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1985

On September 20, 2010, in Australia, Friends, News, Television, by Rosie

It was the summer of 1984-85. I remember being on an extended girls’ week away down the beach. My school friends and I had just finished our final exams. We were all turning 18. We were listening to Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s ‘The Power of Love’ and ‘Boys of Summer’ by Don Henley.

We didn’t really know much about prevention of anything. Sure, we knew that smoking could affect your health and drinking too much wasn’t great for driving ability. Health authorities were just making the public more conscious of the dangers of over-exposure to sunlight and skin cancers, and the Life Be in It fitness campaign was well recognized throughout Australia.

It was during this period of time that I first became aware of a ‘condition’ called AIDS. Whether the illness was made public a little later down here, or whether I was not an avid news watcher (still not today, actually) is something I can’t really recall.

What I do remember is that we had the radio on pretty much non-stop during that school-leaving holiday (interspersed with mixed tape playing) and the news broadcasts were often about AIDS.

I remember the press sensationalizing it. For some reason, the memory of first being made aware of this international health concern and that holiday is entwined in my mind as significant.

Perhaps because we discussed sexuality a lot (within our friendship group, not necessarily in our homes). Maybe it was due to meeting up with a group of attractive, rowdy army guys from the neighbouring officer’s school and partying with them for the week while experiencing true freedom for the first time? Probably it was due to the fact we were at that stage of life where something sinister was invading the social network of our world and not that much was really known about it.

It was the 80s. If the late 60s and 70s had been about sexual revolution and increased freedom, the 80s seemed to be all about experimentation and excess. Of money. Of hair styles and music. Of fabrics and art, of sex. It can be argued that the 80s were no different from the 70s, it just depended when you were a teenager or young adult. Maybe. But if the 70s enjoyed a freer lifestyle with regard sex, drugs, rock n roll and non-conformity, then the 80s not only enjoyed it. The 80s gelled it up till it was larger than life.

The public awareness campaign about AIDS prevention hit hard in Oz. I can’t recall being that much more informed at the end of that summer holiday, nor during the early part of 1985. Yet by the time I was in second year university, the country confronted messages like this one, broadcasted into homes on a nightly basis.

The Grim Reaper ad was controversial at the time. It scared the crap out of me. It was released before the (modern) highly explicit TAC advertisements and has been parodied on several occasions. In the mid to late 80s, when the condition was not fully understood and global interest in prevention and treatment was only starting, campaigns like these might have made a difference.

This ad mightn’t appear frightening in this era, but it was the first of its kind on domestic screens. The atmosphere of the times was one of near panic about AIDS — the spread of the unknown, the plague of the sexually active — and the Grim Reaper campaign played on these social anxieties.

We know more now. Doesn’t dull the ache of those who have suffered with the condition, nor does it soften the impact of the early days of public education. It does make me wonder, though. Is shock-advertising effective? I think it is — to this day, I still experience the concern of a 20-year old woman when I watch this footage from 1987.