The Thing About AIDS

I wrote this paper in a film class awhile back and I thought since the remake of "The Thing" is coming out in a few weeks, I should share it.

Recently, I was flipping through the channels and happened to catch a few minutes of one of my favorite horror/science fiction films, John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” Kurt Russell was right in the middle of testing each member of the camp’s blood to see if they were the ‘thing’ or not. My fiancé disinterestedly leaned over and asked me why I like to watch “these” kinds of movies all the time, to which I responded, “Because this movie isn’t about what you think it’s about.” She smirked and asked, “oh yeah, what’s it about then?” I thought for a second, knowing this film inside and out, and realized I had no idea. I quickly put on my bullshit goggles I’ve developed from many hours spent in film analysis classes and quickly dissected the film. I then smiled, looked her confidently in the eyes and said, “AIDS.” By the look on her face I could see she was either dumbstruck by my superior knowledge of all things film, or she thought I was full of shit. “I can prove it,” I said, and this is how I did just that.

The first cases of AIDS appeared in the United States in 1980 and were largely misunderstood, misdiagnosed and scared the living shit out of everyone, especially Republicans. AIDS is a mutation of HIV, which is thought to have originated in simians before it jumped to humans and mutated to the virus we know and love today. HIV had been steadily infecting people all over the world since the 1960’s, but HIV’s deadly mutation had only killed in Africa until, in 1975, a Norwegian sailor mysteriously died of the disease. It was later discovered that he contracted AIDS while in Africa in the 60’s, presumably boning monkeys at an all night “let’s all try to get Ebola” sexfest orgy. It is widely believed that this Norwegian sailor was the link between the cases in Africa and the first cases in San Francisco in the 1980’s, hence making sailors even more of a stereotype for the rest of time.

In the film, an American research team comes across a group of “crazed” Norwegians chasing after a dog in a helicopter. The Norwegians are shooting wildly at the dog, and seem to have no regard for their own lives or the lives of the researchers. Dumbfounded, the researchers watch on as the Norwegians accidently blow themselves up with Termite, but not before the dog escapes into the American camp. Not knowing what to make of the incident, the researchers let the dog roam freely amongst them, thinking that the Norwegians must have snapped due to the isolation of Antarctica and simply didn’t want to share their canine love slave with Americans. We find out later that the dog is carrying a disease that infects the blood of its victim. This disease inwardly changes a person into a monstrous alien hell-bent on infecting everyone around them while keeping the outward appearance of its victim. Sound familiar yet?

The nature of the AIDS virus is that it kills its victim slowly, and the carrier may not know that they have it until it is too late. The American people were becoming acutely aware of this fact by the time of the film’s release in 1982. By the end of 1981, 121 people had already died of the disease in the United States with thousands more thought to be infected. The only thing keeping the “average” U.S. citizen from freaking the fuck out was comfort in the fact that the disease seemed to only be affecting the homosexual community. This eventually changed, but in 1982 it was widely believed that AIDS only killed gay men, and the disease was actually being called “GRID” or “gay-related immune deficiency”.

In the film, there are absolutely no women. The closest thing to a woman we get is a computer voice, and even that is quick and easy to miss. The ‘thing’ sweeps through the men quickly and quietly as each of them become increasingly suspicious of one another due to the fact that they can’t tell just by looking at one another if they are infected. In other words, basically the movie reverts to 10 dudes not making eye contact in the locker room hoping not to be raped in a cold shower stall. The only real scientist in the film has no explanation as to what causes the virus to spread, so he is put into quarantine out of fear that he may also be infected.

This all reflects the same fears Americans were having at the time of the films release. The disease was only happening in men, AIDS and homosexuality are impossible to detect by simply looking at someone, and scientists had no idea how the disease was spreading. They knew that the disease was infecting the victim’s blood but had no idea how it spread. The film seems to suggest, as with 85% of all science fiction films, that scientists had failed us and that this killer disease was out of their control. It also shows a fear that anyone could be a carrier, no one is safe, and this “plague” could be the end of all mankind. It seems crazy to think this now, but there was a genuine fear that AIDS was a sign of the apocalypse. In the film, the researchers estimate that if the disease makes it to the mainland, all life on earth would be assimilated in just three years, and at the rate AIDS was spreading at the time, scientists believed it would grow to pandemic proportions in about the same time period. The parallels are hard to miss.

This film is a classic case of our fears making their way onto the big screen. AIDS is now relatively under control, but when it first arrived on our shores, people were literally in a panic. We wanted the disease to go away the same way the flu appears and disappears each year, but when science failed us, we panicked even further. In the film, a lowly helicopter pilot figures out how to test for the disease by checking everyone’s blood. His only idea for a cure however, is to burn the infected person so the disease cannot spread further. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is how many Americans felt about people showing up with AIDS or possibly even about the homosexual community in general. The same prejudices that exist today about the gay community were much stronger back then and when AIDS showed up they become reviled to a Hitler-esque quality.

At the end of the film, two men sit freezing to death in the snow after blowing up the compound. They eye each other suspiciously having been out of each others site for a short time. It is only after resigning themselves to the fact that they will both be dead in a few short minutes that they let down their guard. We are left wondering their fate, the fate of the ‘thing’ and the fate of all human kind, just as in 1982 no one knew what would become of us, AIDS or the world in general. Yeah, take that woman! I think I won my argument.