AIDS in Representation

Douglas Crimp presents two very different critiques of representations of AIDS in his chapter, and I found both of them quite compelling. I was, as I think most would be, quite captivated by his criticism of the representation of AIDS in contemporary media efforts. Personally, I agree with what he sets forth about the media playing on the how morbid the masses are. In the necessity of a face for AIDS, when all that was known about it was the numbers, this face became mediatized. There was a generic stigma added to the people who had AIDS, as if the certain groups mentioned by Crimp were the only ones subject to it, and no one else. This is what was protested by the people in Nixon’s exhibition at the MoMA. However, I do think that, in many ways, Nixon’s work could be looked at in a way that does not make it seem a play on the generic nature of AIDS representation. As Crimp points out in the beginning of the chapter, it is a marvelous representation of the people, thanks to the trust between photographer and subject. This transparency of the portraits, the sharing of life and death, as Crimps calls it, shows an undeniable side of AIDS, the fact that it weakens and destroys over time, in spite of all the fighting and living that may take place in the meantime. I consider that the whole nature of his project, the continuity and the sense to time, adds a lot to its strength. Having said that, I wouldn’t commit to either of the two sides of the critique, because Crimp makes strong points against the generalization of the face of AIDS as weak, queer, and nothing apart from the syndrome and he outlines a beautiful critique of Nixon’s work as well. The film’s from this week’s screening play into the latter, because both Danny and Blue paint faces of AIDS in a way that is not only aesthetically interesting, but that also fails to give AIDS a stereotype and a generic stigma.