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Notes -
Re: Casual contact transmission of AIDS
One of the other great works of AIDS literature is of course Larson's Rent. Larson wrote many drafts over the years, and who had AIDS and how bad and how they got it varied throughout. In early drafts, which date to the late 80s, the hetero non addict characters are also infected, or assume that they probably are or will be from living in close proximity to infected persons. There's much more of a fatalistic tone to early drafts, everyone is going to die, even the heteros and lesbians and non addicts, and die soon.
As drafts progressed, Mark stopped having, then stopped assuming he would get, AIDS, and Roger's infection was more clearly tied to intravenous drug use and his dead ex rather than just sort of having it because idk reasons. Much of Mark's character arc becomes about surviving his friends, as Larson did, and documenting and immortalizing his dead and dying friends, but also the strange isolation of being the survivor, the normie of the group, the straight white non addicted ally.
Much of this reflected the progression of medical knowledge in real life, and the final script in turn has become more a period relic than a reflection of modernity, by the time the movie came out it had a totally different valence. Treatments were different, prognoses were different.
The song that really has the most currency to today's world, and best reflected how the world would progress, is probably Santa Fe, which predicted without realizing it the development of the restaurant industry in small towns across America.
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