, then gay
windows."
activists and AIDS activists
40 OUTW&&K Deo....... r 5, "_0
than some expected.
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will do likewise, because
this is presumably the
whole point."
The struggle with
ABC to retain the artistic
and political integrity of
Red Hot and Blue has
been a far more tiresome
one then some people would have expected, partiCularly
those who' are not American. For British co-producer Leigh
Blake, the difference in ciin1atebetween even Thatcherite England
and here has been shocking, "fAlmostl the entire project
is being run out of Great Britain," she says, "where what you
can say and how you can be and the stances you can .portray
are infmite1Y'more real. I'm not saying that it's perfect over
there, but certairily, as an artist you can say much, much more.
So then 1 [camel to America, and 1 see the unbelievable prejudice
that goes on in a coUntry where the epidemic is so unbelievablyoutrageous.
And 1still can't seem to get a grip on it."
But most Americans are not a bit surprised about the
problems ABC has had with Red Hot and Blue. After all, this
is the country where rape and murder are nightly 1V fare, but
where it is forbidden to show, or even to mention, a condom.
So which aspects of Red Hot and Blue will never see
the blue light of nighttime 1V? One can only speculate, but