The people at Andy’s workplace aren’t so changeable. Their viewpoints don’t change. The most frustrating thing about all these people is the way that they all treated Andy before they found out he had AIDS, and afterwards. His boss, Charles Wheeler, hugs him and shakes hands with him when he gets his promotion. They seem to be good friends. Yet later on, he admits that he is repulsed by how he treated him. If he had known he had aids at that time, he wouldn’t have touched him, and probably wouldn’t have given him the promotion. Another business partner, Walter, spotted Andy’s lesions. He is also against homosexuals and openly admits this in front of the entire courtroom.
Walter: “We had one fellow who was like that. We flushed his head down the latrine after ten of us had used it.”
He also says that he feels sorry for people who have got the AIDS virus through no fault of their own, hinting that he thinks it was Andy’s fault he got the virus. When Andy is fired, the people in his office use a cover to get rid of him. They pretend that he had misplaced an important file, and use this excuse to fire him.
Wheeler: “Your job here is no longer secure, we feel it isn’t fair to keep you here when your prospects are limited.”
As I said at the beginning, there are very few people who are actually supportive of Andy right the way through his ordeal. His family and partner, Miguel, are the only people who do this. They are proud of the way that Andy has fought for what he thinks is right and incredibly supportive of each other and Andy throughout the court case.
The other person who is fully supportive of Andy’s case is Melissa, a secretary for another company, who also has AIDS. Walter knew about her disease but she wasn’t fired from her job. I think this is because she caught the disease during a blood transfusion and so Walter classed it as not being her fault. Her response to this is:
Melissa: “I don’t consider myself any different from anyone else with this disease. I’m not guilty, I’m not innocent I’m just trying to survive.”
This simple statement shows us that she thinks of herself in the same way as she thinks of anyone else with aids. It wasn’t her fault she got AIDS, it isn’t anybodies fault that they have got this disease. She tries to make it clear that she isn’t guilty for having this disease, and neither is Andy.
Before Miller offers to be Andy’s lawyer, he starts to prepare his defence by searching through books in his local library for similar cases. When the librarian comes over to him to inform him that a book or article he was looking for has been found, he says it rather loudly, glancing around the room at the same time. A man sat near Andy gives him the same look as the librarian did, before moving to a different table or leaving the building altogether. The librarian then goes on to say:
Librarian: “wouldn’t you be more comfortable in a private research room?”
Andy: “Would it make you more comfortable?”
Librarian “Whatever sir.”
This is the point where Miller gets involved in Andy’s case. I think it is because he knows how Andy feels at being treated like this. He shares the same humiliation from discrimination and can sympathise with Andy for this reason.
When Andy leaves the courtroom, we see demonstrators in the streets, shouting at him and holding anti-homosexual signs. They are protesting against him, they, like Wheeler, think it is his own fault that he has this terrible virus, and he shouldn’t be allowed to sue his company because they sacked him. The signs have phrases such as:
“AIDS cures homosexuality.”
This is a particularly nasty comment, showing that a handful of ignorant people believe that AIDS has stemmed from homosexuals, and AIDS will wipe them out. AIDS has also been know as “the gay plague”, again showing how little people know of the disease, and how much they believe that isn’t true.
Although we know that Andy has aids, it never tells us in the film how he contracted the disease. We cannot form a prejudice against him for having aids, because we don’t know how it happened. The film does try to express all views on this disease, and I think it manages this very well. Wheeler is strongly Christian and says that, throughout the bible it says being a homosexual is wrong, it’s a sin. Although there are a lot of different points of view (see above), I think it would have been good to introduce other religious views on the subject, as well as Christian views. The film also shows us that, even in a court, where people should decide a verdict on the information presented to them, not on prejudice and discrimination, is not totally free of the fear and qualms people have about diseases like AIDS. The judge in particular seemed extremely biased against Andy, showing that, even in a perfect place, nothing can be entirely right.
I think that this film was excellent at raising and discussing important issues about AIDS and homosexuality. The name of the film, Philadelphia, is Greek for ‘brotherly love.’ I think this is extremely poignant, because it is ironic and truthful at the same time. The irony comes in where Andy’s employees show him kindness and friendship before they find out he is a homosexual, and as soon as they know that, all their feelings of friendship are forgotten, replaced by hatred and anger that he didn’t divulge intimate details of his private life to them so they could pick it apart and discriminate him for it. Miller shows similar feeling to Andy when he first meets him, but these views soon change, making way for the friendship and kindness that he didn’t, at first, think he could ever show to Andy. Another comment that should be made about the importance of the title is that fact that Philadelphia is the town in which the Declaration of Independence was signed. This declaration proclaimed that all people are free, everyone has a right to do what they want and we see that, in this film, a lot of people living in the very town where this was said, do not agree and openly show this.
Although this film does give a very accurate view of peoples prejudices against people like Andy, a lot of people now show a lot more understanding of their situation, and are more sympathetic and accepting than they were. It would be unfair to say that the same views are still held today by people, as, although some people do think the same way, a lot more feel that this kind of discrimination is wrong.
