AIDS, Society, & "Rent"

I can say that Rent was a very different play. Though I only got to read it and listen to it, it was pretty good. I am still not completely sure what happed in it tough. I do know however that it has a lot to do with AIDS. I really am going to speak about this in my meditation. I think that the entire thought of AIDS in our world has changed over the past few decades. In the eighties, Americans felt that the disease was only a homosexual and a junky problem. Nowadays, everyone realizes that it originated from the homosexual population but that it affects everyone not just a few ‘select’ groups of people. Rent is a prime example of plays that have changed the way that people view social issues like this one. We as a country can thank those who wrote and stared in their play because it helped to change people’s minds about AIDS. Rent shows that even straight people who are not junkies get AIDS. This is a subject that people in my generation today view as an obvious observation. We all were taught in school and by our peers that AIDS is just a normal part of life nowadays, that it affects a lot of people. Even the government today is beginning to take a stand on the AIDS epidemic because it has become such a problem. Though I know this is a very short meditation, I know that this is the largest observation that I made. I usually make connections with politics in plays more than the artistic side to plays.
--Michael