“I went through a social death. I stayed in a back room a lot of the time at my sister’s apartment. I pretty much laid around and just wished I could hurry up and die. I had nowhere to go. People looked at me, followed me around, screamed at me and pointed.”
This was the reality Mike Sisco, who shared his story on a 1987 episode of the “Oprah Winfrey Show,” and many others had to face at the time when it came to their HIV/AIDS diagnosis.
Since the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, about 40 million people have died from AIDS and AIDS-related illnesses, according to the World Health Organization. When AIDS cases were first reported in the U.S. in June 1981, the media largely placed the spotlight on the death toll and misinformation-fueled hysteria rather than on the public-health aspect of the crisis, according to a 2004 study from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Over time, media has evolved from early depictions that white-washed the epidemic disproportionately affecting people of color, journalist Naveen Kumar reported in 2021 for Them, to fuller, more nuanced depictions of today on shows such as Pose and It’s a Sin. Nevertheless, educators and entertainment industry experts believe that there is more work to be done.
‘Scared and prejudiced’
One of the first prime-time television depictions of HIV/AIDS was a 1983 episode of the medical drama St. Elsewhere. Set in Boston’s fictional St. Eligius Hospital, the episode “AIDS and Comfort,” broke down facts and confronted misconceptions through the show’s on-screen medical professionals. They also used the central character, who was affected by AIDS, to inspire a call to action for better public education and compassion.
Not every program followed the St. Elsewhere approach, however.
Damien Ridge, a professor at the University of Westminster, first encountered an on-screen discussion of HIV/AIDS in an 1983 episode of “60 Minutes Australia.”
“It was definitely very negative and helped create a…
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