{"id":1551,"date":"2025-11-03T22:04:59","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T03:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/?p=1551"},"modified":"2025-11-03T22:04:59","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T03:04:59","slug":"fear-as-the-real-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/2025\/11\/03\/fear-as-the-real-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear as the Real Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Angels in America<\/em>, Tony Kushner shows us something uncomfortable through Louis: how fear can poison love and make us abandon our responsibilities to the people we care about. When Louis tells Prior, “I’m afraid of the disease. I’m afraid that you’ll die. And I’m afraid that I’ll die,” the way he keeps saying “I’m afraid” says everything. He’s not just scared of AIDS; he’s so consumed by his own terror that he can’t be there for Prior in any real way.\u00a0 What’s striking is that Louis keeps circling back to his own fear instead of thinking about what Prior is going through. Kushner seems to be pointing to something bigger here. During the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, a lot of people protected themselves instead of showing up with compassion.\u00a0 Similar to examples we talked about in class such as hairdressers refusing to cut hair and how the lesbian community stepped up. The scene makes us ask, what does courage really look like when everything’s falling apart? What does love actually demand from us? Louis’s answer is heartbreaking; he fails at both. His fear isn’t just about death. It’s about facing what it means to abandon someone who needs you. Through Louis, Kushner shows us that we can’t grow or do better by running from what scares us. Real love means showing up for people even when it’s hard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Angels in America, Tony Kushner shows us something uncomfortable through Louis: how fear can poison love and make us abandon our responsibilities to the people we care about. When Louis tells Prior, “I’m afraid of the disease. I’m afraid that you’ll die. And I’m afraid that I’ll die,” the way he keeps saying “I’m … Continue reading Fear as the Real Disease<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5713,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344663],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5713"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1551"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1552,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551\/revisions\/1552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}