#motf is untouched by what's to come so theres no overtone of fear

[shellsinadune]

thinking about how in falsettos, hiv/aids is portrayed the way real illness often is: a sudden, devastating interruption to someone's life. march of the falsettos never brings up hiv/aids, and it's not until halfway through falsettoland that we get any indication that something's wrong. no foreshadowing, just immediate and unexpected pain.

we know these characters, there's time to love them for who they are before this happens to them. whizzer isn't just The AIDS Patient, marvin isn't just The Partner or The One Who's Next, charlotte isn't just The Doctor. they're people, and they had whole lives before any of this, and we as the audience get to see that. we see their friendship and their petty fights and their eventual love story and their redemption from their flaws.

they all have a trajectory their lives are on. and then disease comes along and crushes it and any hope for things to return to how it was. it's painfully realistic. by not talking about hiv/aids until it hits, it tells a more complete story of the aids crisis than a story that starts after the character's illness does.

#idk man its just so beautiful and devastating #i know a lot of this is to do with motf coming out pre-hiv/aids but it serves as a time capsule in a way #motf is untouched by what's to come so theres no overtone of fear #falsettos #good post op