Taylor Ksch on ‘The Normal Heart,’ Homophobic Right-Wgers, and Gays the Milary

Contents:

• MARK RUFFALO WAS SCHOOLED BY ‘NORMAL HEART’S’ PNEERG GAY PLAYWRIGHT
• NED WEEKS: THE HENERAL LUNA OF THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• A GAY JEWISH READG LIST
• TAYLOR KSCH ON ‘THE NORMAL HEART,’ HOMOPHOBIC RIGHT-WGERS, AND GAYS THE MILARY

MARK RUFFALO WAS SCHOOLED BY ‘NORMAL HEART’S’ PNEERG GAY PLAYWRIGHT

The story tak a look at the natn's sexual polics and the HIV-AIDS crisis New York Cy while followg Weeks (Mark Ruffalo) as he begs his missn (wh the help of other gay activists and supporters the medil muny) to expose the tth about the disease to the public.

NED WEEKS: THE HENERAL LUNA OF THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

The play and film also explor his affiliatn wh the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) and the aths of iends and loved on due to addn to Weeks, a handful of other starrg and supportg characters both the play and film are based on real people. Lawrence Mass, another -founr of urse, Kramer's volvement wh the play-turned-movie was neher the begng nor the end of his relatnship wh HIV-AIDS awarens or the gay muny.

And yet, he was also already g his power as an artist to promote the gay apologize, this vio has year, he also wrote and produced a brilliant film versn of "Women In Love, " the storied D. One of Kramer’s most important tasks as producer was to make sure the Brish censors didn’t remove the most homoerotic moment most moviegoers had ever seen up to that time: a naked wrtlg match between Oliver Reed and Alan Bat ont of a fireplace.

A GAY JEWISH READG LIST

In his efforts to close the al and keep the scene, Kramer and director Ken Rsell took the chief Brish censor to lunch –- and agreed to lower the lights the scene to make a tad more entire history of the LGBTQ movement is a story of the llaboratn of culture and years later a group of men gathered Kramer’s Fifth Avenue apartment to discs the creatn of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis.

It would bee his first ccial vehicle as an activist and the first anizatn to raise the alarm to gays and straight people alike as to the gravy of the AIDS epimic. From that moment on, all of Kramer’s polil activi were eply rmed by his sense of the entire history of the LGBTQ movement is a story of the llaboratn of culture and polics: how gay artists and gay activists worked tanm to transform the world’s attu toward what had been one of s most hated mori for centuri.

And no one bed their artistic and polil talents more succsfully to produce social progrs than March 1987, when the AIDS epimic was ravagg Ameri, and the whole gay muny was peerg over an abyss, Kramer summoned all of his theatril talents an impassned speech to young activists at what was then known as Manhattan’s Lbian and Gay Communy Servic Center. ”Kramer’s taste for drama often took him over the wasn’t the only gay man to e theater, but his e of the theatril reflects an important shift gay liberatn the 20th century and beyond. Throughout the 1960s and the 1970s, plays, books and movi helped to end gay visibily, begng 1961 wh the Brish film Victim, about the blackmail of London homosexuals.

TAYLOR KSCH ON ‘THE NORMAL HEART,’ HOMOPHOBIC RIGHT-WGERS, AND GAYS THE MILARY

In 1971, Sunday Bloody Sunday molished another barrier wh the first full-on all-male kiss a major motn picture between Peter Fch and Murray Head -– a moment as shockg for straight viewers as was reemg for gay 1985, ma perfect sense for Kramer to turn to the stage to raise the alarm about the AIDS epimic wh his script The Normal Heart. In them, he blhely asserts that Abraham Lln, Gee Washgton, Benjam Frankl, Alexanr Haton, Andrew Jackson, Frankl Pierce, Jam Buchanan, Mark Twa, Herman Melville and Richard Nixon were all gay. Wrten by the inic Jewish gay rights and AIDS activist Larry Kramer, who died last month, and based on his experienc, “The Normal Heart” follows Ned Weeks (Mark Ruffalo), a Jewish-Amerin wrer who aniz a group foced on brgg attentn to how a myster illns is slghterg an oddly specific group of New Yorkers: gay men.