PSA Monday: Green Lantern and AIDS
Another of DC Comics’ AIDS Public Service Announcements from the early 1990s. This one features Green Lantern as he stops a rioting crowd from driving a gay couple out of town because “eveyone knows your kind causes AIDS!”
On one hand I applaud DC for taking an early (well, “early” in the mainstream comic book sense, at least) stand against discrimination.
But on the other hand, this is a really weak attempt. For an AIDS PSA, it leaves so many important things unsaid.
Green Lantern: But now AIDS is spreading fastest among people you wouldn’t expect.
What people “I wouldn’t expect”: Circus clowns? Professional Bull Riders? Midwestern physicians? How about some more pertinent information Green Lantern? Like most of the PSAs in this series, the intent is there, but the delivery leaves a great deal to be desired.
This PSA was scanned in from Catwoman #6 (January 1994).
June 13th, 2006 at 2:48 am
“Spreading fastest” is a bit of a dubious statistic too.
At one point AIDS was spreading fastest amongst patients of HIV+ dentists… because the number of victims jumped from zero to one, an increase of infinity percent.
June 13th, 2006 at 9:24 am
Re: the “people you wouldn’t expect” comment. I would suspect that this was said only to keep other specific groups of people from being victimized. Had GL specifically mentioned circus clowns by name, you just know that the very next day they’d be trying to drive all the circus clowns out of town. Did you see that crowd? I had to look at the ad twice because I was CERTAIN i’d seen some torches and pitchforks the first time around.
On the other hand, I am (for all the wrong reasons) very much enjoying the “look” of this nice gay couple. You’ve come a long way, baby!
June 14th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
The things that strike me most about this PSA are (1) holy mackeral, Hal Jordon’s been using the Ab-Adder or something, and (2) those aren’t just any gay guys, that’s the Leather Man from the Village people and Harpo Marx. Or possibly Noel Coward.
June 18th, 2006 at 8:20 pm
I gotta admit, “spreading fastest among people you wouldn’t expect” feels like BS to me, but it’s the sort of BS you might want to tell an angry crowd. And he gets points for emphasizing that AIDs is not spread by casual contact. Which, unlike the earlier line, is actually true.
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