Regulars: Column

Caroline Guinness-McGann.

A missed opportunity?

Caroline Guinness-McGann questions the validity of Stephen Fry’s recently aired documentary Stephen Fry – HIV and Me

owards the end of last year my husband, Mark, and I were approached by the BBC with a request for us to be interviewed by Stephen Fry for a documentary he was doing on HIV. Having watched, with admiration, his documentary on ‘Manic Depression’, we both felt that he would be able to do justice to a subject that was very close to our hearts.

Giving it some further thought however, I became concerned about doing yet another interview that would draw attention to our private life. I therefore wrote directly to Stephen and expressed my feelings. He wrote back, basically saying that if I had written him a ‘stupid’ letter he would not feel like pursuing me, but as I had written what he thought was a ‘highly intelligent letter’, outlining some ‘serious issues’, I should be warned that he would not give up in trying to persuade us to appear on his programme.

This indeed was the case, as we were then bombarded with letters from the researcher and associate producer and finally a visit from the Director and Producer of the show to our home town. One of the issues I wanted to make them aware of was the potential consequence on our lives of agreeing to do their interview. We’d already had a hard lesson in this, following an unauthorised article about us in the Evening Standard which had caused us to be ‘door-stopped’. This left us no option but to become more public to combat it. We decided to take control of things and chose the newspapers that were to be allowed to publish our official story. What happened after these interviews was that Mark’s career slowed down, considerably which we could not absolutely say for sure was a direct consequence of our ‘coming out’, but which did seem rather an obvious co-incidence.

So it was with understandable trepidation that we met with the producers and eventually only to eventually decide that it was not for us but we did come away agreeing that Stephen seemed a good choice to present the programme

So when the programme was aired, both Mark and I were willing to watch it with an open mind, and hope in our hearts that it would make a difference to those of us living with this condition. From Stephen’s very first interview and narration, my heart sank. I could not quite believe what I was hearing or who I was watching being interviewed. Stephen started by making clear his feelings for those of us who have contracted this virus – he was angry by ‘our stupidity’.

Right from the start it was obvious he had no in-depth understanding of sexuality, let alone the virus itself. It was all very well saying he was a ‘gay man’ as if this gave him an automatic authority on the subject, but it didn’t seem to matter to me what his sexuality was if he clearly had no understanding of the sexual complexities surrounding this issue in the first place.

He visited an abandoned ‘AIDS’ ward at the old Middlesex Hospital. In fact it was the first AIDS ward in this country. It was also the place I was first hospitalised in 1994. He expressed his anger at the ‘stupidity’ of the patients, some of whom were his friends, for having contracted HIV in the first place. He immediately seemed to make his narrative a moral judgement, one that was negative, and in my opinion, cruel.

No one asked for this virus Stephen. No one asked to die in the most terrible of circumstances.

By the end of the first episode I was in tears. Tears for all the people he had betrayed, tears for managing to put us all back into the dark ages of fear and stigma, when no one wanted to know about this illness and when it was seen as a ‘moral issue’ and not a ‘medical condition’. I called Positive Nation and asked if I could write this review. They agreed that once I had watched the second and last episode they would publish this in their World AIDS Day edition.

The second episode was a little more balanced, but once again perpetuated all the stereotypes and myths. He wasted great opportunities. He was sycophantic when interviewing one of the most sensitive and wonderful authors I have ever come across, Armistead Maupin, whose vast knowledge and understanding of all the history and issues surrounding HIV were not called upon at all for the programme. He then went to South Africa and interviewed another one of my heroes, Judge Edwin Cameron, a gay HIV+ man who helped write the new South African constitution which enshrined the right to be gay in that country. What another wasted opportunity!

Stephen also managed to mention Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki in the same breath, as if they both ignored the reality that HIV causes AIDS. This was grossly misleading as Nelson Mandela has recently publicly stated, when here in the UK whilst having his statue unveiled in Trafalgar Square, that the only campaigning he was going to expend his energy on from now on, was the battle against the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS. He was heartbreakingly honest about having lost his only son to this virus.

Stephen then moved on to Uganda and to a family he had visited many years before. Strangely, he proceeded to do what many celebrities seem to do when ‘in Africa’, namely imply that all those living with HIV in far off lands were essentially different to those of us living with the same condition in the UK, therefore perpetuating the trend for the general public to believe that HIV only happens to ‘other people in other lands’.

By the time he got back to Britain and interviewed a woman who managed to convey the fact that no one would ever want to have a relationship with any one infected with HIV, I was despairing again. This is far from the experience of HIV+ friends and myself. Mark and I are not alone in having a wonderful relationship despite my being HIV+, and pretty much all my female friends living with this condition are in happy relationships and have been for many years.

Stephen interviewed another woman whose writing I have admired in HIV news letters, but it seemed he only showed a part of their discussion, which reinforced his now obvious obsession with the lack of condom use. He interviewed a girl born with the virus and managed to say that she was the only intelligent person he has spoken to, therefore implying that all the rest were, yes, you guessed it, stupid!

The Haemophiliac man, his wife and children I found quite a moving interview actually, but again it unfortunately concentrated on the ‘tragedy of being a victim’.

An inordinate amount of this two-parter was spent on Stephen’s own ‘HIV’ test. This was hardly as courageous as he would have us believe as he has repeatedly stated in public that he is celibate.

Even more worryingly there was NO mention of the one thing that could truly change the course of this virus forever – MICROBICIDES. He had ample opportunity to explain the importance of this preventative measure, which is currently being developed and is in last phase trials, choosing instead to bang on once again, about the lack of condom use.

It is no surprise to me that he and Mark Nelson of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital were unable to find one patient willing to be interviewed. Those of us with this virus, have been let down too often by people wanting to use us for their own ends.
Stephen, please stick to what you are actually qualified to comment on. Stick to your ‘good work’ with Prince Charles. For what it’s worth I believe that someone like Di would have been horrified by this documentary. She at least displayed an intuitive understanding of the reality and implications for people living with HIV.

You have recently been given a whole weekend - undoubtedly deserved - of scheduled programming by BBC2 dedicated to the celebration of your illustrious career. You are also widely thought of as a person of great integrity and intelligence. Why then, participate in what I can only describe as a damaging and ‘stupid’ programme? +

© Caroline Guinness-McGann.

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