May 2005
Hollywood to HIVers: Drop Dead
by Lucile Scott
Is tasteless AIDS "humor" better than no mention at all?
Everyone has AIDS—at least according to South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s latest film. The bad-taste bonanza, Team America: World Police, hitting DVD May 17, opens with a Broadway-belting puppet’s sincere if savage call to prevention: “Everyone has AIDS! / My grandma and my dog Ol’ Blue / The pope has got it and so do you / C’mon everybody we got quiltin’ to do.” But if everyone’s infected, why isn’t the rest of Hollywood hollering? At this year’s Oscars, the only trace of HIV came in a South African foreign-film nominee, the documentary Yesterday. (It lost.) Are the AIDS-plosive days of Philadelphia and The Hours over for good? If so, we’ll take all the singing and dancing marionettes we can get.
