Screenwriter and actor, Tyler Perry, received some letters from the Positive Women's Network about including HIV in his film, "Temptation."
The organizaton got offended when they saw that Perry had a couple people in the movie contracting the virus stating that it made the actors look like monsters. HIV/AIDS has been a serious epidemic for years and can effect any type of person. Perry couldn't help but to show how serious it was the movie by how a person can easily manipulate you into getting with them. There is so much misconceptions and misinterpretations about this because others also felt that Perry used HIV as being the only result in cheating. Others felt that he was enhancing the stereotype that HIV/AIDS is the highest in black and latinos. The movie made so much controversy, but on the wrong aspects.
The whole point was to know that temptation can get you killed both literally and figuratively, but society took it down a different path. The HIV/AIDS shocker caught the most attention. Huffington Post writers had comments about the film where they commented on the idea of infidelity resulting into drastic and life-threntening in order to be appealing saying, "Whether or not one condones cheating on a spouse, the implications that a person deserves HIV is horrifying," said Michael Ryan. Even in different reviews people were writing in complaining how Perry was exploiting HIV and almost glorifying it.
I'm pretty sure Perry's intentions were not to exploit HIV especially since it's so serious. The movie portrayed exactly what the title was, temptation. In many interviews, Perry explained the concept was to focus on the fact that you have to appreciate what you have at home even if it's boring because temptation is most of the time temporary and if you get stuck in a rut then make it work. It's unfortunate that the characters had this viral disease, but he tried to be as realistic as he could contracting a disease is one of the results of infidelity. That goes to show you how important protection is. No, I'm not saying if you're going to cheat then use protection, I'm saying cheating can a chose as well as using protection and those characters portrayed infidelity and irresponsibility. It was a big shock when Brandy revealed it first in the movie that she had the disease, but instead of it being a wake-up call to the audience it was an insult.
So what do you think? Did Tyler Perry really exploit HIV/AIDS? Are people being a little dramatic and too critical? Should there have been a different outcome?
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