As I read through Randy Shilts’s epic chronicle of the AIDS crisis And the Band Played On, I am struck by the parallel timing of the emergence of the AIDS crisis and emergence of MTV. Both crept into American culture in remarkably similar ways at almost the exact same time.
The disease that would be known as AIDS was first reported in the New York Times on July 3, 1981. MTV debuted less than a month later on August 1, 1981. For the next year and a half, each had a low profile. AIDS was still GRID, a mysterious disease affecting gay men. There was some media coverage, but not much. Nobody quite knew what it was yet. MTV, meanwhile, was struggling to survive its difficult first year, finding viewers mostly in rural and Midwestern suburban markets, drawing accusations of racism due to its white playlist, and failing to sell much advertising. Then, in January 1983, both took leaps forwards. Major suburban markets in LA and New York City started carrying MTV, marking the beginning of the channel’s golden age. Michael Jackson was a rising star, videos were fun and exciting and new, and the music industry was starting to shape its marketing strategies more around videos. Videos became the new fad, the next big splashy thing after disco. AIDS, meanwhile, experienced its first massive media blitz during the first half of 1983, being covered in all major magazines and newspapers and becoming a point of public debate and discussion in the media. This is when Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson and Gary Bauer and other assholes started using AIDS as a way of drumming up homophobia to bolster the religious right. The science was still uncertain, but it was now a “thing” in the culture. Eddie Murphy, his career rising and about to crest, arguably the most significant comedian of the early 1980s, opened his most famous routine in the film Delirious with jokes about how afraid he was of catching AIDS from casual contact.
MTV suddenly appeared in my suburban house in the San Francisco Bay Area in June 1983, after this barrage of frightening media coverage on AIDS, shaping how I would see and interpret the queerness that pervaded MTV so many videos. AIDS and gay had become inextricably intertwined by this point. In a sense, you couldn’t watch MTV without being reminded of the AIDS crisis, even though the channel never mentioned it during this time. Its silence permeated everything.
1980s Music Video Closet 