Season 4: History Beyond the Episodes

Umbelina · December 12, 2020

https://thecrowntheofficialpodcast.simplecast.com/episodes/episode-10-war

All of the podcasts are up now. Peter Morgan is commenting in the final one.

swanpride · December 13, 2020

And here I thought that being a nobel is more likely to put you into a position in which you have to eat something you hate just to be polite.

Growsonwalls · December 13, 2020

5 hours ago, swanpride said:

And here I thought that being a nobel is more likely to put you into a position in which you have to eat something you hate just to be polite.

Royal women smoke their meals. Most of the royal women are heavy smokers, from Margeret to Queen Mum to Kate.

Roseanna · December 14, 2020

Historyextra's article:

https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/prince-charles-princess-diana-meet-marriage-children-divorce-bulimia-childhood-camilla-royal-tour/

CeeBeeGee · December 18, 2020

On 11/17/2020 at 3:25 PM, Sir RaiderDuck OMS said:

According to the book The Day Diana Died, Charles really took her death hard, and not just because of its effect on his sons: he had always genuinely liked (if not loved) Diana and had come to realize how badly she'd been treated by himself and the BRF (a full-on reconciliation was out of the question, of course, as he had only ever really loved Camilla). The Queen, by contrast, felt sorry for her grandsons but was primarily concerned with getting Diana's royal jewelry back. She initially refused to either address the nation about Diana's passing or allow Charles to speak publicly about it. The Queen finally relented and delivered her brief televised eulogy of Diana only after an enraged Charles threatened to abdicate and then address the nation as a private citizen.

I have always been Team Diana and quite critical of Charles's behavior in the marriage. That said, his response to her death impressed me. It was absolutely insane of the Queen to dismiss the massive public reaction that was happening in England, completely tone-deaf and frankly callous. I get the desire to stick to protocol but these were extraordinary circumstances. I well remember the Sun's plaintive headline: "SHOW US YOU CARE." Charles correctly recognized what a PR disaster it was shaping up to be--I hate how the movie The Queen tried to undermine what he did, I remember the Blair character saying something dismissive like "what's he banging on about?" Uh, he's trying to honor the dead mother of his two sons.

On 11/18/2020 at 9:55 PM, kaygeeret said:

Plus, I do think both she and Harry were surprised at the amount of racial demeaning that was going on.

I remember watching the wedding and while a black minister was giving a homily, the camera panned the crowd and showed a very pregnant member of the younger royals grimacing and shaking her head.

Boy did I get that the entire facade of how welcome she was was a hoax. She was in for a tough ride and I could not be happier that the two of them said bye, bye.

I completely agree. Kate had it tough until Meghan came along. It's truly incredible how racist some royalty fans/media are. I'm glad Harry did what he felt he had to to protect his family.

On 11/19/2020 at 4:59 AM, Espy said:

Kate and William are very traditional types who might be solid - they will never divorce - but neither is very charismatic nor are they engaging public speakers. I reckon both would be happy to do the bare minimum, which isn't too far below the amount of work they do now, if they could get away with it. Whereas Harry and Meghan seem ambitious, both are charismatic, and Meghan at least seems to have a strong work ethic and genuine interest in charity work. She's also a great public speaker and Harry has the ability to connect with people with ease. IMO as a couple they would have been of huge benefit to the royal family image if the palace had supported them.

Yupppppp.

On 11/20/2020 at 6:54 PM, JudyObscure said:

Re, the stairs. Diana is dangerous to herself and others when she gets close to a staircase. She once pushed her step-mother down the stairs in a fit of temper. Funny how the show depicts Charles as the bad tempered monster when Diana was the one famous for screaming and acting out . In Kitty Kelly's book about the royals she said Diana had dozens of servants fired for things like pointing her shoes in the wrong directions. She and Princess Margaret were the original examples of entitled privilege.

Kitty Kelly is far from an unimpeachable source. I read that book as well and afterward wished I hadn't--I found it appalling and sordid.

On 11/28/2020 at 11:20 PM, JennyMominFL said:

It wasnt a stunt.

I became HIV pos in 1990 at 20. The stigma was huge. That simple gesture and those photos really were like an earthquake for people like me. You cannot understand what it meant to see someone hug a person with AIDS especially a princess. I wondered if they would show that and even though it was brief, it got me choked up. Diana also held hands with a man with AIDS in 1987

Diana continued to support that organization. She kept in touch with some of the people involved . She She gave speeches about how it was safe to touch people with AIDS. One of the women from the NY hospital who she stayed in touch with Diana was at Diana’s funeral. Whatever her flaws were, this was real.

The week she died, my mother and I stood on line to sign a condolence book at the British Embassy in DC. There was a gay couple in front of us, they were clearly devastated. It's hard to imagine how horrifically stigmatized AIDS was in the '80s--Ryan White, a young teenage hemophiliac, received death threats and someone actually shot into his home because he wanted to attend school. People would scream at him "we know you're gay" on the street. Diana's handshake and later hug were truly revolutionary, and an example of how powerful a platform royalty can be and how it can be leveraged to help people.

Edited December 21, 2020 by CeeBeeGee

Umbelina · December 18, 2020

On 12/18/2020 at 2:06 PM, CeeBeeGee said:

I have always been Team Diana and quite critical of Charles's behavior in the marriage. That said, his response to her death impressed me. It was absolutely insane of the Queen to dismiss the massive public reaction that was happening in England, completely tone-deaf and frankly callous. I get the desire to stick to protocol but these were extraordinary circumstances. I well remember the Sun's plaintive headline: "SHOW US YOU CARE." Charles correctly recognized what a PR disaster it was shaping up to be--I hate how the movie The Queen tried to undermine what he did, I remember the Blair character saying something dismissive like "what's he banging on about?" Uh, he's trying to honor the dead mother of his two sons.

I completely agree. Kate had it tough until Meghan came along. It's truly incredible how racist some royalty fans/media are. I'm glad Harry did what he felt he had to to protect his family.

Yupppppp.

Kitty Kelly is far from an impeachable source. I read that book as well and afterward wished I hadn't--I found it appalling and sordid.

The week she died, my mother and I stood on line to sign a condolence book at the British Embassy in DC. There was a gay couple in front of us, they were clearly devastated. It's hard to imagine how horrifically stigmatized AIDS was in the '80s--Ryan White, a young teenage hemophiliac, received death threats and someone actually shot into his home because he wanted to attend school. People would scream at him "we know you're gay" on the street. Diana's handshake and later hug were truly revolutionary, and an example of how powerful a platform royalty can be and how it can be leveraged to help people.

Loved the whole post.

I will say, when I watched the Queen speak, live on TV? I really disliked her. It, to me, was obvious that she had been forced to speak, and didn't give a single damn.

As for Charles threatening to abdicate? I've never read that, and frankly, have a hard time believing it. He really wants to be King. In The Queen both in the film, and in the commentary? They point out that Charles was very frightened of being killed, and did indeed ask for extra police protection, etc. So, I wonder how much of his concern was for his own life?

I'd love to think he felt guilt for his treatment of Diana, and maybe he did. I tend to think he was even more concerned about his own life. Back then, many, many people felt that he, or "the firm" had her killed so he could marry Camilla. (Though Camilla would have to divorce as well, so technically, by the church rules, he wouldn't be able to anyway, without risking wearing that crown.)

Yes, Diana had great impact with the perception of AIDS, her hugging people changed minds and lives. It can't be underestimated. ETA, had the queen, or Charles, or Anne done it? It probably would have had the same impact, but they did not.

Vanity Fair, in one article about her, mostly interviewing various charities she participated in? Gave money numbers in the impact having Diana appear, or lend her name to their charities. She could raise more money in one appearance or endorsement, than they would make in donations in a normal 5 years.

JudyObscure · December 18, 2020

24 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

Yes, Diana had great impact with the perception of AIDS, her hugging people changed minds and lives. It can't be underestimated. ETA, had the queen, or Charles, or Anne done it? It probably would have had the same impact, but they did not.

Vanity Fair, in one article about her, mostly interviewing various charities she participated in? Gave money numbers in the impact having Diana appear, or lend her name to their charities. She could raise more money in one appearance or endorsement, than they would make in donations in a normal 5 years.

Edited 20 minutes ago by Umbelina

All that is true, but what a shame that people refuse to pay attention unless a fashion icon comes along and says something. Doctors in endless articles in magazines and news articles had been telling us for some time that you couldn't "catch" AIDs through touch. Money came rolling in when Diana showed up for charity events because she happened to be a huge celebrity. Other people worked far harder to raise money for research and educate people, but they just weren't her. Every time she was photographed holding the hand of a sick child in the hospital there was a nurse in the background who had probably washed and changed and sat up all night with that child every day for weeks on end, but she is nothing to the public, all credit goes to Diana sitting there in her pretty outfit. Well we have the Kardashians now to tell us what to think.

I know most of Kitty Kelly's work is "unauthorized," it's how she can tell us things off the record, but I trust her at least as much as the magazines who thrived on Diana's worshipful fans, and people like Morton who were simply repeating her own self serving words.

Not every gay person adored her. Writer Quentin Crisp has a famous quote about her:

"I always thought Diana was such trash and got what she deserved. She was Lady Diana before she was Princess Diana so she knew the racket. She knew that royal marriages have nothing to do with love. You marry a man and you stand beside him on public occasions and you wave and for that you never have a financial worry until the day you die." Crisp believed it was her "fast and shallow" lifestyle that led to her demise: "What disgraceful behavior! Going about saying she wanted to be the queen of hearts. The vulgarity of it is so overpowering."

sistermagpie · December 18, 2020

1 hour ago, JudyObscure said:

"I always thought Diana was such trash and got what she deserved. She was Lady Diana before she was Princess Diana so she knew the racket. She knew that royal marriages have nothing to do with love. You marry a man and you stand beside him on public occasions and you wave and for that you never have a financial worry until the day you die." Crisp believed it was her "fast and shallow" lifestyle that led to her demise: "What disgraceful behavior! Going about saying she wanted to be the queen of hearts. The vulgarity of it is so overpowering."

While I do think that arrangement would have been great if they'd hammered in out beforehand, his description of what royal marriages are based on don't actually sound very factual based on the actual royals. They're not doing royal alliances anymore.

I mean, Crisp was also known for saying really homophobic things and that AIDS should be ignored--he disagreed with the majority of gay opinion a lot! LOL. It seems very on-brand for him to consider Diana vulgar. Her public persona is like the antithesis of his. Not that this makes his opinion any less valid, of course.

Edited December 18, 2020 by sistermagpie

swanpride · December 19, 2020

I always had a hard time to council my memories of the Aids crisis with what actually happened. I was a child back then, and literally the first times I learned about it was from the information campaign our Bundesregierung started. There were mainly two spots...one really famous one which was mostly about the need to use condoms and then another one which was all about not stigmatising people with it, using the example of a child which is ill because her mother had it. Basically I skipped the whole fear phase and learned only about the existence of a stigma when public discourse has already moved to "hey, you really shouldn't judge". Hence I really didn't experience Diana hugging that child as a big deal. But I guess it maybe was if you lived in countries where the government had spend less money on convincing people to deal with it like adults….

Plus, I always remember some sort of documentary about Fergie my sister watched back in the day. Since that was before Fergie went completely off the rails, the tenor was how much she got victimised, and one thing which was said was that while Diana went to cute children which really worked well vor photo-ops in her charity work, Fergie had (supposedly) some really heart-breaking scenes too, including one where she held the hand of a dying women. I can't remember what illness it was, but the gist was that said women simply wasn't good looking enough (due to her illness), hence the photos were never really used by the press.

That's why I feel mostly neutral about the "Diana hugging the child" moment. Not because I think that she somehow used that child, but because I know perfectly well that that child had been an AIDS victim in the last stadium, with sores in the face and superthin, there most likely wouldn't have been a hug and if there had been one, the photos might have never been used.

Epeolatrix · December 19, 2020

Quote

It, to me, was obvious that she had been forced to speak, and didn't give a single damn.

She was raised conservatively and everything she was being told to do was either not protocol for the occasion or it was just plain weird to her. Giving in to demonstrative and confessional behavior would have been largely alien, for reasons of age, class, and that she had to represent the Crown and not herself. Her private feelings were supposed to be private; not to mention the whole "stiff upper lip" thing. Diana's death forced her to adapt to a generational social change that she was ill-prepared for. The fact that she agreed give a speech at all, but especially agreeing to say "So what I say to you now, as your Queen and as a grandmother, I say from my heart." was a good compromise.

Edited December 19, 2020 by Epeolatrix

Umbelina · December 19, 2020

22 hours ago, JudyObscure said:

All that is true, but what a shame that people refuse to pay attention unless a fashion icon comes along and says something. Doctors in endless articles in magazines and news articles had been telling us for some time that you couldn't "catch" AIDs through touch. Money came rolling in when Diana showed up for charity events because she happened to be a huge celebrity. Other people worked far harder to raise money for research and educate people, but they just weren't her. Every time she was photographed holding the hand of a sick child in the hospital there was a nurse in the background who had probably washed and changed and sat up all night with that child every day for weeks on end, but she is nothing to the public, all credit goes to Diana sitting there in her pretty outfit. Well we have the Kardashians now to tell us what to think.

I just never saw her as that pretty I guess. All the royals have tons of fashionable clothes, though it's true that their tastes vary, with Fergie near the bottom. Diana was tall though, so perhaps carried fashion better. I keep thinking of Margaret having an 18 inch waist, and Queen Elizabeth's wasn't much bigger, so Diana certainly wasn't the only very slim royal around the palace. When I look at photos of Anne when she was Diana's age, I think she was just as attractive, she just rarely smiled, or made people feel engaged, or inspired people to care about her charities. That, in no way, is a dig at Anne.

Perhaps it's as simple as Diana realizing that in lending her name or presence to a cause or charity, her most important function was inspiring others to care as well, to donate, to become involved. It wasn't about her just showing up and "doing the work." It was about making others want to do the same. One pair of hands wasn't enough to change anything.

Who knows what it was really? Probably a combination of the cache of being the one to marry "the most eligible bachelor in the world Prince Charles" and being the future Queen, combined with a natural charm and charisma that simply can't be learned. You have it, or you don't. I think it was also her kindness and compassion that came through. Oh, and she was photographed with many children over the years, and no, they weren't all attractive. They were missing limbs, or disfigured by disease, but from her first moments in public, it was her instinct to kneel in order to be eye to eye with children in the crowds who wanted to give her flowers. All of those things combined made her special, not just her pretty eyes, or smile or her hair.

Hollywood would call it "star quality" I think. Some people the camera, or the people around them, just loves, and someone even more beautiful or talented could be standing right next to them in a scene, but the eye follows the one with "star quality."

CeeBeeGee · December 19, 2020

On 12/18/2020 at 3:39 PM, Umbelina said:

Loved the whole post.

I will say, when I watched the Queen speak, live on TV? I really disliked her. It, to me, was obvious that she had been forced to speak, and didn't give a single damn.

As for Charles threatening to abdicate? I've never read that, and frankly, have a hard time believing it. He really wants to be King. In The Queen both in the film, and in the commentary? They point out that Charles was very frightened of being killed, and did indeed ask for extra police protection, etc. So, I wonder how much of his concern was for his own life?

Thanks, Umbelina! Also I have a history blog and wrote about Diana's funeral in more detail when William got married. Here is the link if you're interested.

PeterPirate · December 22, 2020

Out of curiosity, I went through the Wikipedia article on Carol Thatcher. I found these two interesting snippets:

Quote

In November 2005 Thatcher was selected to appear with a number of fellow celebrities on the ITV television show I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! The format of the show meant that she would be forced to spend at least a week in the Australian rainforest with a minimal supply of food in basic living conditions. She had to undergo one of the more infamous "Bushtucker Trials" during her stay in the jungle – which saw her eat jungle bugs and kangaroo testicles as a challenge to earn food for her fellow celebrities. Ultimately, she emerged as the fifth series winner and second 'Queen of the Jungle'.

Quote

In 2007, Carol Thatcher travelled to the Falkland Islands and Argentina for the documentary Mummy's War, in order to explore the legacy of the Falklands War. Whilst receiving a positive reception from the pro-British islanders (who regard her mother as a heroine), her reception in Argentina provoked protests and demonstrations (including the cry "Your mother is a war criminal!"). During her stay in Argentina, she met a group of mothers who lost their sons during the conflict and stated, "We were fighting a war; we won, you lost," and reminded them that it was their country that invaded the islands, thus initiating the conflict.

merylinkid · December 30, 2020

What really suprised me is they skipped over two major assassination attempts that would have had a profound effect on the Crown.

The first was the 1981 attempt in the Queen during the Trooping of the Colour. The guy fired blanks but the fact that he got close enough with a gun was scary. It was also a scary time. John Lennon had been shot and killed in December, Ronald Reagan shot and wounded at the end of March, the Pope shot and severely wounded in April. Then came the attempt on the Queen. Only a couple weeks before the wedding of Diana and Charles. The Queen finished the ride to Buckingham Palace (she was still riding her horse at the time), and went out on the balcony with the family for the usual appearance. Because that's what one does. Her duty. Regardless of personal safety.

The second was the Brighton Hotel bombing in 1984. This was an attempt on Margaret Thatchers life. She might have sucked as PM but she WAS the sitting PM. It was an attack on the life of a head of government. Thatcher survived without injury but 5 Conservative Party members were killed. Thatcher evacuated the building as instructed. Was checked out. Then went to the store to buy clothes (hers were ruined in the bombing) and then gave her party speech just hours later. Because that's what one does. her duty.

I think these events would have been much more interesting to explore than endless Charles whining about how he is married to DIANA instead of his twu wuv CAMILLA.

swanpride · December 31, 2020

Full agreement. I was wondering about them skipping those two events, too, especially since they paralleled each other so well.

PeterPirate · December 31, 2020

23 hours ago, merylinkid said:

What really surprised me is they skipped over two major assassination attempts that would have had a profound effect on the Crown.

The first was the 1981 attempt in the Queen during the Trooping of the Colour. The guy fired blanks but the fact that he got close enough with a gun was scary. It was also a scary time. John Lennon had been shot and killed in December, Ronald Reagan shot and wounded at the end of March, the Pope shot and severely wounded in April. Then came the attempt on the Queen. Only a couple weeks before the wedding of Diana and Charles. The Queen finished the ride to Buckingham Palace (she was still riding her horse at the time), and went out on the balcony with the family for the usual appearance. Because that's what one does. Her duty. Regardless of personal safety.

The second was the Brighton Hotel bombing in 1984. This was an attempt on Margaret Thatcher's life. She might have sucked as PM but she WAS the sitting PM. It was an attack on the life of a head of government. Thatcher survived without injury but 5 Conservative Party members were killed. Thatcher evacuated the building as instructed. Was checked out. Then went to the store to buy clothes (hers were ruined in the bombing) and then gave her party speech just hours later. Because that's what one does. Her duty.

I think these events would have been much more interesting to explore than endless Charles whining about how he is mawwied to DIANA instead of his twu wuv CAMIWWA.

Those would have been good events to capture. For better or worse, the show generally avoids events that would provoke real intellectual discourse. Only instances that cause the royal family members to talk about their own personal existences get covered. Smoke, mirrors, and marionettes, that's the BRF.

By the way, I fixed a few typos.

Razzberry · January 1, 2021

I don't think they like assassination attempts, it interrupts the flow of the personal drama fairy-tales. Or perhaps since it was the bloody IRA again, they figured Mountbatten was enough realism for the season.

I was listening to a podcast with the male writers of the Fagan fantasy - Peter Morgan, Jonathan Wilson, and director Paul Whittington. Since Fagan has changed his story several times they invented his motives out of whole cloth and were slavering over how brilliant they are. One of them actually said "And there's something nice about these two people who feel a bit alone and they're coming together."

Maybe my strong urge to vomit was due to cultural differences. In the States a home invader's intentions have become so clear that one is legally justified in killing them by the so-called "Castle Laws". In Britain even a real castle has no such protection - the only thing they could charge him with was drinking some wine. Moreover, breaking into a famous person's home without robbery as a motive is almost always by a stalker driven by desire for fame-by-proxy. Queen Victoria had a long list of would-be assassins that would fit the bill. These are typically losers with entitlement and mental issues, but they want us to believe in Britain they're considered 'normal'? Really, gentlemen?

I only hope that if British women are confronted some night by a demented angry man they'll remember that according to Peter Morgan he probably just wants to chat, rummage through your things, and needs a sympathetic ear for his man-pain. Heck, she's probably a bit lonely as well and would appreciate the company! Serve tea. It's almost heartwarming.

Bellatrix · January 5, 2021

On 12/19/2020 at 10:07 AM, swanpride said:

I always had a hard time to council my memories of the Aids crisis with what actually happened. I was a child back then, and literally the first times I learned about it was from the information campaign our Bundesregierung started. There were mainly two spots...one really famous one which was mostly about the need to use condoms and then another one which was all about not stigmatising people with it, using the example of a child which is ill because her mother had it. Basically I skipped the whole fear phase and learned only about the existence of a stigma when public discourse has already moved to "hey, you really shouldn't judge". Hence I really didn't experience Diana hugging that child as a big deal. But I guess it maybe was if you lived in countries where the government had spend less money on convincing people to deal with it like adults….

Plus, I always remember some sort of documentary about Fergie my sister watched back in the day. Since that was before Fergie went completely off the rails, the tenor was how much she got victimised, and one thing which was said was that while Diana went to cute children which really worked well vor photo-ops in her charity work, Fergie had (supposedly) some really heart-breaking scenes too, including one where she held the hand of a dying women. I can't remember what illness it was, but the gist was that said women simply wasn't good looking enough (due to her illness), hence the photos were never really used by the press.

That's why I feel mostly neutral about the "Diana hugging the child" moment. Not because I think that she somehow used that child, but because I know perfectly well that that child had been an AIDS victim in the last stadium, with sores in the face and superthin, there most likely wouldn't have been a hug and if there had been one, the photos might have never been used.

I wouldn't have touched a HIV-positive person in 1987 or 1990 for literally anything. Possibly if you had a gun to my head or to that of someone I loved.

I wouldn't have voluntarily gone to the birthday party of another child who I knew had the disease. What if they broke a glass and cut themselves on it or something and I got their blood on me? (Hugging wouldn't really have been a problem, hugging wasn't really a thing outside of close family members in the 1980's. Something I have over the years really come to miss.)

Sorry.

But that is the truth. And sometimes something can be learned from the truth, perhaps precisely when it is not very pretty.

The reason for those massive, enormous public health/government campaigns were precisely because the prejudice and the – partly very natural – fear was so strong.

(And the threat to public health, obviously, with the "how-not-to-catch-it"-campaigns. Fortunately, HIV is a relatively difficult disease to catch, medically speaking.)

I can liken it best to leprosy.

Not only was it an (almost) certain death in those days, it was an ugly, gruesome, prolonged one, that stole your looks as well as your life.

In addition to making you a social outcast.

For me to have caught it (which I had a very real fear of, you read horror stories of people catching it by stepping on used needles while on the beach, etc., to this day I wear bathing shoes) at that age would have meant never getting married, never having children, never having a boy as much wanting to hold your hand, let alone do anything else, never dating.

There was no cure, no (effective) treatment.

And the virus was in your cells, with no possibility to ever get rid of it, meaning you could potentially pass this horrible fate on to someone else, the reason, of course, why so much of the above was off the table, and the social ostracisation. You would in short go around waiting to die while not getting to live in the intervening time, up until you lost your looks, becoming really ill. The disfigurement/illness phase could go on for years, being a social leper – quite literally – all the while.

(Of course, I have no idea if this reflects the life experiences of actual HIV-positive people of the time, but based on what I could surmise of the world at that age it seemed a likely scenario.)

Which is not to say that I did not feel sorry for those afflicted. I felt desperately, horribly sorry for them. And a burning desire not to catch it myself.

What Diana did there should never be underestimated.

Edited January 5, 2021 by Bellatrix

swanpride · January 6, 2021

...when HIV first turned up, it was understandable that people were afraid. But by the time Diana did it, it was well known how it was transmitted and that hugging someone didn't pose any danger whatsoever. Otherwise they wouldn't have allowed her even near someone with this illness, no matter if it was a child or not.

Yes, the picture was important, but let's not make more out of it then it was. The true heroes in this stories were the ones who fought the disease, even when the government had no interest to support them.

Roseanna · January 6, 2021

27 minutes ago, swanpride said:

...when HIV first turned up, it was understandable that people were afraid. But by the time Diana did it, it was well known how it was transmitted and that hugging someone didn't pose any danger whatsoever. Otherwise they wouldn't have allowed her even near someone with this illness, no matter if it was a child or not.

Yes, the picture was important, but let's not make more out of it then it was. The true heroes in this stories were the ones who fought the disease, even when the government had no interest to support them.

I agree. Diana had nothing to fear nor nothing to lose (unlike politicians who early defended gay rights despite that they could be labeled gays themselves).

Bellatrix · January 6, 2021

2 hours ago, swanpride said:

...when HIV first turned up, it was understandable that people were afraid. But by the time Diana did it, it was well known how it was transmitted and that hugging someone didn't pose any danger whatsoever. Otherwise they wouldn't have allowed her even near someone with this illness, no matter if it was a child or not.

Yes, the picture was important, but let's not make more out of it then it was. The true heroes in this stories were the ones who fought the disease, even when the government had no interest to support them.

Well, I would have had access to precisely the same information, and I was still afraid. *shrugs*

There was an awful lot of heroes, an awful lot of villains, and an awful lot of victims.

1 hour ago, Roseanna said:

I agree. Diana had nothing to fear nor nothing to lose (unlike politicians who early defended gay rights despite that they could be labeled gays themselves).

Yes, but she did it. Whereas an awful lot of others did not.

There may very well have been nothing to fear, but the fear and prejudice was overwhelming. One HIV-positive man who openly stepped forward with his diagnosis in the media to bring attention and put a face to this horrible disease, just before the first effective drugs came upon the market, thinking he was going to die and therefore had nothing to lose, said 25 years later that stepping forward had ruined his life. If he had known that he was going to live, he would never have done it. He was effectively shunned.

If people had feared it so very little, these things would not have happened. But it was ... taboo. And shame-filled. There was a great deal of stigma attached.

That other people did good things too does not negate the good things she did, nor does the good things she did negate the good things other people did. It takes an awful lot of good people oftentimes to accomplish something or anything good.

And Diana, with her star power, could often bring out the best in people. Like making people shun a little less.

That does not take away from all the good other people were doing and trying to do. But she deserves recognition for doing what she could too.

This story is from a little earlier, 1984, but it illustrates what I mean, and apparently Ruth continued for the next 30 years, and especially to the mid-1990's:

“In 1984, when Ruth Coker Burks was 25 and a young mother living in Arkansas, she would often visit a hospital to care for a friend with cancer.

During one visit, Ruth noticed the nurses would draw straws, afraid to go into one room, its door sealed by a big red bag. She asked why and the nurses told her the patient had AIDS.

On a repeat visit, and seeing the big red bag on the door, Ruth decided to disregard the warnings and sneaked into the room.

In the bed was a skeletal young man, who told Ruth he wanted to see his mother before he died. She left the room and told the nurses, who said, "Honey, his mother’s not coming. He’s been here six weeks. Nobody’s coming!”

Ruth called his mother anyway, who refused to come visit her son, who she described as a "sinner" and already dead to her, and that she wouldn't even claim his body when he died.

“I went back in his room and when I walked in, he said, "Oh, momma. I knew you’d come", and then he lifted his hand. And what was I going to do? So I took his hand. I said, "I’m here, honey. I’m here”, Ruth later recounted.

Ruth pulled a chair to his bedside, talked to him and held his hand until he died 13 hours later.

After finally finding a funeral home that would his body, and paying for the cremation out of her own savings, Ruth buried his ashes on her family's large plot.

After this first encounter, Ruth cared for other patients. She would take them to appointments, obtain medications, apply for assistance, and even kept supplies of AIDS medications on hand, as some pharmacies would not carry them.

Ruth’s work soon became well known in the city and she received financial assistance from gay bars, "They would twirl up a drag show on Saturday night and here'd come the money. That's how we'd buy medicine, that's how we'd pay rent. If it hadn't been for the drag queens, I don't know what we would have done", Ruth said.

Over the next 30 years, Ruth cared for over 1,000 people and buried more than 40 on her family's plot most of whom were gay men whose families would not claim their ashes."

Another source that describes Ruth's continuing work:

"In a private cemetery in small-town Arkansas, a woman single-handedly buried and gave funerals to more than 40 gay men during the height of the AIDS epidemic, when their families wouldn’t claim them.

One person who found the courage to push the wheel is Ruth Coker Burks. Now a grandmother living a quiet life in Rogers, in the mid-1980s Burks took it as a calling to care for people with AIDS at the dawn of the epidemic, when survival from diagnosis to death was sometimes measured in weeks. For about a decade, between 1984 and the mid-1990s and before better HIV drugs and more enlightened medical care for AIDS patients effectively rendered her obsolete, Burks cared for hundreds of dying people, many of them gay men who had been abandoned by their families. She had no medical training, but she took them to their appointments, picked up their medications, helped them fill out forms for assistance, and talked them through their despair. Sometimes she paid for their cremations. She buried over three dozen of them with her own two hands, after their families refused to claim their bodies. For many of those people, she is now the only person who knows the location of their graves.

“When Burks was a girl, she said, her mother got in a final, epic row with Burks’ uncle. To make sure he and his branch of the family tree would never lie in the same dirt as the rest of them, Burks said, her mother quietly bought every available grave space in the cemetery: 262 plots. They visited the cemetery most Sundays after church when she was young, Burks said, and her mother would often sarcastically remark on her holdings, looking out over the cemetery and telling her daughter: ‘Someday, all of this is going to be yours.’

‘I always wondered what I was going to do with a cemetery,’ she said. ‘Who knew there’d come a time when people didn’t want to bury their children?’"

I would have clawed down an iron door to get to my dying child, so what do I know, but compared to some people Diana does come off as a saint in this situation, yes.

(As does Ruth and so many others who did what they could. I have always admired that. People who do what they can. Of course what some people did was absolutely incredible.)

Edited January 6, 2021 by Bellatrix

Adiba · January 6, 2021

2 hours ago, swanpride said:

...when HIV first turned up, it was understandable that people were afraid. But by the time Diana did it, it was well known how it was transmitted and that hugging someone didn't pose any danger whatsoever. Otherwise they wouldn't have allowed her even near someone with this illness, no matter if it was a child or not.

Yes, the picture was important, but let's not make more out of it then it was. The true heroes in this stories were the ones who fought the disease, even when the government had no interest to support them.

Actually, by the time Diana did it, there was still a lot of fear and misinformation as well as ignorance about HIV in the general public.
I lived right out side of NYC when the epidemic became known to the public, and there was fear. Doctors and nurses wore extreme protective gear when dealing with AIDS patients, and this was shown in the media. Most people did not read scientific or medical journals about the disease, so all they saw were images.

kaygeeret · January 7, 2021

Admittedly there was some fear, but a ton of that was wrapped up in anti gay homophobia (if I can be redundant)

While there was a ton of fear, I was working at a blood center that also had a very large research presence. We were aware and involved in the science. I never saw fear, I never saw or heard anyone demonize the victims.

All I heard and learned was an intense drive to discover the cause and the method of transmission. In other words a total commitment to treat this as a disease, like other diseases that are unknown when we first encounter them. What is the cause? What is the solution? ETC.

So Diana's gesture had a real effect, but she was by no means the first nor even the most hard working person dealing with the disease. To t he degree that she eased some of the general fears, she did something that no scientist could do - sadly enough. She brought "star power" to her actions and it was widely reported.

She gets credit for that for sure, but for the many many folks working so damn hard to understand and discover, nothing would really have changed.

Also, let's give credit to a lessening of the whole anti-gay thingie. True there are some who cling to it for reasons that escape me - but I do believe that the revelations about the truth of HIV have contributed to a wider acceptance. Only my opinion of course.

swanpride · January 7, 2021

Thing is, Diana sidestepped the anti-gay thing very neatly by hugging a child.

Yeah, people were stupid back then. We had a teacher who actually claimed that the disease was spread by men having sex with apes. Thing is, she was a religious fanatic (one of her other "nice" ideas was that women who get raped were responsible for it, due to dressing too provocative), so nobody took her in any way serious.

Bellatrix · January 7, 2021

10 hours ago, kaygeeret said:

Admittedly there was some fear, but a ton of that was wrapped up in anti gay homophobia (if I can be redundant)

While there was a ton of fear, I was working at a blood center that also had a very large research presence. We were aware and involved in the science. I never saw fear, I never saw or heard anyone demonize the victims.

All I heard and learned was an intense drive to discover the cause and the method of transmission. In other words a total commitment to treat this as a disease, like other diseases that are unknown when we first encounter them. What is the cause? What is the solution? ETC.

So Diana's gesture had a real effect, but she was by no means the first nor even the most hard working person dealing with the disease. To t he degree that she eased some of the general fears, she did something that no scientist could do - sadly enough. She brought "star power" to her actions and it was widely reported.

She gets credit for that for sure, but for the many many folks working so damn hard to understand and discover, nothing would really have changed.

Also, let's give credit to a lessening of the whole anti-gay thingie. True there are some who cling to it for reasons that escape me - but I do believe that the revelations about the truth of HIV have contributed to a wider acceptance. Only my opinion of course.

This is something I never realised back then. Actually, I didn't realise it until a couple of years ago.

I read somewhere that in the 70's being gay had been considered cool, and I started wondering why and when that changed. And then I remembered – Oh.

Of course we knew that the two groups majorly hit was gay men and people who shared intravenous needles. But – and this may be a matter of cultural differences – that never translated, not where I lived, and certainly not in me to any resentment towards those afflicted or to those groups most afflicted.

(People who shared intravenous needles could often have an appearance who scared a child, though, and of course if there was blood or used needles lying about that could of course have influenced matters.)

On 12/19/2020 at 10:07 AM, swanpride said:

I always had a hard time to council my memories of the Aids crisis with what actually happened. I was a child back then, and literally the first times I learned about it was from the information campaign our Bundesregierung started. There were mainly two spots...one really famous one which was mostly about the need to use condoms and then another one which was all about not stigmatising people with it, using the example of a child which is ill because her mother had it. Basically I skipped the whole fear phase and learned only about the existence of a stigma when public discourse has already moved to "hey, you really shouldn't judge". Hence I really didn't experience Diana hugging that child as a big deal. But I guess it maybe was if you lived in countries where the government had spend less money on convincing people to deal with it like adults….

Here I agree with Swanpride, my experience, and my experience of those around me was not a reaction of hatred.

Like I said, I felt burningly sorry for them. I certainly felt no ill will towards any of them. That my own survival instincts would have partially overridden my empathy in real life did not mean that I in any way wanted them ill, or that I wished that they would be or thought that they should be shunned. I would have been happy for other children to have attended the hypothetical birthday party above.

So my admiration for Diana here is twofold – I think it was brave, because I felt that fear myself, and she lessened the burden of people who suffered very much undeservedly. I am simply glad she did it.

As I often do when I try to figure out history – I asked someone who was actually there, in this case my mother. I asked her if being gay had been considered cool in the 1970's, and she paused and thought about it, and said, 'You know, I think you are right.' She had previously told me a story of once, at work, she and a few other girls had been invited to a party by a few handsome lads, and after spending the entire evening getting ready, they were rather surprised that those handsome lads spent the night making out with each other rather than them *g*

They had laughed at the story and themselves many times since. (Not in like a bad way, just because it was pretty funny and a pretty funny story.) She had never told me the story before I specifically asked her on a prior occasion about what she could remember about something, and that might be another sign that something changed as the 1970's went into the 1980's.

The people who figured out the cause and the method of transmission did God's work. I remember, for instance, just when the screening processes of blood began (or when it was figured out how to do it), and what a landmark that was. Not to mention when you started getting treatments that started to work. Everybody should be recognised for the amazing effort that went into beating down this horrible disease.

I am not sure if so many of the victims being gay stigmatised the disease, or if the disease stigmatised the gay community.

Trying to figure it all out I had landed on the last. Like I said, there are cultural differences involved here. The possible link between HIV and the change in the way gay people were viewed had never occurred to my mother, either. The virulent hatred was simply never a thing here, reading things like Ruth's story above deeply shocked me.

So I am wondering if HIV -> changed people's perception of gay people in America (it was an American who I first saw mention that being gay had been considered cool in the 1970's) -> America's influence on the rest of the world -> gay no longer being considered cool there either

Because I simply cannot recall that kind of debates/hatred/attitudes here. It was completely alien to me and to how I remember and experienced that entire crisis. (Neither could my mother, she was equally shocked.)

The man I mentioned above who had come forward I think was heterosexual (though I am not completely certain).

(There was a slight moral divide in conversation between 'those who had done something to get it' – both gay and heterosexual couples and those who had done couple-y things as well as intravenous needle users, and 'the ones who couldn't help it' – hemophiliac children, for instance. One couldn't be safe even if one avoided diverse kinds of pleasures. But I can't remember the hatred. And there was no talk of anybody not being helped or not stopping this disease.)

Edited January 7, 2021 by Bellatrix

Adiba · January 7, 2021

8 hours ago, swanpride said:

Thing is, Diana sidestepped the anti-gay thing very neatly by hugging a child.

Yeah, people were stupid back then. We had a teacher who actually claimed that the disease was spread by men having sex with apes. Thing is, she was a religious fanatic (one of her other "nice" ideas was that women who get raped were responsible for it, due to dressing too provocative), so nobody took her in any way serious.

There’s also a well-known pic of Diana shaking hands with an adult, very ill-looking AIDS patient.

I ‘m not saying Diana was some kind of Mother Theresa, but the image of a royal shaking hands with an obviously dying AIDS victim was powerful.

Some of my old high school friends wound up succumbing to the disease later in the 80 s and 90s, as did my ex brother-in-law. I was kind of naive then and didn’t realize that when a guy talked about doing “poppers” and going into “the village” (NYC) he probably was gay. A few were gay, a couple were in drug users — I was scared that my sister might have been exposed by her ex ( thankfully, no). So for me at least, the fear was very real.

Bellatrix · January 7, 2021

13 hours ago, kaygeeret said:

Also, let's give credit to a lessening of the whole anti-gay thingie. True there are some who cling to it for reasons that escape me - but I do believe that the revelations about the truth of HIV have contributed to a wider acceptance. Only my opinion of course.

Saw I had forgotten to reply to this.

Of course the revelations about the truth of HIV (not to mention how that contributed to a working treatment!) have contributed to a wider acceptance. The same person who mentioned how being gay had been cool in the 1970's mentioned that in their personal experience there had been a significant shift in about 2000. I concur, based more on observational skills and my own memory. I had heretoforth ascribed this to the advent of the Internet, but the medication that suppresses the virus so that it is no longer infectious coincides pretty well with that, doesn't it?

Another HIV-positive person who was interviewed right before Christmas (I forget what regarding), was asked what the milestones had been for him. He mentioned three, the identification of the disease, one was the working treatment, and the last was the medication that suppressed the virus. He said that it was the first time he felt almost free since.

I am wondering if the cultural differences outlined above, the clearly anti-gay element in America, and the different experiences Swanpride and I had of our countries, is its period as a mystery disease.

In America, hitting the gay community in for instance in San Francisco first, there seems to have been made a strong link between this new unknown terrifying disease and that community, plus it being able to spread to other people too.

I asked my mother again (I should start paying her a fee as a historical consultant, lol), and apparently that link was not made here. Not at first. They knew of this new mystery illness (and were very scared of it), but at first, here, it was not connected to the gay community. I mean, members of that community were among the victims, obviously, but still that link was not made in people's mind.

By the time we knew (as I knew as I child, I mean, it was just one of the known facts) that that was one of the major groups hit HIV was already identified and the transmission methods known.

And since neither Swanpride nor I remember scenes like those Ruth experienced, I think you are entirely and completely correct. The identification of the illness and the discovery of the means of transmission did indeed help, immensely, to contribute to a wider acceptance.

Edited January 7, 2021 by Bellatrix

dubbel zout · January 7, 2021

Formatting issues messing things up. Sorry.

Bellatrix quoted me before I quit the post, which is totally fine. Formatting was the issue, not content.

Bellatrix · January 7, 2021

12 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

That depended on your local community, really. Prejudice didn't end just because "normal" people were getting sick. [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_White ]Ryan White was treated horrifically by his hometown because of contracting HIV/AIDS via a blood transfusion (he had hemophilia).

Again, I can only agree. I think it may have had a lot to say in a lot of places, perhaps here, and especially long-term, but I completely agree that there was enough suffering left to go around.

Like I said above, I can't remember things being as overt here, but before I blow my own horn too loudly, the question of whether I would have liked to meet the society I lived in carrying this virus the answer is NO.

I was deathly afraid of catching it, and the social aspect was a huge part of that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_White

Rather, I think my point was that this discovery lessened the stigma of the gay community, not necessarily the stigma of the infection itself.

Edited January 7, 2021 by Bellatrix

swanpride · January 7, 2021

2 hours ago, Bellatrix said:

I am wondering if the cultural differences outlined above, the clearly anti-gay element in America, and the different experiences Swanpride and I had of our countries, is its period as a mystery disease.

I guess it is partly the culture (though I wouldn't call Germany open-minded in this regard), partly my age (I mean, you don't exactly talk to children about gay people right? And it is not like I watched the news or anything like that) and partly the family I grew up in. I remember an incident when a teacher at my school (a true piece of work) told the pupils that the disease was spread because of people having sex with apes, and it was immediately dismissed as ridiculous. (thinking about this, the teacher was a real piece of work, but back then, everyone, meaning the teacher and the parents, were just kind of working around her, not acting directly against her to remove her from school, which is what would most likely happen nowadays). But that was the only incidence of that kind I remember. Like, I was vaguely aware that there was a tabu element to it, but not because I experienced it, but because everyone suddenly talked about why it shouldn't be tabu, and I was all "okay, that was a tabu? Didn't know that." I know that even in Germany people who contracted the illness pretended to have cancer instead in order to escape the stigma, but that's because I learned about it from German TV shows which thematised the issue. And when Philadelphia got released that was the first time I got an inkling how bad it was for people in the US.

Bellatrix · January 7, 2021

2 hours ago, swanpride said:

I guess it is partly the culture (though I wouldn't call Germany open-minded in this regard), partly my age (I mean, you don't exactly talk to children about gay people right? And it is not like I watched the news or anything like that) and partly the family I grew up in. I remember an incident when a teacher at my school (a true piece of work) told the pupils that the disease was spread because of people having sex with apes, and it was immediately dismissed as ridiculous. (thinking about this, the teacher was a real piece of work, but back then, everyone, meaning the teacher and the parents, were just kind of working around her, not acting directly against her to remove her from school, which is what would most likely happen nowadays). But that was the only incidence of that kind I remember. Like, I was vaguely aware that there was a tabu element to it, but not because I experienced it, but because everyone suddenly talked about why it shouldn't be tabu, and I was all "okay, that was a tabu? Didn't know that." I know that even in Germany people who contracted the illness pretended to have cancer instead in order to escape the stigma, but that's because I learned about it from German TV shows which thematised the issue. And when Philadelphia got released that was the first time I got an inkling how bad it was for people in the US.

Agreed that it was partially a cultural issue. But it can't have been entirely that, as a gay man in the 1970's in America and my mother in the late 1970's across the pond had the same experience that being gay or gay people being cool.

I wouldn't have described us as being particularly open-minded either. Just because we didn't throw stones at the houses of dying children I don't think we deserve some sort of special prize. *rolls eyes* (at people who did that sort of thing, not at you, obviously!) It must have been very difficult for anyone coming of age in the 1980's and 1990's. Much more difficult than I would have realised then, because, like I said, the virulent hatred that I've since read about was utterly foreign to me. People's cruelty around here is a lot more subtle. Actually, it's not all that subtle.

Watching the news was practically a religious experience in the households of both my mother and my grandparents, so it would have been on in the background every evening for half-an-hour, three-quarters *g* In addition to debate shows, etc.

I think the people around me must have been rather open about homosexuality, because I very well knew what that was. I know that my grandfather was in the army with someone who was gay. He had apparently had his suspicions for some time, and then he came over a situation that left the question in little doubt, according to my mother *g* (I asked my mother what she could remember of her parents talking as well when I asked her what she could remember.) They were great friends.

Plus my grandfather had a habit of telling fun facts whenever we would watch movies or series or whatever, 'He died young', 'He's gay', etc. Didn't matter how many times we had watched precisely the same movie. So of the one (1) television personality we had in those two decades who was openly out, I knew very well that he was gay *g*

My mother lost a friend to the subject at hand.

The thing about gay people, was that there weren't any around, you know? Almost no one on television, either. The ones who had come of age in the 1970's, a great many of them, well ... 💔 Of the ones who came of age in the 1980's and 1990's, it must have been very difficult to be out.

So it was more of a theoretical question.

However, one of our most popular author of the times included gay characters in her historical novels (written in the 1980's, I read them in the 1990's) and she very earnestly wrote of their situation and that there was nothing wrong with loving someone of the same sex, etc. Those books were enourmously influential with me in general, and I accepted those views unquestioningly, never having heard anything to the contrary either. And yet I would describe myself and people in general as more neutral towards those questions, a positive neutral in my own case. That people have become actively positive towards others being able to be with someone they want, that started happening from around 2000.

(And let's not stretch that too far either, but at least things seem to have been moving steadily in the right direction since then. When I write 'people' I mean my experience of the populace in general, all honour to the people who were there all along. It is just that I have seen such a shift in attitude in people in general and in specific persons, well, specifically, since then. Politicians and the like. Not that everything is easy for young people who discover who they are today, but I have hope that things will continue to improve.)

2 hours ago, swanpride said:

I remember an incident when a teacher at my school (a true piece of work) told the pupils that the disease was spread because of people having sex with apes, and it was immediately dismissed as ridiculous.

That must have been a widely distributed story, because I heard that too!

Not that it spread that way, but that that was how it had originated! I actually believed that for an embarrassingly long time. *facepalm*

Well, it seemed to make sense, that's how it spread between people, and it came from apes, so ... Well, I did not blame those who caught it for the ... tastes of the original perpetrators. They were all victims. Including the apes.

What I heard was that it was a group of people who had engaged in ... that, and then they spread it on.

2 hours ago, swanpride said:

(thinking about this, the teacher was a real piece of work, but back then, everyone, meaning the teacher and the parents, were just kind of working around her, not acting directly against her to remove her from school, which is what would most likely happen nowadays).

That was the 80's (and partially the 90's), for better or for worse 🙄

2 hours ago, swanpride said:

And when Philadelphia got released that was the first time I got an inkling how bad it was for people in the US.

I've never managed to watch the whole movie. It's just so heartbreaking.

I learned of how bad it was for people in the US through reading, and only a few years ago at that. I was in shock.

Edited January 7, 2021 by Bellatrix

sistermagpie · January 7, 2021

1 hour ago, Bellatrix said:

Agreed that it was partially a cultural issue. But it can't have been entirely that, as a gay man in the 1970's in America and my mother in the late 1970's across the pond had the same experience that being gay or gay people being cool.

Being considered cool in some contexts (like by younger people or those who are into the counterculture) doesn't translate into widespread acceptance at all. The 70s was the start of the gay pride movement so there was movement on that front, but AIDS didn't reverse a previous acceptance of gay people, it just gave the people who already disapproved of gay people being open at all a chance to say they deserved it and they knew it would happen.

If anything, imo, it was watching the gay community deal with AIDS that made their humanity more obvious to more people--though that's probably way reductive of a look at gay rights!

kaygeeret · January 8, 2021

It was a horrific, stigmatizing time for gay men in the US.

I was friends with a co worker who was not obviously gay, but as we gradually became good friends, I was introduced to more and more of his friends.

It was interesting for me and certainly made me aware that people are people and their sexuality is only one facet of that. I am one of the luckiest people on earth that I can still count as one of my closest friends this lovely, smart, funny, caring man and his husband.

But I will say, that the friends I made thru him during that period of time, who are my age (75) are still scarred by the entire period.

It was awful.

Umbelina · January 8, 2021

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is Diana's tremendous financial impact for charities, hospitals, AIDs research or assistance.

I read an article in Vanity Fair years ago, focused on her charity work/impact from the point of view of various charity CEO's and organizers. The overwhelming opinion, backed up with financial stats, was that even ONE appearance by Diana (for that hospital in NYC with the AIDS child for example) would raise more money for them than two years of other campaigns/celebrity appearances/endorsements.

So, not only did she massively help change perspectives, she also helped the organizations themselves keep going. Elizabeth Taylor is another who had a huge impact on AIDS perception and on funding.

Bellatrix · January 8, 2021

13 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

Being considered cool in some contexts (like by younger people or those who are into the counterculture) doesn't translate into widespread acceptance at all. The 70s was the start of the gay pride movement so there was movement on that front, but AIDS didn't reverse a previous acceptance of gay people

Yes, but it was not considered cool in the 1980's and 1990's. Not a little bit. Not among younger people, not among counterculture. If anything, people felt sorry for them. Which is not quite the same thing.

And also, the people who were young and open-minded in 1970 and thought it was cool ... You would have expected that to carry into the 1980's and 1990's, at least a little bit, in the same people who then would have been hitting their 20's and 30's and 40's at that time. And it did not. At all.

13 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

AIDS [...] didn't reverse a previous acceptance of gay people, it just gave the people who already disapproved of gay people being open at all a chance to say they deserved it and they knew it would happen.

This didn't happen here. At all. When I discovered that that had been a part of the public debate in America, I was shell-shocked. Just to make sure that I had not just missed that part I again consulted my mother, and she was absolutely horrified at the idea. Something like that was beyond my mother's comprehension. And she probably watched every debate show that aired for those two decades as well as the news.

There was no open ugliness of that kind.

13 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

If anything, imo, it was watching the gay community deal with AIDS that made their humanity more obvious to more people--though that's probably way reductive of a look at gay rights!

This might be down to cultural differences again, but I think I can guarantee you that this did not happen here.

Instead, it was like they all ... disappeared. Whether they were taken by the illness, or went underground (stupid expression here, but hopefully you know what I mean), or what happened, I do not know, but my mother had at least one gay male friend in the 1970's, and was acquainted with even more.

I personally knew none, and knew of none, growing up in the 1980's and 1990's.

Gay men disappeared from public life as well. I can remember three, the aforementioned TV personality and two people in high positions. The reason people knew about the two in high positions was that they were an item. (And a fourth, who none of us knew was gay, but is now happily married with two children with his partner.) And with all of the debate shows ... I mean, obviously, some must have been out, and there must have been activists, but my overall impression was that it was politicians from different parties debating.

On 1/6/2021 at 4:50 PM, Roseanna said:

I agree. Diana had nothing to fear nor nothing to lose (unlike politicians who early defended gay rights despite that they could be labeled gays themselves).

This wasn't really a thing here in the 1980's and the 1990's, so politicians here were free to attempt to uphold the rights of gay people in debates.

To say such a thing would have been considered unspeakably bad form and gauche. It just wasn't done. Nobody, that I can recall, ever said a bad word about gay people, people who were HIV-positive, or AIDS victims.

It was a lot more subtle than that.

16 hours ago, swanpride said:

I mean, you don't exactly talk to children about gay people right?

I am actually starting to wonder if it were that they weren't talked of practically at all in this period.

In a lot of way they were "silenced to death" in those decades. I mean, like I said, I knew what it was, so someone must have told me that (or I learned from the television), and nobody said anything bad about it. But ... nobody said anything much about it at all. The stories that I have told here I heard about 5 years ago when I tried to figure out what people's attitudes and actions had actually been. One thing is laws, but surprisingly, I discovered that in the all the centuries it had been illegal it was seldom those laws were actually used. The main three uses seemed to be sting operations by the police, and matters that would later belong to different laws, like underage and involuntary matters. Ordinary people seemed very much not gung-ho about turning people in. This was interesting so I tried to gather stories from actual life.

Nobody told me those stories in the 1980's and 1990's. And my family is talkers and story tellers. I did not even know about my mother's friend who actually died until I gathered those stories 5 years ago. Of course, it may be mere coincidence, but ...

It could also be a case of 'reading the room' in the 1980's society in which we lived.

There were no slurs, no "they had it coming", but more ... silence. And probably a lot of micro-aggressions.

16 hours ago, swanpride said:

But that was the only incidence of that kind I remember. Like, I was vaguely aware that there was a tabu element to it, but not because I experienced it, but because everyone suddenly talked about why it shouldn't be tabu, and I was all "okay, that was a tabu? Didn't know that." I know that even in Germany people who contracted the illness pretended to have cancer instead in order to escape the stigma, but that's because I learned about it from German TV shows which thematised the issue. And when Philadelphia got released that was the first time I got an inkling how bad it was for people in the US.

Yes, on this side of the pond I think it was a lot more micro-aggressions. Not the overt displays across the Atlantic, but a lot people suddenly losing the phone number of somebody. And body language, etc. So that it would have been a surprise to hear that it was taboo, because there were no slurs etc. I think the reason I realised the social stigma was because I was afraid of getting it, so I thought about how people would treat me if I got it.

Same thing as with gay people. You know, a lot of people say, with the best of intentions, 'It's not a problem to be out to today! It's 2020!' (Or 2021 now, I guess, lol.) But I have heard from people that actually have to deal with people's reactions that it's not quite that simple.

Edited January 8, 2021 by Bellatrix

suomi · January 8, 2021

Our outlooks take shape during our formative years and much of it depends on our exposure. There were a few open and closeted gay men in my parents' circle during the '60s, I don't remember focusing on the logistics of what it meant. We weren't traumatized. If someone treated us well we liked them, if they didn't we might wipe the rim of their glass with ear wax. Moral: I am always really nice to people's kids. I've never understood classifying someone by what they do with what's between their legs. Are we all old enough and experienced enough to have known some kinky straight people? A guy who worked for my husband went home to use the bathroom while he was out cashing his paycheck and caught his wife in a threesome with their male dogs.

Diana also was hands-on with people who had leprosy. The bacteria is transmitted via prolonged exposure to cough and sneeze droplets and is not spread via touch (which surely she knew). Her photo ops helped to increase knowledge and reduce a stigma that has existed for thousands of years.

Someone mentioned a granny or a teacher who linked HIV with inter-species sex (apes and humans). Perhaps that person had some of this info and went salacious with it:

Scientists identified a type of chimpanzee in West Africa as the source of HIV infection in humans. They believe that the chimpanzee version of the immunodeficiency virus (called simian immunodeficiency virus or SIV) most likely was transmitted to humans and mutated into HIV when humans hunted these chimpanzees for meat and came into contact with their infected blood. Over decades, the virus slowly spread across Africa and later into other parts of the world.

The earliest known case of infection with HIV-1 in a human was detected in a blood sample collected in 1959 from a man in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. (How he became infected is not known.) Genetic analysis of this blood sample suggested that HIV-1 may have stemmed from a single virus in the late 1940s or early 1950s.

We know that the virus has existed in the United States since at least the mid- to late 1970s. From 1979–1981 rare types of pneumonia, cancer, and other illnesses were being reported by doctors in Los Angeles and New York among a number of male patients who had sex with other men. These were conditions not usually found in people with healthy immune systems.
https://www.theaidsinstitute.org/education/aids-101/where-did-hiv-come-0

There exists an overwhelming amount of evidence to suggest that HIV arose from cross-species transmission of closely related viruses that are found naturally in various primate hosts in Africa.

By looking at the genomes of these viruses, which are collectively known as simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIV), and comparing them with those of the different types of HIV we can see that the SIVs are the closest relatives of HIV. Furthermore, geographical correlations exist between SIVs in their different hosts and HIV.

By looking at the genome sequences of different viruses over time, researchers can calibrate a “molecular clock” based on the rate of sequence change, or mutations. Scientists can then use this to infer the rate of evolution and thus determine approximately when the most recent common ancestor existed.

Using this technique, researchers estimated that HIV-1 group M originated in 1908 and group O in 1920. HIV-2 groups A and B originated a bit later; approximately in 1940 and 1945, respectively.
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/where-did-hiv-come/

Edited January 8, 2021 by suomi
typo

swanpride · January 8, 2021

I don't think that there was ever a "gay is cool" phase in Germany, but maybe I misremember...the 1980s and 1990s were more the time in which slowly an acceptance for gay people developed. There was this really successful movie at the beginning of the 1990s called "Der Bewegte Mann" which is basically about a straight man more or less accidentally ending up in a gay community. It's in hindsight very cringe regarding the stereotypes, but it was a (mostly) positive portrayal for gay men. Which might be another reason why there wasn't this connection to gay panic regarding HIV. The people who got infected in Germany first weren't mostly exclusively gay people after all, and gay people weren't quite as visible as they were in the US back then.

formerlyfreedom · January 9, 2021

Let's please get back to the topic which is the British Royal family - the AIDS crisis is starting to take this topic way afield. Thank you.

Camera One · February 14, 2021

Overall, I thought Season 4 was much better than Season 3. The main reason was Elizabeth being portrayed as more human, with actual emotion and having a sense of humor once in a while. I spent much of Season 3 distracted by the fact that this woman did not resemble the more relatable Younger Elizabeth in any way. The arcs with Margaret Thatcher and Charles/Diana (though perhaps more simplistic and repetitive) provided more of a narrative direction than the piecemeal disconnected centrics that made up Season 3. I think the writing was different, rather than just needing time to get used to the cast.

I decided to rewatch "The Queen" for the first time since it came out. It struck me that once again, I could not see this older woman as the same person as Claire Foy or Olivia Colman's Elizabeth's. I couldn't really explain her resistance to making an address to the people about Diana based on what I've "seen" of her life in this series. I suppose her inability to understand what the "people" needed was a similar mistake to her delayed visit to the site of the mining accident. The movie was very similar to the tone of the series in that it humanized these characters as an extent, while also portraying the royals as out-of-touch and archaic. I'm not sure what they were trying to say with the stag, which was so similar to the Balmoral Test episode. The Queen couldn't feel sad about Diana, but she could about an animal? Though in the series, she enjoyed stalking and had problem with killing them for decoration. Some lines in the movie felt very expositional after watching the series like "Prime Minister to be... I haven't asked him yet" or "Churchill sat in that chair".

It would feel very weird if they were to re-tread what they covered in the movie on this show. But they can't avoid showing the Queen at Balmoral at this time either. Will they try to reduce the focus on Blair for this event? As someone above suggested, maybe they'll focus on Charles since he was MIA for much of this movie.

Roseanna · February 15, 2021

On 2/14/2021 at 7:41 AM, Camera One said:

I'm not sure what they were trying to say with the stag, which was so similar to the Balmoral Test episode. The Queen couldn't feel sad about Diana, but she could about an animal?

The stag was a symbol for Diana.

On 2/14/2021 at 7:41 AM, Camera One said:

Overall, I thought Season 4 was much better than Season 3. The main reason was Elizabeth being portrayed as more human, with actual emotion and having a sense of humor once in a while. I spent much of Season 3 distracted by the fact that this woman did not resemble the more relatable Younger Elizabeth in any way. The arcs with Margaret Thatcher and Charles/Diana (though perhaps more simplistic and repetitive) provided more of a narrative direction than the piecemeal disconnected centrics that made up Season 3. I think the writing was different, rather than just needing time to get used to the cast.

I decided to rewatch "The Queen" for the first time since it came out. It struck me that once again, I could not see this older woman as the same person as Claire Foy or Olivia Colman's Elizabeth's.

Elizabeth of season 1-2 and season 3-4 is the same person and if we don't see her such, the writer and the show have failed.

Instead, Elizabeth of The Queen can be different from Elizabeth in The Crown, even though the writer is the same. Let's remember how many versions of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII's courtship and marriage there are!

On 2/14/2021 at 7:41 AM, Camera One said:

I couldn't really explain her resistance to making an address to the people about Diana based on what I've "seen" of her life in this series. I suppose her inability to understand what the "people" needed was a similar mistake to her delayed visit to the site of the mining accident. The movie was very similar to the tone of the series in that it humanized these characters as an extent, while also portraying the royals as out-of-touch and archaic.

I think that these occasions were essentially different. The inhabitants of the mining town had suffered a personal loss as their children had been killed. They longed the Queen to show empathy towards them (and the government wanted that in order to avoid accusations from residents) but she had no personal relationship to the offers, the question was only about her public duty.

Instead, Diana's death meant great personal sorrow to Elizabeth's grandsons, whereas most of the public hadn't even met Diana, so in hindsight it seems odd that the public thought that she must put them before her family members.

Continueing:

Thinking anew, the public's reaction towards their queen could be interpreted as finding a suitable scapegoat. After all, most of them had bought papers that were sold with news about Diana and her pictures.

Edited February 20, 2021 by Roseanna
added a letter

MadyGirl1987 · February 15, 2021

2 hours ago, Roseanna said:

Continueing:

Thinking anew, the public's reaction towards their queen could be interpreted as finding a suitable scapegoat. After all, most of them had bought papers that were sold with news about Diana and her pictures.

Yep. It was a classic scapegoat situation. Part of it was almost definitely the fact that most people had bought news and pics of Diana from the paparazzi and tabs. I would also add that the press pulled off a diversion move. They were being blamed by the public in their role in Diana’s death and their intrusion on her private life. You can see videos of people telling news reporters, in the days after her death, things like “you guys killed her, why couldn’t you leave her alone?” The press response? Make it a big scandal that the Queen didn’t either leave her grieving family or force them all back to London to grieve in the public eye.

Also, what’s the betting that if the Queen HAD left Balmoral and led the country in the public mourning they wanted, she would have been accused of being insincere?

dubbel zout · February 15, 2021

I think if the queen had issued even a brief statement about Diana's death shortly after it happened, a lot of the fuss would have died down. She still could have made her broadcast later on. Instead she came off defensive and tone-deaf, never a good combination.

I don't think anyone faulted her for keeping the boys at Balmoral.

sistermagpie · February 15, 2021

34 minutes ago, MadyGirl1987 said:

Yep. It was a classic scapegoat situation. Part of it was almost definitely the fact that most people had bought news and pics of Diana from the paparazzi and tabs. I would also add that the press pulled off a diversion move. They were being blamed by the public in their role in Diana’s death and their intrusion on her private life. You can see videos of people telling news reporters, in the days after her death, things like “you guys killed her, why couldn’t you leave her alone?” The press response? Make it a big scandal that the Queen didn’t either leave her grieving family or force them all back to London to grieve in the public eye.

Also, what’s the betting that if the Queen HAD left Balmoral and led the country in the public mourning they wanted, she would have been accused of being insincere?

Also it was pretty commonly thought that the queen didn't like Diana and vice versa for obvious reasons. Like in the movie The Queen, when Tony Blair tells his wife Diana died in a car accident her immediate comment about the queen is, "Did she grease the breaks?" Diana's brother, iirc, pretty much accused the royals of murder at the funeral (which they couldn't actually hear because of the accoustics).

To me it seemed like a big difference was that in the mining episode the Queen fully understood the seriousness of the situation and how it really was her duty to show respect for the huge tragedy, and she felt inadequate because she knew her sincere reaction to such things was to go cold rather than express emotion, and that would come across as her not caring.

With Diana--at least going by the movie--she was in the awkward position of grieving the death of somebody she actually knew and had a real, if complicated and not always pleasant, relationship with, while expected to grieve publicly like a person crying at the death of their favorite celebrity. Her grief for Aberfan was real, but inexpressible. In the case of Diana she was being asked to perform something more fake.

Roseanna · February 15, 2021

5 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

I think if the queen had issued even a brief statement about Diana's death shortly after it happened, a lot of the fuss would have died down. She still could have made her broadcast later on. Instead she came off defensive and tone-deaf, never a good combination.

Well, she is used to the protocol that tells how to act. Which is usually good for situations like her father's death and her own ascending to the throne, it would have been really hard to begin to plan all from the beginning (although her staff and the government of course did most of the work).

But in Diana's case there was no example: after her divorce she was no more a member of the royal family but a private person, but the public didn't regard her as such.

Luckily they had the funeral planned to Queen Mother and could use it as a model.

Umbelina · February 22, 2021

On 2/15/2021 at 5:20 AM, Roseanna said:

The stag was a symbol for Diana.

Not according the DVD commentary. Actually they said they were shocked at all the theories that came up about the stag, at least in the movie.

On 2/15/2021 at 8:57 AM, sistermagpie said:

With Diana--at least going by the movie--she was in the awkward position of grieving the death of somebody she actually knew and had a real, if complicated and not always pleasant, relationship with, while expected to grieve publicly like a person crying at the death of their favorite celebrity. Her grief for Aberfan was real, but inexpressible. In the case of Diana she was being asked to perform something more fake.

I'm sure as Queen, she had managed to issue a statement about many others she disliked in person. Aside from that, Diana was the future King's mother, and it was obvious her "subjects" were distraught. (We can argue about the reason for that forever, but before the press was even seriously involved, flowers were showing up at various residences.) It was a painful, shocking death, she was young, beloved for the most part, and beautiful with two young boys that adored her, and a cheating asshole of a selfish husband who ignored his church and his duty to get his rocks off with a married woman. It's important to remember that not very long before that? Ignoring wedding vows was a pretty big insult to everything the monarchy supposedly stands for as head of the church.

On 2/15/2021 at 8:40 AM, dubbel zout said:

I think if the queen had issued even a brief statement about Diana's death shortly after it happened, a lot of the fuss would have died down. She still could have made her broadcast later on. Instead she came off defensive and tone-deaf, never a good combination.

I don't think anyone faulted her for keeping the boys at Balmoral.

Exactly. She didn't even have to say anything kind about Diana at that point, simply a statement saying she needed to care for her grandchildren at that time (what a load of bullshit that excuse was!) Still, it would have worked. Say they are shocked at the early and horrible death of Diana, and that they would remain in seclusion with the boys, blah blah blah. She had speechwriters.

ETA

She didn't even have to give a speech, just issue a statement.

She blathers on and on about her duty. She should have done it, put aside her obvious hatred of Diana long enough to issue a statement she wouldn't even have to write.

Personally I was shocked that eventual speech worked. The venom dripped off of her, she was obviously forced and pissed off, and the careful wording about how Diana meant so much (to many others) but not to HER.

Edited February 22, 2021 by Umbelina

sistermagpie · February 22, 2021

4 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

I'm sure as Queen, she had managed to issue a statement about many others she disliked in person. Aside from that, Diana was the future King's mother, and it was obvious her "subjects" were distraught. (We can argue about the reason for that forever, but before the press was even seriously involved, flowers were showing up at various residences.) It was a painful, shocking death, she was young, beloved for the most part, and beautiful with two young boys that adored her, and a cheating asshole of a selfish husband who ignored his church and his duty to get his rocks off with a married woman. It's important to remember that not very long before that? Ignoring wedding vows was a pretty big insult to everything the monarchy supposedly stands for as head of the church.

Oh yeah, I'm not using that as a reason for her to do what she did, just saying that the situations were different at least in the two fictional things. The episode about Aberfan seemed to focus on her feeling personally inadequate about her ability to play her role. In The Queen it was more like she resented the role she was expected to play, and even more so the criticism she got when she was obviously not doing it. She talked a lot about how it wasn't tradition, but it sure seemed like there was a personal resentment at work there!

Iirc, I though the Stag in the movie more represented something of a spiritual avatar for Elizabeth herself or royalty.

Umbelina · February 22, 2021

8 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Iirc, I though the Stag in the movie more represented something of a spiritual avatar for Elizabeth herself or royalty.

It's been a while since I listened to the DVD commentary, but yes, they mentioned this "submission" from fans as well.

IIRC they were joking about all the ideas that made them sound smarter than they were, but in reality, it was just a stag, worked cinematically, gave the Queen a chance to cry (they deliberately left her head turned for the crying, felt it would be insulting and presumptuous to show it.) Whether she was crying about Diana, or more likely, that her heretofore devoted subjects were turning on her was also left vague. Possibly both, more likely the latter.

----

Oh and I wanted to mention, the night/morning Diana died a friend called me, actually just after the announcement of the car crash before death was announced.

This friend was Native American, and I had never, in decades of friendship even heard her mention a royal, let alone Diana. She was upset, I was upset, and we watched together. Within a few minutes she announced "they killed her." We both discussed that possibility right up until they announced her death.

Diana had an impact on people, even Americans who didn't give a shit about royalty of any kind. It wasn't the press that forced the idea of a royal murder on people, many were talking about it long before the papers even came out, when all "press" was just them trying to get information on the crash, and Dodi, etc.

If anything, I think the press ran with the prevailing feelings at the time, possibly partly inspired by Diana's interviews when she speculated on that same thing, and also foresaw an early death.

Edited February 22, 2021 by Umbelina

Roseanna · February 23, 2021

22 hours ago, Umbelina said:

Not according the DVD commentary. Actually they said they were shocked at all the theories that came up about the stag, at least in the movie.

21 hours ago, Umbelina said:

It's been a while since I listened to the DVD commentary, but yes, they mentioned this "submission" from fans as well.

IIRC they were joking about all the ideas that made them sound smarter than they were, but in reality, it was just a stag, worked cinematically, gave the Queen a chance to cry (they deliberately left her head turned for the crying, felt it would be insulting and presumptuous to show it.) Whether she was crying about Diana, or more likely, that her heretofore devoted subjects were turning on her was also left vague. Possibly both, more likely the latter.

I don't think the writers are the best interpreters of their work because they do much instinctively. If the stag was only meant to "work cinematically", they have done a lousy work. A good novel or movie must be multilayer.

I don't think that Elizabeth ever fell into self-pity. If she didn't cry for Diana, then she cried for the sheer beauty of the stag. Remember also that she didn't want it to be killed.

Also, I can't believe that the writers didn't know Sir Thomas Wyatt's poem about Anne Boleyn:

Quote

Whoso List to Hunt, I Know Where Is An Hind’

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, hélas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about:
Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

Umbelina · February 23, 2021

Just relaying what they said.

I was surprised too, and I did think the Stag represented the Queen being hunted.

Then when they showed the Queen visiting the dead stag I was questioning that, had to kind of twist that original theory around to meet the first.

The "Monarch of the Glen" or whatever they called it though, certainly did make me think of the only other Monarch on screen, the Queen.

Roseanna · February 24, 2021

On 2/22/2021 at 10:12 PM, Umbelina said:

Personally I was shocked that eventual speech worked. The venom dripped off of her, she was obviously forced and pissed off, and the careful wording about how Diana meant so much (to many others) but not to HER.

I think that one headline "Where is our Queen?" explained well why the speech worked (and even before that, when she came to London and inspected the Queen wasn't treated at all hostilely, on the contrary she was generally curtsied to, confirming loyalty towards her.

Hate and love are near each other. One often hates most a person that one loves most.

In this case, strong criticism towards the Queen expressed the people's plea that *only* her, not even Tony Blair, could comfort them.

As for her speech, an old British lady just can't speak or behave like Americans. In the movie Blair's spin doctor boasted that he had added "and grandmother", but the crux of the matter was "as your Queen". And when the spin doctor accused the Queen of insincerity, Blair expressed his admiration towards the Queen who, even if late, did what she didn't want to do.

It was also Blair who said that Diana had tried to destroy the matter for which the Queen had sacrificed her whole life. I don't think that's unfair: when Diana waged war against Charles, she damaged monarchy, the Queen and *also* her sons, especially William. And whatever her accomplishments, Diana did them (at least partly) because she enjoyed her popularity and indeed needed it, whereas to Elizabeth her own ego has never been important and she has just tried to do her duty.

On 2/22/2021 at 10:56 PM, Umbelina said:

This friend was Native American, and I had never, in decades of friendship even heard her mention a royal, let alone Diana. She was upset, I was upset, and we watched together. Within a few minutes she announced "they killed her." We both discussed that possibility right up until they announced her death.

---

If anything, I think the press ran with the prevailing feelings at the time, possibly partly inspired by Diana's interviews when she speculated on that same thing, and also foresaw an early death.

When people are shocked, they tended to create conspiracy theories and believe in then, because it's had to believe that matters happens by accident.

Diana seems to have been paranoid and this trait was used by people like her interviewed who make her give the interview by making her believe that Charles had an affair with the her sons' nanny Tiggy whom she was already very jealous towards.

Also, Earl of Spencer's famous eulogy in Diana's funeral was hypocritical in both personally and generally. He was living with his mistress and had refused Diana to live in his land. His vow to protect his nephew was null and void because he lived in South Africa. In don't think it's a coincident that in Harry's wedding only Diana's sisters were given the honored place to read Bible passages.

The press didn't kill Diana, but the driver was drunk and she chose not have a seat belt. Diana had long manipulated the tabloids and both parties had benefited from the relationship. Finally she lost control about the situation and the paparazzis really persecuted her. But she deliberately kissed Dodi on the deck of the ship, knowing that the happening would probably would be photographed and the interest in her and her love life would intensify.

Edited February 27, 2021 by Roseanna
removing a word and a letter

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