R.I.P. Larry Kramer

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Precious Doll
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Re: R.I.P. Larry Kramer

Post by Precious Doll »

Worth tracking down the documentary 'Larry Kramer in Love and Anger' (2015). It was a HBO production and presented a well informed look at his life and work along with contemporary interviews with Larry Kramer.

The world is a lesser place with his passing. A man who did so much good for so many.
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
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Re: R.I.P. Larry Kramer

Post by danfrank »

Although I admire some of Larry Kramer’s writing—I read his novel Faggots when I was just coming out—I believe his greatest contribution came in the form of his activism on behalf of persons with AIDS (or PWAs, as we said in the 80s). His founding of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and later ACT UP were pivotal in forcing the government to pay attention and start funding research to fight HIV. He, like many of us, were outraged at the implicit message from our government that it was okay to let gay men die. Kramer was the primary bearer of that rage for the gay community, and he put it into action. He fought personal wars with the likes of Ed Koch and Ronald Reagan. A faggot, yes, but no sissy he. Sometimes he was overly abrasive and off-putting, but one can argue that he helped save many thousands of lives. As many folks are saying today, rest in power Larry Kramer.
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Re: R.I.P. Larry Kramer

Post by Greg »

Does anyone know if Kramer said anything about Bill Clinton firing Jocelyn Elders?
Mister Tee
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R.I.P. Larry Kramer

Post by Mister Tee »

There are multiple places I could have placed this obit. He had his movie connection (the screenplay for Women in Love, the first context in which I heard of him), and of course he was a voluble social activist. But let's say his most indelible mark on the culture was The Normal Heart, making him most at home in the theatre thread.

For those who weren't around, it's probably hard to believe, but The Normal Heart was not universally beloved when it appeared in 1985, most especially in the gay community. Gay visibility (still called liberation at that point) was relatively new in those years, and unfettered sexual experimentation was seen as a vital component of it. So, when Kramer loudly suggested that promiscuity was playing a role in the spread of AIDS, many saw it as a cousin of the moralism from the right that wanted to shut down gay expression. There was another play, As Is, that opened on Broadway roughly the same time, and its far more gentle/sympathetic treatment of the epidemic was better-praised by many. I had a close friend/co-worker who was gay and a major theatre buff, and I had to talk him into seeing The Normal Heart -- he'd been so warned off it by friends, including one associated with As Is. Once he saw it, he agreed with me that it was by far the superior play. A verdict history has ratified.

I'm guessing there was also some resistance to the play initially because it was so patently autobiographical, and because Kramer himself rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Brendan Gill of The New Yorker termed it "an interminable, trashy non-play" -- a phrase that has stuck in my head because it was so over-the-top wrong. It's hard not to assume Gill had run into Kramer at some point and was transposing his reaction to the man onto the play. Kramer, like his Normal Heart character, wasn't afraid to be unlikable -- indeed, was happy to be, as the price of getting action. He made a lot of things happen at a time when people were timid about being associated with AIDS because of its connection to being gay -- but he also made a lot of enemies. (Though the obit attached tells us he eventually reconciled with some, including the now revered Dr. Fauci.) Truly a remarkable figure.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/us/l ... -dead.html
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