AIDS: An Epidemic of Meaning the Politics of Gender and the Problematics of Desire in the Representation of a Medical Disaster

Abstract

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has emerged in the 1980's as a major health threat of epidemic quality. The panic and fear accompanying this epidemic have been more extreme than the relatively small numbers of cases might suggest, however. This paper contextualizes that panic within a discussion of the epistemological implications of AIDS as it articulates with the ideology of sexual identity and gender domination in North American culture. Based on an analysis of print media AIDS news-stories, from 1985 through 1987, books about AIDS, and AIDS urban legends, I determine that the 'epidemic of fear' that characterizes the AIDS epidemic is the inevitable outcome of AIDS complex and ineluctable corrosion of the symbolic foundations of the ideology of masculinism in North America. Through the development of a model of mass media news as revealed reality, and a discussion of the core resonant signs of that ideology, I argue that AIDS violates the meaningful integrity of the hegemonic discourse of sexual identity, gender and reproduction, and undermines the capacity for this "regime of truth" to sustain itself. By placing AIDS within the framework of a critical analysis of the significant potential for ideological transformation, I argue for a broader and more comprehensive understanding of the AIDS epidemic as a sickness event.