"It's my life" was a very moving film. Zackie is a brave person for standing up and fighting for other HIV patients. At one point in the film someone made the point that it is one thing to die quietly but it is courageous to die for a cause. I enjoyed watching and seeing someone take control of their life. The course of action that human beings take should be up to them. It was especially nice to see that Zackie had so much support from his family.
I definitely think there is a cultural difference in the way that the people in the film view medicine and the way Americans view it. Zackie mentioned a couple times that he had a concern of the antiretrovirals being poisonous. That is not something we are normally told about prescriptions in the United States. We are constantly medicating ourselves with different substances that may in fact be poisonous. Zackie's doctor tells him that to an extinct everything we ingest is poisonous. Zackie still chooses to go without ARV treatment. As I said before, his loved ones are very supportive of him even though he isn't taking one of the simplest courses of action in fighting the disease. His sister and housemate help care for him when he is ill and are proud that he is taking a stand. I feel like in America not taking prescribed medicine is seen as strange. Many of us depend on drugs heavily and to chose not to take them is almost taboo. The film was nicely done. I just wish there was more of a focus on the facts of the disease, who it effects and how awful it is. It was good to see how it affected one persons life but what about those who are not receiving treatment because they do not have the finances? Aren't they the one's that Zackie was fighting for anyways?
Loni,
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up an interesting point in that Americans don't second guess the perscriptions they are ingesting, but in fact take them simply because a doctor has prescribed them. What if the doctor misjudge your issue and gave you the wrong medicine? What if that medicine was poisonous? What if all meds are toxic and slowly are withering away at us? The average person would not know the answers to these questions because we, as Americans, do not like to take time to figure things out but instead enjoy things being handed to us.
It's very interesting isn't it, that we Americans take everything our doctors say at face value (well most of us anyway). Especially when it comes to something as fatal as AIDS. It is very hard to imagine refusing to take medicine that will save your life; I had not actually picked up on when Zackie said that the medicine was poisonous and I wonder what is more poisonous, the disease or the medicine to heal it? I personally believe in holistic medicine as well as the traditional pharmaceutical meds but it is truly strange to imagine what would happen if everyone stopped listening to their doctors.
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