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Misconceptions In Pop Culture

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Misconceptions In Pop Culture
Pop culture such as movies, music, sports, books and so much more are all critical aspects of everyday life in today’s time. It is hard to avoid pop culture in the modern world because it is seen in every aspect of society. Big businesses are the back bone to pop culture as they produce things that are popular to society to seek profit. The movie Philadelphia starring Tom Hanks released in 1993 is a product of pop culture at the time. During this time period many people in America were just learning about the virus’s HIV and AIDS. There were many misconceptions about AIDS at the time; one being that it was a homosexual disease. Philadelphia tells the story of a man named Andrew Beckett that has AIDS and happens to be homosexual. This movie …show more content…
This movie displays that in a perfect way. Philadelphia shows how pop culture and mainstream beliefs influenced people to believe the misconceptions of the AIDS virus and it was detrimental to a gay male’s life. One pop culture theme constructed in this movie was bringing awareness to AIDS in Philly because at that time nearly 3,000 Philadelphians had died from AIDS. “We wanted to reach the people who could care less about people with AIDS, that was our target audience” (Gordon, 2013). There were already many advocates in the town for people with AIDS but many others were stuck in misconceptions because of the media. That was the goal of this movie to show light to the pop culture stigma that AIDS was a gay man’s …show more content…
Django a was African-American slave who experienced many things that Andrew Beckett did. He was discriminated against, he was beaten and broken down physically and mentally. Beckett ends up winning his court case towards the end of Philadelphia and receives a settlement for the discrimination he faced. Similar to Django, who gets his revenge in a different way, killing dozens of white men and women. Both films are about men who are considered undesirable by the public and face many challenges because of inequality. Over all the goal of both movies is to bring awareness to topics of discrimination dealing with race (in the case of Django) and sexuality (in the case of
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