gay AIDS fiction
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2023-08-15
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en
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AIDS fiction has been researched extensively but not a lot of attention has been paid to how this genre could have served as a tool for homosexual authors during the AIDS crisis to push back and negate the dominant cultural narratives surrounding the homosexual community and the AIDS crisis. By analysing three works form openly homosexual authors that were written during the early years of the AIDS epidemic, Borrowed Time, Angels in America, and The Normal Heart, it becomes clear that these authors used their platform as a way to shift the narrative of the time into one that put the blame for the epidemic not on the community itself, but on the government that was failing them. By discussing the culture of promiscuity in an honest way, addressing internalized stigmas, and highlighting the heroic actions of the queer community and activists, these text shed light on the queer side of the AIDS narrative, which was not shared on a broad public scale at the time.
Key terms: narrative power, community formation, conservatism, queer activism, internalized stigma, community support
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