It's My Life _ Cait Collins

It's My Life is a documentary about Zackie Achmat's AIDS activism, one way in which he choose to express his views on the inequality of medical treatment for the people of  South Africa is by opting out of taking medications that would help him fight the disease.  While most would find it to be a brave idea, I personally find it quite foolish, and this is for several reasons. Achmat would be able to stay alive, healthier and more helpful for a longer period of time if he chose to take the medications. My uncle's life partner died due to the complications associated with AIDS in the mid 1990s, this man who's name was Hal didn't just take the medication to live longer, but did so because he knew he had a short amount of time (potentially) left on this earth, and he was taking the medication not for himself, but for the people he could help, as well as for the people who he loved. In the end Achmat did technically begin taking the medications again before they were available to all people of South Africa, so hopefully the man did come to his senses. 

As for the style of the documentary, I found it to be rather unfocused, repetitive and elements un-needed. When it comes to the un-needed parts of the documentary I would say the background about Achmat's "sowing of wild oats" during his youth with older men to be rather unnessessary to the story. While this does bring up a valid element of gay culture, then again straight culture this occurs just as often, It shows us the faults of our society which brings about a conflict as to what he was fighting against.  He was fighting for people with AIDS to be able to get medications, what he should have been fighting for were modifications within our society to prevent AIDS to begin with. Teaching preventative measures should be the focus.  

As for the novel Welcome to Our Hillbrow, I found it to be a lot more interesting in comparison to the documentary It's My Life. Welcome to Our Hillbrow is quick paced, multi-angled, and gives a very real life example about AIDS and how quickly it can be transfered, the perceptions about the disease, and how poorly people with AIDS are treated within society. Many people diagnosed suffer, are abandoned by those who love them and are left to die alone.  What marks Welcome to Our Hillbrow different than It's My Life is that the novel shows how easily this disease is transfered between heterosexual people. It marks that AIDS is not some disease that only affects the gay community or people who are "bad" (for a country that is becoming increasingly Catholic in nature, they are being taught that this is a disease of sinners, especially sinners who engage in homosexual behavior instead of actually teaching people preventative acts such as the use of condoms).