Sociological Analysis Of The Movie, And The Band Played On

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The movie “And The Band Played on” portrayed a massive medical endemic in society that left the world in a state of controversy and fear. Conflict theory is a large scale explanation of sociology that focuses on social inequality (Ferris, Kerry, & Stein, 2016). Within the first 10 minutes, Bill Kraus addresses the Democratic National Committee, hardly gets any applause after a very well-presented speech. When a CDC worker (Dr. Guinan) stresses to her colleague (Dr. Curran) that gay men are on the receiving end of a disease outbreak, Dr. Curran crosses out the word “homosexual” on Guinan’s paper, claiming the administration wouldn’t accept it and the idea of helping them would be killed rather than helped. Throughout the movie, conferences with …show more content…

All of the social, medical, and political structures created society toward unification on understanding and discovering AIDS. The symbolic interactionism theory claims meanings are created through interactions of small daily processes (Ferris, Kerry, & Stein, 2016). Throughout the movie, gay culture is discriminated against as more ties are being made to homosexual men contracting the unknown disease. Additionally, the still undiscovered disease kills more and more people but starts to branch out to women and heterosexual men as well. The CDC first hypothesizes that contaminated semen coming into contact with bodily fluid during sex causes the disease, and then believed the main contribution was gay sex, until they finally come to the conclusion that the blood was contaminated. AIDS was shifted from the meaning of a fatal immune disease, to a disease that homosexual men obtained, and then finally to a bloodborne disease that anyone can receive. The meanings of AIDS were changed as the CDC interacted with affected patients, medical scientists, and finally with the blood banks to create an understanding of the disease for the entire

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