Response to Angels in America
Response to Angels in America
“Roy: Your problem, Henry, is that you are hung up on words, on labels, that you believe they mean what they seem to mean. AIDS. Homosexual. Gay. Lesbian. You think these are names that tell you who someone sleeps with, but they don’t tell you that” (Millennium Approaches, Act 1, Scene 9). This scene between Roy and Henry seems to be a scathing critique of scientia sexualis – Henry, a medical professional, wants to use labels to categorize his patient, but Roy explains to his that these labels lack meaning. Foucault argues against scientia sexualis, yet knowing what we do about Roy’s character, we know that his motivation for arguing against these labels is not necessarily the same as Foucault’s.
The issue of needing a label for things comes up again:
“Emily: You’re his…uh?
Louis: Yes. I’m his uh.” (Millennium Approaches, Act 2, Scene 3)
What do you call the significant other of a gay man? The nurse, Emily, doesn’t know, but is luckily able to convey the meaning she wants to anyway. Unfortunately, this rarely works. Language exists because we need a way to communicate with each other, a set of words with agreed upon definitions. As Roy said, words sometimes do mean different things to different people, making words and labels inefficient – but they’re better than constantly having to say “uh” and hoping the person you’re talking to understands. In essence, scientia sexualis and the need for labeling isn’t all bad.
A good example of the power words can have is in the first sentence of the 1983 Denver Principles to Empower People with AIDS: “We condemn attempts to label us as “victims,” a term which implies defeat…” (Peiss, 451). This is evident in Angels in America; Louis accuses Prior of being “too much of a victim” (Perestroika, Act 4, Scene 1).
Tags: HIV/AIDS, homosexuality, language, scientia sexualis
