Social films and Homosexuality with AIDS
Most people like to go to the movies. They enjoy watching the films, and it might influence the people without them being aware of it. The movies bring up an object of public concern. Philadelphia is a very controversial movie because it represents discrimination against a homosexual person who has AIDS. More than 20 years have passed since the movie was released in 1993. In the 1990s, people were more prejudiced against homosexuality than they are now, and they thought gay people easily caught AIDS because of their abnormal sexual orientation, so the disease was their own fault. This movie describes those images are mainstream in those days. I also had prejudice about homosexuality a little before I had watched this movie. I did not have any knowledge about homosexuality and AIDS. Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington are main characters of this movie. Hanks played the role of Andrew Beckett, who is a homosexual person and is suffering from AIDS. Beckett is a skillful lawyer in a big law firm in Philadelphia. He is handling the case for the firm's most important client. He is fired from his law firm because of his disease. However, he claims that he was wrongfully dismissed. After nine lawyers refuse take the case, Beckett finally goes to Joe Miller, who is played by Denzel Washington. Miller is a skillful lawyer but he doesn’t like homosexual people. Therefore, Joe also declines to take the case at first. However, he pities Beckett because Beckett looked sickly. As a result, they bring a suit to Beckett’s law firm for wrongful dismissal. This movie gives audience the chance to reconsider the things that have a significant influence on their lives. There are three important themes in the movie: bias against homosexual person who has AIDS, family ties and pursuit of equal rights.
This whole story is about the bias against Beckett who is gay and has AIDS and what happens to him. There is fear of homosexuals. The fear of homosexuals means that people misunderstand about AIDS in this movie. They think that they may be infected with AIDS when they touch AIDS patients, even shake-hand with the AIDS patients. For instance, when Beckett visits Joe’s law office, he shakes hand with Joe. After Joe found out that Beckett has AIDS, he goes to a clinic in order to ask about AIDS. The doctor tells him that the HIV virus can only be transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids, namely blood and semen, but Joe does not trust his doctor. After that, he talks with his wife about homosexuality. He says to his wife, “I'm prejudiced. I don't like homosexuals.” In the move, people tell others the wrong information about the homosexuality and AIDS. Joe is high-educated person because he graduated from law school and is a lawyer. However, he also does not have any collect information about homosexuality and AIDS. The lack of the information makes him be more prejudiced against gay people. Therefore, the movie shows that people avoid interacting with AIDS patients.
In addition, when Beckett borrows the books about homosexuality and HIV-related discrimination in a library, the librarian recommend he move from open area to individual research room. In this movie, most people believe that AIDS is incurable and an infectious disease, which has a high mortality rate. The librarian finds a lesion on Beckett’s forehead and his face looks very pale, so he guesses Beckett has AIDS. Beckett recognizes that the librarian tries to isolate him from others. He declines the librarian proposal, which shows that he is fighting against bias about AIDS. This is a very difficult issue. AIDS is an infectious disease, so people feel more fear about it. People think that they will catch AIDS if they spend even very short time with homosexual person who has AIDS. Thus, they try to separate gay people from their society. It is very difficult to conquer this fear, which the movie shows is the cause of discrimination against AIDS