MovieChat Forums > The Normal Heart (2014) Discussion > patient's in the Aids ward scene

patient's in the Aids ward scene

posted 9 years ago by michaelglenn82
4 replies | jump to latest

When julia Roberts character enters the ward with Ned..among the Gay Cancer(later to be called AIDS) there is scene in which we see two 19 year olds(commited lovers) holding hands while laying in their hospital beds. And Dr. Emma Bruchner says something like "their only 19". This does not rinv true. As the first cases of gay cancer(kaposi sarcoma) were very promiscuous men with a history of many past STD infections including Herpes Virus 8. In 1981 or 82..it would quite unusal for two 19 years olds(out for a few years) to be the typical example of gay men in the Gay Cancer infectious disease ward. Who agrees

[–] TearzOfAcid73 9 years ago

I interpreted that scene differently. It was his first boyfriend at 19, but that doesn't mean there was monogamy prior to their relationship or even during. It only takes one partner in the relationship to stray. In the beginning of the film there was a line where Mickey says he'd been with his partner for 15 months but that didn't mean they weren't seeing other people. AIDS hit the community hard and spread rapidly. The youngest case of HIV was a 15 (?) year old boy named Ryan White who contracted it through a contaminated blood transfusion. Age has no relation to who did or didn't contract the virus.

[–] lambiepie-2 9 years ago

Ryan was 13, and he was very young. While it hit the gay community hard, there were other cased where it spread like wildfire such as intravenous drug users, through contaminated blood supplies by infected donors who didn't know they had the disease and there wasn't any testing to determine that for quite sometime. Age, race, sex, ethnicity had and still has no relation to who did or did not..or will not..contract the virus. I mean now I read where there is a rise in HIV and AIDS in people over 60...

You make them beg for more, and then you don't give it to them!

[–] michaelglenn82 8 years ago

They were still not the typical early gay cancer patients. If they were 19...they would have had numerous sexual contacts starting at age 15 for the disease to manifest into kaposi sarcoma in 1981 or 82. There are exceptions. I beleive that one of Dr. Gotleibs early patients was 19 but was a male prostitute with most likely a history of STDs and hundreds of sexual contacts.

[–] Jade_The_Messenger 8 years ago

The couple had been together since the age of 19 (at least one of them). They were older than 19.