STDs in popular culture
With the spread of sexually transmitted diseases becoming more and more of a problem, it’s no surprise to see the popular culture media take notice of the risk. The only surprise is that they are not more prevalent in entertainment, as art imitates life, but there is still a certain apparent taboo that makes each instance remarkable. Here are some of the most memorable cases of STDs in music, movies, and even video games!
Movie
The topic of STDs in film has been explored academically, and in fact an article in a 2005 Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine made an interesting discovery regarding STDs in film. Taking the top 200 voted movies in the Internet Movie Database (eliminating movies from before the HIV epidemic and those likely to contain no adult themes), it was reported that there were 53 sex scenes in 28 of the 87 movies. remaining reviewed, and only one of them. those involving the use of condoms. There were no descriptions of the consequences of this recklessness: no pregnancies, no HIV, no other STDs. He continued to report some references to STDs in dialogue (“disease-spreading whore,” “I get checked every month”), but overall the scripts encouraged promiscuity and ridiculed celibacy.
Of course, there are a few exceptions to this, and especially if you stray beyond the mainstream of IMDB’s top-rated movies. The earliest example of this is 1938’s “Sex Madness” (currently rated 2.0/10 on the said movie database), a terrifyingly harsh warning about the evils of easygoing life and the risk that the resulting syphilis will ruin your life. The 1983 TV movie “Intimate Agony” (5.3/10) fares a little better as a morality play, but was robbed of the limelight weeks after its release when the AIDS epidemic began making headlines. Movies dealing with HIV and AIDS are much more common, but two of the best examples are the 1993 TV movie “And the Band Played On” (7.6/10), a dramatization of the AIDS story, and “Philadelphia” from 1994 (7.6/10). ) that describes the judicial process of an AIDS patient against an unfair dismissal. The latter won 2 Oscars for Tom Hanks’ accurate and moving portrayal of the physical deterioration caused by the final stages of the sexually transmitted disease.
Music
Naturally, music is a bit more difficult to track down clear, definitive examples of sexually transmitted diseases in lyrics; they are often too ambiguous. On the other hand, Ice Cube’s “Look Who’s Burnin'” is pretty cheeky in its theme: a trip to get tested for STDs…
“If I see you
First Miss Thang, now Miss Gonorrhea
Man it’s a trip how the world keeps turning
It’s 1991 and look who’s burning”
…Y…
“Man, this is going to kill them
Guess who got a big dose of penicillin?”
Elsewhere, we are left to read between the lines a bit more. Rumor has it that ACDC’s “The Jack” isn’t about a round of cards, it’s about clap (depending on who you believe, it was once called The Clap, or “The Jack” was Australian slang at the time). With this knowledge, the song takes on a whole new meaning:
“That all the letters came
From the bottom of the pack
And if I knew what she was dealing with
I would have returned it”
Finally, we have The Darkness with “Growing on Me”, a charming ditty supposedly on the difficult subject of genital warts:
“I want to shake you, but you just won’t go,
And you’re on top of me, but I don’t want anyone to know
That you’re attached to me, that’s how you’ve grown
Won’t you leave me, leave me alone?”
If Mr. Hawkins was talking about genital warts, then a visit to your local clinic might present several options for them to “leave you alone”, including chemicals, freezing, or laser removal! He may also want to get other STD tests while he’s there, since co-infection is common…
Games
Unsurprisingly, the games so far have strayed quite a bit from the area of STDs, but the upcoming Fable 2 is said to buck this trend. The role-playing game allows your avatar to have sex with various characters throughout the game world, with or without a condom. If you risk the latter, pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease may occur (although the lead developer promised that virtual STDs won’t affect the game too much). As it’s still in development, it’s unclear how STDs will be represented and if the game can be a lesson in safe sex, but it’s an intriguing concept.
As STD testing becomes more prevalent and its science better understood, will we see more occurrences in popular culture, or will even more be swept under the rug? Only time will tell.