by Matthew Jones

Television has the remarkable ability to keep us informed.  In recent years, television stations have alerted us to the threats of SARS, West Nile Virus, Anthrax and smallpox.  Television has also kept us aware of more common diseases such as lung cancer, breast cancer and heart disease.  With so much coverage of new and old diseases, one might wonder what ever happened to AIDS.

AIDS certainly hasn’t gone away.  In fact, it continues to spread at an alarming rate.  According to the National Institutes of Health, approximately 40,000 new HIV infections occur each year in the United States, about 70-percent among men and 30-percent among women. Among newly infected people, half are younger than 25 years of age.  Of newly infected men, approximately 50-percent are Black, 30-percent are White, 20-percent are Hispanic, and a small percentage are members of other racial/ethnic groups.  Of newly infected women, approximately 64-percent are Black, 18-percent are White, 18-percent are Hispanic, and a small percentage are members of other racial/ethnic groups.

The growing incidence of HIV/AIDS among Black women was one statistic that raised the eyebrows of Mara Brock Akil, executive producer for UPN’s hit show Girlfriends.

“Black women are among the fastest rising groups (of people acquiring HIV/AIDS) – if not the fastest,” said Akil.  “People need knowledge.  They need information.  You don’t have that if no one’s talking about it.  Far too often, important issues get ignored.  But in the entertainment industry, you have the opportunity to say ‘let’s deal with this.  Let’s talk about it.’”

So Akil did what she does best, and developed a special episode of Girlfriends entirely dedicated to the AIDS issue.  In addition to the traditional SITCOM format, the show included actual documentary footage of African-American living with HIV/AIDS.

“We talk very openly about sex on the show,” said Akil.  “Because of that, it’s a very natural transition to talk about the issues surrounding sex, and that includes AIDS.”

Walking the Line Between Comedy and Social Consciousness

Akil has had a long history of tackling important – and sometimes difficult or awkward – issues within her programming.  Girlfriends, which will begin its fourth season in the fall, has addressed many social issues and concerns, ranging from interracial dating to sexual addiction to alcoholism.  The show has also dealt with the unexplored issue of fibroids (leiomyoma) – an uncomfortable, but non-life-threatening overgrowth of uterine muscle and fibrous tissue that disproportionately affects African-American women.

In her previous position as a producer for the hit show Moesha, Akil won a SHINE (Sexual Health in Entertainment) Award for an episode dealing with teenage sex, and the responsibility one has in making sex-related choices.  She also won a SHINE Award for a previous Girlfriends episode that tackled the issue of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) and sexual responsibility.

“When I presented the AIDS storyline to the writing team, they weren’t surprised,” said Akil.  “They know me by now.  It’s an extremely talented team.  They can handle tough issues.  They know how to be funny, and at the same time, be true and real.”

Akil admits that it can be a difficult line to walk; between making a joke out of a serious situation and making fun.  According to Akil, when dealing with an issue like AIDS, it is important not to be worried about what is “taboo,” or too serious to be dealt with.

“Disease is certainly not funny, but our reactions to disease are,” she explained.  “For instance, when Maya’s character hears her friend has AIDS, her reaction is purely out of ignorance and fear.  But we can sometimes recognize ourselves, and our own reactions in each of the characters, and that’s funny.”

Akil said the actors had some of their own ideas as to how their characters would react to someone with AIDS.  In the case of Maya (played by Golden Brooks), Brooks felt the character should react out of even greater ignorance than the script originally called for.

“I was really proud of the cast and the writing staff,” said Akil.  “Everyone really wanted to get this one right because everyone saw it as important.”

Getting it Right

Incorporating real life women living with the HIV/AIDS virus into the show was an essential element in achieving the creative vision – both behind the scenes and on the show itself.

To help prepare the actors for the episodes, Akil brought in a group of HIV/AIDS survivors – all African-American women – to talk to the cast and crew.  They sat together and talked, sharing their experiences, and helped to infuse the show with some additional reality and emotional impact.  At one point, one of the cast members came out from behind the camera to give one of the women a hug.

Some of the women were also featured in the episodes with documentary-style vignettes – again, to tell their story and share their experiences as Black women living with HIV/AIDS.

“I was impatient for the cast to actually meet these women,” said Akil.  “From the very beginning, we wanted to make the show as close to reality as possible; and the documentary style actually helped ad a dimension to one of the main plotlines of the series.  One of the characters (Lynn, played by Persia White) is an aspiring director – and she hadn’t been too diligent about it.  So for the show, we had it written in that she was actually shooting a documentary.  Doing the documentary and dealing with this issue helped the character get up and start doing something with her career.”

Increasing Communication on HIV/AIDS

“It’s getting easier to talk about serious issues on television,” said Akil.  “You have groups like Media Projects (an activist group dedicated to keeping important social issues in the media spotlight), which are diligent in talking to the entertainment industry – saying that it’s okay to talk about delicate issues without being “taboo.”  They’re working with the networks to raise the bar on communication.”

It also helped that Viacom, the parent company of UPN, has teamed up with the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) to tackle the AIDS issue head on.  KFF is an independent philanthropic organization dedicated to tackling major health issues that face our nation – including health policy and responsible healthcare communication in media and entertainment.  When Akil brought the storyline to the networks, they were completely supportive of what she wanted to do.

“We had so many people coming together to try to get this right, from the cast to the network to the people at KFF,” continued Akil.   KFF was important because it helped (the show) be free, and they helped us see that we didn’t need to be squeamish - that it was okay to say this, and to say that.  This is an issue that’s important to all of us, and it showed in the way everyone approached the show.”

Sending a Message to the Country – And Hearing Back

“From the preliminary anecdotal information, the show had a huge public response,” said Akil.  “The phone lines were lit up at the studio and the network.  There were email postings, chat groups – you name it.”

Some viewers even called in believing that Kimberly Elise, the actor portraying a woman with AIDS, had actually died, rather than her on-screen character.  This, of course, was not true, but underscored the level of reality in the show.

“We approached it like real life,” continued Akil.  “If you know someone with AIDS – it can be like they’re there one day, and then just gone the next.  Like time has just…scratched out a loved one.”

Media response to the show was also strong, with calls coming in from USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Glamour Magazine, New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.  Whether the feedback was good or bad, people were finally talking about the issue of African-American women with AIDS; and that is precisely what Akil wanted.

“Say what you want about the show, but we stick to what’s real,” said Akil.  “Sometimes we’re serious, and sometimes we’re shallow.  We don’t just stay in one area as people.  We move and it’s the same thing with the show.  We have to balance that same thing.  We explore human relationships and human nature.”

With nearly 40 million people around the world living with HIV/AIDS, it is an unfortunate certainty that this disease will be with us for a while.  That means it’s a condition of life that can’t be ignored.  Humanities best bet is to use the tools and resources at hand – research, knowledge, and yes, communication.

Bravo to Mara Brock Akil and the courageous cast of Girlfriends for keeping it real and saying something the world needs to hear.

THE END