Fighting for Our Lives

from the book log (1/11/89):

Fighting for Our Lives, documentary on KQED, the San Francisco PBS affiliate. Narration by Linda Hunt. Produced in 1986? 1987? The latest dates mentioned were in 1986. (30 minutes)

This is a very good to excellent documentary. About as deep as this audio-visual medium can get. Made me drip a few tears. AIDS. They interviewed Randy Shilts among others, gave a brief overview of gay history in San Francisco, talked about the way AIDS crept into consciousness. Gay plague? Originally people scoffed, but when it hit home how real and deadly was this thing, behavior as well as attitudes changed. One in three gay men in San Francisco is expected to die. Yet the gay community is now a community in ways it never was before, with community support services, choruses, marching bands, theatre, food banks, health care, political action, bowling leagues, and so on. The makers of this doc stressed how the existence of an out gay population in powerful positions in the area made the model AIDScare program. Highlighted the efforts of lesbians. Interviewed Roberta Achtenberg.

I found the documentary on youtube. Throughout, and distractingly, “Fighting for Our Lives” hovers over the lower third of the screen, added, I'm sure, for the youtube version.

The bit in my log entry about the gay community being “a community in ways it never was before,” etc. seems to be paraphrasing Randy Shilts.