PAGE 24 THE WEEKLY NEWS MARCH 9, 1988

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MEDIA MONITOR

BY FRED FEJES

Shilts Hits Discord

And The Band Played On seems to have hit some sour notes. When the Randy Shilts book was published last year, it was hailed as the definitive history of the AIDS epidemic. Its 600-odd pages chronicled not only the emergence and progress of the disease as a medical phenomenon; it also highlighted the heavy impact of the disease on the gay community and the community's response to it.

However, questions are now being raised about whether the Shilts book along with being another sensationalistic attempt by a journalist to exploit the AIDS crisis is also a homophobic put-down of the gay community. In its December 27th-January 9th issue, the Gay Community News (GCN) reviewed the Shilts book and judged it to be a serious maligning of the gay community. Most serious of Shilts' offenses was his unwillingness to take seriously any person's position or idea that did not fall within his own mainstream centrist liberal world perspective on sex and politics. Thus, he constantly defers to establishment medical opinion, rejecting any alternative theories of the origin and spread of the He conned any type of alternative treatment. of the gay community the sexual practices fear many gay people have of inbtly the epidemic being used as a pretext to outlaw homosexuality. Most grating was Shilts' treatment of the PWAS and their attempts to respond to their situation in a collective and empowering manner. He refers to PWAS throughout the book as victims, sufferers, casualties and so on.

One would expect such a review from GCN, which puts a high premium on being politically correct. (The beefcake quotient in GCN is a minus-15, and the personals are something even your third-grade nun wouldn't be embarrassed to read.) However, now even the Advocate, that bastion of gay yuppie lifestyle whose politics up until now never veered towards anything left of the mainstream Democratic party, is beginning to question the value of Shilts' book. Michael Helquist, in his regular column on AIDS developments (Issue 491), takes the Shilts book to task for lightly dismissing the significance of the PWA movement and writing about PWAs as victims. Helquist's strong criticism was further repeated and amplified in a letter to the editor in Issue 493, which was headlined "The Shilts Hits The Fan." Is this just another example of our community's long-established propensity to

BAY AREA NEWS

NANCY VALMUS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22

(813) 392-2122 in Largo, and I would love to hear from you."

Brown's salary is being paid through a grant from the Chicago Resource Center and is not being taken from private donations.

SARASOTA

ST. DYKE'S DAY SET FOR MARCH: The second annual St. Dyke's Day, created last year by the womyn of Southern Salon, is scheduled for Saturday, March 19th. The day of celebrating lesbian lifestyle will feature a new spectacular celebration, the "dyke-cath-alon," which is a series of semi-competitive events to challenge the spirit of competition. Participants don't have to be athletes to join in the fun.

The day's events will begin at 10 a.m. at Twin Lakes Park on Clark Road (1/4 mile east of Route 75 Exit 37) on "Dyke's Island," a private area belonging to Sarasota County Parks and Recreation, but not yet discovered

trash our own, or is this a sign of a growing political and critical awareness?

A Shift To The Left?

The Advocate's criticism of the Shilts book. is one example of an even more intriguing possibility. Is the Advocate going Commie on us? Behind those reassuring glossy beefcake covers, and mixed in between those ads for Caribbean cruises, is a revolution being plotted and promoted? In that same issue that contained the "Shilts Hits The Fan" letter was a fascinating article by Mark Vandervelden about the changing gay political scene in California. For years, the Advocate has painted California's gay politics as the model to be seriously studied and emulated by those of us so unfortunate as not to be blessed to live in California. According to past pronouncements of the Advocate, a successful gay movement a la California consisted of one part effective community organizing, two parts celebritystrewn fundraisers, three parts money and four parts non-gay political allies.

But no more! Under the impact of the AIDS epidemic and the repeated attacks by LaRouche and his sympathizers in the state legislature, the politics of the gay community are being transformed. If we are to believe the quicle, the days of business as usual are gone, "Even Ca

tablishment-oriented gayet conservative, esporting the kind of militant action and HP spread civil disobedience that would have been unheard of just a year ago." According to one top political activist quoted in the article: "No matter how successfully we pass ourselves off as straight" (to politicians) "we are still queers to them. They don't want us, and what that has done is to create a vast number of new militants out of people who were previously conservative, establishment types."

""

Vandervelden's work was earlier featured in the Advocate with articles about the March on Washington which emphasized the militant character of the protest. Can it be that the Advocate is going after the gay left/politico audience which was, up until now, the sole market of GCN? It is certainly an interesting turn of events.

Do you have any stories from your local press that deserve mention in Media Monitor? Send them in to The Weekly News, 901 NE 79th Street, Miami, Florida 33138.

by the general public. (The area was the former practice field of the Kansas City Royals.) Events will feature among others a softball throw, egg toss, "broad" jump and a les-bean toss. Events are 50 cents each, and the womon scoring the most points during the day becomes the new St. Dyke.

The evening concludes with an intimate, romantic dinner (featuring a menu of turkey tetrazzine with linguini, salad, garlic bread, hot and cold beverages, and dessert), dancing and entertainment. Tickets are $8 each or two for $15. The dinner will be in the Great Room at 4535 45th Court, in Sarasota (near Jungle Gardens in the Ringling Museum area).

St. Dyke's Day is named after Boudica, an infamous leader in herstory. She is honored by celebrating the uniqueness and specialness of our lives.

For tickets, directions or more information, call Sharon at (813) 377-9041 or Gay at 9233265 in Sarasota. Raffle tickets for many wonderful prizes also are available and will be sold at the Southern Salon and during St. Dyke's Day events.

To have your Bay Area News appear here, call Nancy Valmus at (813) 689-7566 for a mailing address.