Denial from the Society
not started one single test tube of research. Wheres the board of directors of your very own hospital? You have so many patients you havent got rooms for
them, and youve got to make Felix well . . . So what am I yelling at you for?
Kramer, 1985: 53 The scene above is taken from page 53, scene 7. At this latter stage of the
play, the government should have noticed about the epidemic regarding gay all over the state. Ned clearly states that the government does not do any single
action that help homosexual. Whilst the government does not take any action and passively waits. From the forward script of the play by Joseph Papp Papp, 1985:
8, the scene above is approximately around one year from the first scene. This means that the labeling theory in homosexual can be seen as a deviant role in the
society even at this crucial stage of the epidemic spread. This is the phase whereas the government notices about the AIDS spreading throughout New York City
state. Instead of intervene, the government chooses to neglect the fact that there are already 238 cases for a single doctor.
EMMA. Dont be on my side I dont need, you on my side. Make your side shape up. Ive seen 238 cases me: one doctor. You make it sound like theres
nothing worse going around than measles. et al.
The dialogue above is taken from Scene 6 of the play. Taken place in Ben‘s office, Ned‘s older brother who works as a successful lawyer for years.
Both of them have a good relationship, but not as good as it seems. In this scene, Larry Kramer wanted to introduce another point of interest in this play. The
definition of Gay often scare people, not only by the majority of people, but also Gay men family can be the victim of this.
NED. All Im asking for is the use of your name. You dont have to do a thing. This is an honorary board. For
the stationery. BEN. Ned, come on
— its your cause, not mine. NED. That is just an evasion
NED. Would you be more interested if you thought this was a straight disease?
BEN. It has nothing to do with your being gay. NED. Of course it has. What else has it got to do with?
BEN. Ive got other things to do. NED. But Im telling you you dont have to do a thing
BEN. The answer is No. NED. Its impossible to get this epidemic taken
seriously. I wrote a letter to the gay newspaper and some guy wrote in, Oh there goes Ned Weeks again; he
wants us all to die so he can say told you so.
BEN. He sounds like a crazy. Kramer, 1985: 43-45
The dialogue above is between Ned and Ben who are brothers. In this scene, Ben already give Ned financial support that Ned needs. Ben is a lawyer in a
big firm which implies also that he has a lot of money. Ned eventually ask for Ben aid in fighting HIVAIDS and run Gay Men Health Crisis. From the dialogue
above, Ben already give Ned and the organization a sufficient amount of financial support. This scene, Ned tried to ask Ben for his support by using his name as an
honorary board member in GMHC. Ben refuses and implies that he does not want anything to do with Gay men problems and illness. From social background, Ben
is a heterosexual with a family consist of a wife and two children. The labeling of homosexual is the base of action in Ben‘s part. In the late 1970s, the majority
people is still shocked on how many gay people that are opened. These gay men and women who opened their sexuality to the world also affect their relation with
their family. Ned‘s family chooses to refuse homosexual as Ned sexual identity
and opted to see it as a disease that need to be treated. This scene is stated that Ben and his family took Ned to therapy a couple of time more than Ned should in
his lifetime. It is later stated in this scene that Ben still has trouble in accepting Ned, not as his brother, but as his Gay brother. Ben condition is also a reflection
of the society at that time. Younger people who are not closeted anymore usually from the age of seventeen up to the early twenty years old are not accepted
anymore in their own family. Many young gay men and women are forced to move from their house because of their sexual identity. Eventually after their
openness, most families in the early 1980s does not accept them. Once this teenager left their homes, the only communities who accept them is the gay
community or gay houses.
BEN. Look, I try to understand. I read stuff. [picking up a copy of Newsweek, with Gay America on the
cover] I open magazines and I see pictures of you guys in leather and chains and whips and black masks, with
captions saying this is a social worker, this is a computer analyst, this is a schoolteacher
—and I say to myself, This isnt Ned.
NED. No, it isnt. It isnt most of us. You know the media always dramatizes the most extreme. Do you think we all wear dresses,
too? BEN. Dont you?
NED. Me, personally? No, I do not. Kramer, 1985: 46
It is clear that at this point how gay men‘s crisis on this epidemic shows a
potential to be an international trouble. There is also another problem that Gay men have, which is the image problem.
The image of gay men in public is only about their sexually active behavior and their openness from one to another
. It is
not a hundred percent correct or wrong. How image can be achieved from mass media and other communication form. Ben choose to recognize the sexually
openness and active of Gay men from Newsweek, a weekly magazine from America established in 1933.
NED. In some place deep inside of you you still think Im sick. Isnt that right? Okay. Define it for me. What
do you mean by sick? Sick unhealthy? Sick perverted? Sick Ill get over it? Sick to be locked up?
BEN. I think youve adjusted to life quite well. NED. All things considered? [BEN nods.] In the only
area I consider important I dont have your support at all. The single-minded determination of all you people to
forever see us as sick helps keep us sick.
BEN. I saw how unhappy you were NED. SO
were you You wound up going to shrinks, too. We grew up side by side. We both felt pretty much
the same about Mom and Pop. I refuse to accept for one more second that I was damaged by our childhood while
you were not.
BEN. But we all dont react the same way to the same thing.
NED. Thats right. So I became a writer and you became a lawyer. Ill agree to the fact that I have any
number of awful character traits. But not to the fact that whatever they did to us as
kids automatically made me sick and gay while you stayed straight and healthy. Kramer, 1985: 45-46
The above text is the proof on how there are many people becomes the victim to this unknown disease AIDS. How the government of the United States
of America uses this course of action can be referred as an act of queer theory on heteronormativity. In 1981, the New York City government claimed that they
were not prepared to deal with this health emergency, as the city just recovered from the fiscal crisis of the 1970s when Mayor Ed Koch took office. The direct
cause of the fiscal crisis was the citys use of expensive short-term financing to
cover its deficits in the early 1970s. At the beginning of the epidemic there was no funding from neither federal or city government. Many the people in the USA are
still in the phase of accepting these homosexual as one of their own part of the society and the other are denies homosexual existence. Although the Gay
Community has made a few steps in dealing with this national pandemic, there are still struggles regarding homosexual around the country at these times. Most of
the homosexual in the big cities such in New York, Los Angeles, etc. Are already ‗open‘, but there are still many homosexuals who are ‗closeted‘.
NED. You mean the word gay is on the envelope? BRUCE. You
‘re damn right. Instead of just the initials. Who did it?
NED. Well, maybe it was Pierre who designed it. Maybe it was a mistake at the printers. But it is the name we chose for this
organization… BRUCE. You chose. I didnt want gay in it.
MICKEY. No, we all voted. That was one of those meetings when somebody actually showed up.
BRUCE. We cant send them out. NED. We have to if we want anybody to come to the dance. They were late from
the printers as it is. BRUCE. We can go through and scratch out the word with a Magic Marker.
NED. Ten thousand times? Look, I feel sympathy for young guys still living at home on Long Island with their parents, but most men getting these. . . Look
at you, in your case what difference does it make? You live alone, you own
your own apartment, your mother lives in another state… Kramer, 1985: 47
From Bruce‘s testament above, who is a closeted homosexual, the fear of heteronormativity can be felt even by gay movement board of directors. The
consequences of heteronormativity are the alienation of the people who
experience opening their true self sexuality to the world while the world is still la
beling them as ‗not normal‘. The fear of closeted homosexual also can influence the settlement of AIDS epidemic. It is still an inconvenient situation to closeted
homosexual, especially Bruce Niles. He wants the government to help the homosexual, but in the same time, he also wants to keep his low-profile sexuality
to a minimum which is almost an impossible task to do as the head of the Gay men organization. The existence of homosexual men and their own denial as
homosexual in the eye of society causes a great deal of disunity among themselves.
The social depictions above can be detected by applying the labeling theory. Gay men can create a shift of their social interaction. The shift implies that
labeling theory can create layers in the society. If one chooses a heterosexual partner as their sexual attraction, the society claims it as normal and convergence.
The other way around goes to homosexual. If one chooses a homosexual partner as their mainor one of their sexual attraction, automatically the society will label
them as a divergence and abnormal social behavior. This abnormal behavior according to the majority people can cause them to be mentally different and in
most circumstances tend to move to a group of the same sexual orientation Goffman, 1963: 81. One of the reason why gay men are very open to one
another which most of them are, is because of the safety from the ‗wrongdoings‘ of most people around them.