Let's say that humanity was facing its greatest health crisis since the plague, and the leader
of the free world was afraid to talk about it.
Where could Americans turn for the frank truth about their very survival?
Designing Women.
"You can't get AIDS from touching anybody."
Yes, the late-80s sitcom Designing Women, one of the very first scripted shows to address
AIDS, and condoms, and gay men, all in one episode!
Seven years into his term, President Reagan had only made one speech about the epidemic,
which is why the job of educating the nation had to fall to Delta Burke and Janine from
Ghostbusters.
"Ghostbusters, whaddya want?"
This 1987 episode of the show, entitled "Killing all the Right People," does triple duty.
It's educational, it is incredibly compassionate, and it gives Julia Sugarbaker an opportunity
to really lay into some hypocrites.
"Get serious.
Who do you think you're talking to?"
The story of the episode is that 24-year-old Kendall has hired the ladies to design the
decor for his upcoming funeral.
Kendall embodies multiple heartbreaking stories about AIDS -- stories that real people were
going through at the time.
He's young.
"What do you mean you're dying, you're just a kid."
His family rejected him for being gay.
"Actually they're more upset about the gay part."
He's seen people with no one to turn to.
"There's a lot of people out there now who don't have anybody."
He's getting substandard care.
"In the hospital even some of the nurses refuse to come in my room."
And of course he gets the "very special episode" music.
Also of note is just how much education the show packs into 22 minutes.
"Gays aren't the only ones getting it."
The delivery doesn't always come across as totally natural...
"You can only get it from sex, blood products, and shared needles."
...but in the space between ads for Doublemint Gum, this show manages to provide more useful
information about AIDS than the US government did for the initial years of the epidemic.
Plus some very solid mugging by Annie Potts.
Also, Julia Sugarbaker gets a chance to tear someone's head off when another client gets
super duper evil about Kendall.
"I believe this is God's punishment for what they've done.
These people are getting what they deserve!"
And of course, this chilling line:
"As far as I'm concerned, this disease has one thing going for it.
It's killing all the right people!"
These statements would seem cartoonishly evil, except the killing line was an actual thing
that was said, in real life, in front of screen writer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, while she
was in the hospital caring for her mother who got HIV from a blood transfusion.
So it must have been a bit cathartic for her to write this speech for Julia:
"If God was giving out sexually transmitted diseases to people as a punishment for sinning
then you would be at the free clinic all the time."
Meanwhile, there's a separate story in which Mary Jo has to debate whether public schools
should provide condoms.
Because this is the 1980s, her opponent is an evil uptight busybody with gigantic hair.
"So why bring that kind of garbage into the school system?"
Mrs. Busybody has a brilliant solution for preventing teen pregnancy: simply tell the
teenagers to stop having so much darn sex.
"Abstinence."
Right, because if anything can hold back the raging sexual hormones of a teenager, it's
abstinence-only education from a stock prude character in search of a Rodney Dangerfield
to disapprove of.
"So what?
So let's dance!"
Fortunately Mary Jo is a realist, and also a bridge between the A plot and the B plot.
"We're not just talking about preventing births anymore.
We're talking about preventing deaths.
5,000 americans have died and we're still debating.""
Still debating indeed!
Even today you see asinine abstinence PSAs like these:
"You're not going to hook up before you marry?
For real."
"For real."
"For real for real?"
"For real for real for real."
It's crazy that in 1987, Designing Women was one of the country's best sources of information
about HIV and safe sex.
But it's even more crazy that three decades later, in some places, that's still the case.
The abstinence education fantasy just refuses to go away.
What the villains of this episode were saying is that people who have sex need to be punished,
and that sex should lead to consequences.
And that's the same position as today's abstinence only crowd.
No contraception, no information, no harm reduction.
If you have sex, you might die, and that's the way it should be.
Because you'll have died of something that's killing all the right people.
Thanks to everyone who suggested I take a look at this episode in the YouTube comments
and on Twitter.
If there are other shows you'd like to see me talk about, let me know.
Leave a comment ot tweet at me, @mattbaume.
Subscribe here for more videos, and tweet at me @mattbaume.
Click here for my video about how shows like Mash, Soap, and Cheers handled queer characters.
And check out my podcast, the Sewers of Paris, that's full of revealing stories about the
entertainment that changed the lives of gay men.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment at the country club.
"Hey everybody, we're all going to get laid!"