An Early Frost

I had just watched the 1985 TV movie "An Early Frost" and I am amazed at how the film's message still applies today. It is the very first gay movie made on AIDS and to me, it was more realistic and touched on more sensitive issues than the seemingly definitive "Philadelphia" in 1994.

For starters, in 1985 people were still starting to familiarise themselves with the terms HIV and AIDS. Rock Hudson apparently came out a week after the movie screened on TV, which was watched by 33 million viewers and topped the viewership for the night. I was too young then, but I do remember the gaunt looking Hudson gracing the headlines of the local Singaporean papers. We were all learning about the disease in our own ways, and forming prejudices and beliefs based on what we hear from the grapevine, rather than the truth.

Truths may be presented but what do the experts know? We believed that nothing was greater than pure prevention. So, when I came out in Australia, at the back of my mind, I wondered how I would be affected by it. Active gay men are strongly encouraged to go for HIV tests regularly if they are having sex with more than one partner, and I remember the first test I had to take. It wasn't so much the anxiety over the blood drawing, but more so the embarassment of having to answer all sorts of personal questions you don't even like to ask yourself. Then, there is agonising one week wait and then the never ending time at the waiting room to be called in for your results. It is an excruciating painful process, even if the eventual results turn out negative.

When I made my first friend with HIV, I reacted the same way anyone who has read but never experienced would do ... I asked myself what is the appropriate behavi0ur? It isn't easy because I think they didn't want me to know but yet they knew I must know somehow. It's just coming out to another gay person. I actually remember now that I didn't know when I first met them, and only when I pondered and eventually askedwas the truth told, but never from the person, always from someone else. I was shocked because that was my first. I had all the same fears but deep down, I knew it was wrong to feel this prejudice. He was after all a friend of my friend's, and I wanted to show that my friend that I was supportive.

So, I decided to see them not as needing my pity, but rather my friendship. I wasn't going to treat them any different from my friends because it would not be doing them any favours. I was going to be myself. I hug and kiss them and I don't think twice about it anymore. It has become a way of life, but it would not have been possible if I had not taken the opportunity and the effort to know them, and understand that most of them have a strong sense of humour and a positive outlook on life. I don't know if it is coming close to death that allows them this freedom to be ... to not have this care that we have about looking bad, and just treasuring every moment they have, and live.

The first funeral I attended in Sydney was one of these friends. I still remember him clearly, but it is not the sick images or stories of him that I recall but I see him in his sunny self. Thankfully, there is better medication out there for people living with HIV, but it is still incurable. "It is not a gay disease" as spelled out in this movie but this message still gets lost because conservative gatekeepers in our society prefer to keep it under wraps and handle it the only way they can, by pointing the easy finger. We now know this truth because millions are dying in Africa of AIDS everyday. However, without powerful voices like us, prejudice remains.

We need love in our lives to carry on our daily motivations but more so the less fortunate people around the world. Perceptions can blind us but truths and love will clear the way ...