Hollywood’s AIDS Support Is More Fantasy Than Fact

As an actor who is HIV-positive, I am appalled by The Times’ willingness to swallow the illusion created by a self-congratulatory organization that Hollywood is conscientiously combatting “discrimination against persons with AIDS, as well as gays and lesbians in the entertainment industry,” the message delivered in the Calendar story “Hollywood Sends a Sign of Support” (Dec. 9).

While it cannot be denied that the group, Hollywood Supports, organized by Barry Diller and Syd Sheinberg, has made impressive strides (albeit a decade late), the facts point to Hollywood’s ongoing intolerance of gays, lesbians and people with AIDS and/or HIV.

In the article, Diller points to the “extraordinary cross-section of the most senior people in the entertainment and communications industry” involved in Hollywood Supports and suggests that’s reason to believe “leadership is engaged in support of this AIDS fight.” Specious statements like this trick people into believing Hollywood is more evolved than it actually is. Here are some facts:

Earlier this year, the Actors Fund created a quilt panel containing dozens of first names of actors who had died of AIDS but couldn’t honor them fully by revealing their last names. The show-business trade papers are riddled with an alarming number of blatantly euphemistic obituaries. Hollywood celebrities, known to be gay or lesbian, continue to parade themselves in front of the media, babbling on about their hyper- heterosexuality. They get married and wear wedding bands to cinch the masquerade.

Does this sound like we live in a safe atmosphere? The truth: This town remains frighteningly homophobic.

The Times story also relates inane comments made by Doug Savant, who plays a gay character on “Melrose Place.” “I am proud to play a character of uncommon dignity . . . not solely defined by sexual identity,” Savant asserts in inherently homophobic drivel. Not only does that tell us the other characters are commonly undignified, but it also reinforces the stereotype that gays are OK as long as they don’t have sex.

I recently had the honor of working on HBO’s “And the Band Played On” with Sir Ian McKellan. Not a Hollywood actor, McKellan is blazingly uncloseted and it was his openness on the set that created an atmosphere antithetical to any set I’ve been on in the last 20 years. Not only was the script about us, we--gays, lesbians and people with HIV--were profoundly protected in the glow of McKellan’s stance.

Until everyone working in Hollywood who is gay, lesbian or HIV-impacted--from grips to movie stars--is able to fearlessly come out of the closet, the “most senior people in the entertainment and communications industry” should refrain from too much celebrating.

I don’t disagree with Diller that Hollywood Supports is “good work,” but his other statement is closer to reality: “Nothing is enough.” As for The Times, I hope it will probe deeper and offer a realistic picture beyond the Hollywood fantasy.