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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

Diversity Dispatch: "RENT" and World AIDS Day


Can you guess the connection between MCC’s production of “RENT” this week and World AIDS Day on December 1?

In Jonathan Larson’s “RENT,” a rock musical based on Giacomo Puccini’s opera “La Bohème,” the characters mirror those in the opera. Larson updates Paris in the nineteenth century to New York City in the twentieth century -- so several of the characters in “RENT” are HIV-positive instead of having tuberculosis.

First reported in the medical literature in 1981, and first named in 1982, HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, causes AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). While originally identified primarily among gay and bisexual men, HIV now affects people of all races, genders, and sexual orientations, with more than 1.1 million people in the U.S. and an estimated 33.4 million people globally currently living with HIV/AIDS. More than 25 million people died from the virus between 1981 and 2007 in one of the most destructive pandemics in history (1). 

World AIDS Day, begun in 1988 and held annually on December 1, was the first global health day. World AIDS Day aims to unite people in the fight against HIV, show support for people living with HIV, and commemorate people who have died from AIDS (2). While treatments are available to help people survive HIV infection with good quality of life, the medications can be prohibitively expensive, especially for people in developing countries, and the sheer number of people living with HIV/AIDS shows how much remains to be done in terms of education and prevention both in the US and worldwide.

If you attend MCC’s Visual and Performing Arts Department’s production of “RENT” this Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, think about the connection with World AIDS Day.

This is part of a monthly series of articles from the Diversity Council about topics related to diversity and multiculturalism.

References:

(1)   https://aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/hiv-aids-101/statistics/index.html

(2)   https://www.worldaidscampaign.org/world-aids-day/

Deb Mohr
Diversity Council (ETS: Libraries)
11/20/2013