Movie Analysis Essay on Jim Hubbard's United in Anger

Introduction

Jim Hubbard's United in Anger: A History of ACT UP features a straightforward biography of the activists who established the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) movement that was aimed at combating life-threatening misinformation, speeding up the sluggish pace of drug approvals and refining of the definition of AIDS to allow women and other drug users to receive benefits. The movement experienced fierce opposition from the government which often killed the members. The group employed various tactics including the use of civil disobedience, direct activism, inroads and outroads to raise awareness about AIDS pandemic with a mission of affecting change on the national level.

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The work done by the ACT UP movement was a risk. The lives of the participants were at risk. They would be injured by police or often killed. However, this was a true reflection of the shift from traditional research methods where research only focused on studying women or attending to gender without an agenda for change to a modern one in which is characterized by double dimension (Hesse-Biber and Nagy 34). The work was characterized by the urgent need to create knowledge upon which a social change would be generated. The activists were against the oppression of people living with AIDS by the government and church institutions that opposed homosexuality as well as the thinking that those who were dying were paying for their immorality. The ACT UP group sought to generate new knowledge regarding aids by advocating for a proper definition of the disease. When the disease was properly defined, it would attract the attention of the government and other groups who would deliberate on necessary interventions that would see the victims being rescued either through the provision of affordable medications or an establishment of awareness campaigns to help reduce the spread of the disease. This represents a social change from a position of no action against the disease pandemic to an active awareness creation and disease prevention and control strategies. Therefore, the activist group was dedicated to the establishment of new knowledge that is immediately converted into social change.

The theoretical learning that I have made about feminist methods has informed me that feminist research has transformed application of methodologies from masculine models characterized by detachment and objectivity to a more focused method that has an obligation to political stance skewed towards transformative theory and praxis. I have conceptualized women research methods as those evolving and committed to challenge, develop, reflect and endeavor for vigorous warrantable knowledge and practices ethically grounded in respect and care for the experience of others. From theoretical conceptualization, I tend to respond to ACT UP actions from the position or the judgment point where I assess the objective of the activism and the resulting impact. For example, knowing that feminist research methods are determined to establish knowledge that is guided by the ethical basis of maintaining respect and care for others has made me see how the ACT UP activists established an agenda towards influencing a political stance towards the rescue of the suffering gays and other people living with AIDS. I tend to see feminist activism as agenda driven whose aims are well defined and grounded with an understanding of what needs to be done. The activism emerges out of the need which is equivalent to a research problem. They then seek a solution through research that gathers knowledge to base the social change or to guide the social change.

Works Cited

Hesse-Biber, Sharlene Nagy, ed. Feminist research practice: A primer. Sage Publications, 2013.

Hubbards, Jim, director. United in Anger: A History of ACT UP. Documentary Film, 2012.