MovieChat Forums > Life Goes On (1989) Discussion > First show that really dealt with AIDS

First show that really dealt with AIDS


Now, it isn't such a big deal. But back then, as a little kid, I didn't know ANYTHING about HIV/AIDS until I watched 'Life Goes On.' I had only heard it talked about in whispers(while thousands were dying of it around the country). I think it was definitely the first time on Network television that took a no hold's barred approach to the epidemic with the Jesse character. Chad Lowe's character was very influential.

Do you have love for your girl New York?

reply

[deleted]

My soap opera (All my Children) delt with aids in 1987 or 88 with cindy parker chander. they where the first primetime show to deal with the issue if i do believe

reply

Yeah and Degrassi High as well, around 87-88 too I believe :)

reply

There are actually other shows that dealt with AIDS and HIV during the late 80's. I know that one of them was Hogan Family and I cannot remember some of the other shows because it has been so long since I have seen some of my favorite shows though from the 80's.

Life Goes On was not the first show to actually deal with AIDS/HIV.

reply

"Life Goes On" was just participating in the mindless "everybody is going to get AIDS and die" hysteria that was running rampant in the late 80s/early 90s. You may recall that the character in "Life Goes On" got HIV from one single heterosexual contact. You are far more likely to get struck by lightning. Someday people will look back on that nonsense and laugh the way we laugh at old commercials that said cigarettes were good for you.

Don't get information from TV dramas. They're just for entertainment.

reply

You are very correct on what you are saying about HIV and AIDS. I can remember back in the day when driving past a billboard would have the Marborro man on it smoking a cigerette on a horse. Now you do not see anything like that here in the states.

Dedicated to USA UP ALL NIGHT and the fans of the show! www.deefilmroll.com/usa-uan/

reply

Yeah, I mean no thanks to President Reagan who, in his entire presidential career, barely even mentioned the horrible plight of HIV/AIDS and did the country a disservice in not doing a better job warning us.

reply

Jnonnenkamp's posts are by far the most intellegent one's on this subject. Of course Life Goes On had to have its AIDS victim be a heterosexual guy who got it from a girl, of course! Political correctness demands nothing less! This is another example of political correctness and factual correctness being at polar opposite ends of reality. Marcdom7's comment was the most ignorant on this post. It is NOT Reagan's fault that gays wanted to live their lifestyle. It's their fault for getting AIDS, not Reagan's! That's so ludicrous that it shouldn't even need mentioning.

reply

It's true that other shows dealt with AIDS. But, Life Goes On was one of the first (if not the first) primetime shows that had a main character with AIDS. By main character, I mean played by an actor in the opening credits. Most shows, the character was a guest star and the situation only lasted an episode.

IMDB: Where arrogance and presumption rule.

reply

Yes other shows did deal with AIDS, but Life Goes On is not the first one to deal with it to be honest with you because I remember when on a episode of Mr. Belvedere they were the first primetime TV show to deal with AIDS due to a child that contracted it due to a blood transfusion. That was back in the mid 80's. I believe the young boy that had AIDS was White. I cannot remember his first name though and he got to meet President Reagan and I believe Michael Jackson as well.

Dedicated to USA UP ALL NIGHT and the fans! http://usaupallnight.webs.com

reply

All My Children may have dealt with AIDS earlier, but it wasn't prime-time.

reply

It has been awhile since I have seen any episodes but I would say that Life goes on was probably the first to really deal with AIDS. The way the character of Jesse was handled and his eventual death were so good. Other shows may have had an episode or a mention of it but they had a main character dying of AIDS on the screen.

reply

As I recall, all sorts of TV dramas in the late 80s/early 90s were shamelessly parading around average-Joe type heterosexuals who were now going to die because of a one-night stand.

By the mid-80s, the scientific community knew that non drug-using heterosexuals were not at significant risk for AIDS. But no one would support massive billion-dollar programs to research it if they knew it was only affecting gay men and drug users, groups that a lot of people don't like anyway. The only way to get people behind the research efforts was to terrify the general population into thinking that the disease was going to spread beyond the original risk groups. TV dramas got on board, probably due to advertising dollars. My guess is that "Life Goes On" was getting fat advertising contracts from pharmaceutical companies.

30 years later, AIDS is still very much confined to the original risk groups. 97% of cases in the US are gay men, IV drug users and hemophiliacs. The great heterosexual epidemic that chicken littles were predicting NEVER HAPPENED!

Equating sex with death is a despicable practice that even New England Puritans and Medieval Clerics never even resorted to. How we've progressed.

reply

You're right as far as the industrialized countries, that AIDS has stayed somewhat well confined among the original risk groups. However, you're probably also aware that in Africa and other third-world areas that the disease HAS spread rapidly amongst straight folk--mainly due to more partners and stigma attached to condom use--and that, as with pregnancy, it can very well only take one encounter.

reply

AIDS in Africa is not diagnosed with tests. It is diagnosed by symptoms. Someone in Africa who has had significant weight loss, a persistent cough, fever and diarrhea can be diagnosed with "AIDS", even though those are symptoms of existing diseases that have been around for centuries. It is very likely that the great African AIDS epidemic is nothing more than re-classifications of old diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, etc., most of which can be attributed to poverty, bad water, and malnutrition. But "AIDS" is more profitable, and allows more US-taxpayer funded kickbacks to pharmaceutical companies.

If Africa is really being ravaged by AIDS, then why does sub-Saharan Africa have a higher rate of population growth than anywhere else in the world? In short, where are the bodies? And why would a disease behave completely differently just because it's on a different continent? It doesn't make very much sense at all.

One of my college roommates once told me that the reason AIDS is so rampant in Africa is because "they" believe that the cure is to rape a virgin. I seriously doubt that, but my point is that the whole notion that Africa is a land of barbaric, sex-crazed maniacs is Victorian racist BS.

What Africa needs is clean drinking water and nutritious foods, not condoms and lectures about being monogamous from great moral examples like Bill Clinton.

reply

21 Jumpstreet dealt with it is a very realistic way i think

ep name was, "Little Disease with a Big Name" i believe, around season three i think, anyway, u can watch it on hulu, if they still have it

__
Do everything in Love. I Corinthians 16:14 NIV

reply


Season 2 : Ep. 13

And it´s "A Big Disease With a Little Name", not "Little Disease with a Big Name"

reply

[deleted]