With the spread of sexually transmitted diseases becoming more of a problem, it’s not surprising to see the popular culture media picking up on the risk. The only surprise is that they aren’t more prevalent in entertainment, as art imitates life, but there’s still a certain seeming taboo that makes each instance remarkable. Here are some of the most memorable cases of STDs in music, movies, and even video games!
Movie
The topic of sexually transmitted diseases in film has been explored at an academic level, and indeed an article in a 2005 Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine made an interesting discovery regarding STDs in film. Taking the top 200 movies voted on the Internet Movie Database (eliminating movies from before the HIV epidemic and those that probably do not contain adult themes), it was reported that there were 53 sex scenes in 28 of the 87 movies. remaining reviewed, and only one of them. those that implied the use of condoms. There were no descriptions of the consequences of this recklessness: there were no pregnancies, HIV or any other STD. He went on to report some references to STDs in the dialogue (“disease-spreading whore,” “I get checked every month”), but overall the scripts encouraged promiscuity and ridiculed celibacy.
Of course, there are some exceptions to this, and especially if you veer beyond the mainstream of IMDB’s top-rated movies. The earliest example of this is 1938’s “Sex Madness” (currently rated 2.0/10 on said movie database), a terrifyingly harsh warning about the evils of the laid-back life and the risk of resulting syphilis ruining your life. The 1983 TV movie “Intimate Agony” (5.3/10) fares little better as a morality play, but it was robbed of the spotlight weeks after its release when the AIDS epidemic began making headlines. Movies dealing with HIV and AIDS are much more common, but two of the best examples are the 1993 TV movie “And the Band Played On” (7.6/10), a dramatization of the AIDS story, and “Philadelphia” from 1994 (7.6/10). ) that describes the judicial process of an AIDS patient against unfair dismissal. The latter won 2 Oscars for Tom Hanks’ accurate and moving portrayal of the physical deterioration caused by the final stages of the sexually transmitted disease.
Music
Naturally, the music is a little harder to trace clear, definitive examples of STDs in the lyrics; they are often too ambiguous. On the other hand, Ice Cube’s “Look Who’s Burnin'” is quite cheeky in its theme: a trip to get an STD test…
“If I see you
First Miss Thang, now Miss Gonorrhea
Man it’s a trip how the world keeps turning
It’s 1991 and look who’s on fire”
…Y…
“Man, this is going to kill them.
Guess who got a big dose of penicillin?”
Elsewhere, we are left to read between the lines a bit more. ACDC’s “The Jack” is rumored to be not about a round of cards, but about the clap (depending on who you believe, it was once called The Clap or “The Jack” was Australian slang at the time). With this knowledge, the song takes on a whole new meaning:
“That all the letters came
From the bottom of the pack
And if I knew what she was dealing with
I would have returned it”
Finally, we have The Darkness with “Growing on Me”, a lovely ditty supposedly on the difficult subject of genital warts:
“I want to shake you off, but you just won’t go,
And you’re all over me, but I don’t want anyone to know
That you’re attached to me, that’s how you’ve grown
Won’t you leave me, leave me alone?”
If Mr. Hawkins was talking about genital warts, then a visit to your local clinic might present several options for them to “leave you alone” including chemicals, freezing, or laser removal! He may also want to get other STD tests while he’s there as co-infection is common…
Games
Unsurprisingly, the games so far have strayed quite far from the area of sexually transmitted diseases, but the upcoming Fable 2 is said to be going against this trend. RPG allows your avatar to have sex with various characters throughout the game world, with or without a condom. If you risk the latter, pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease can occur (although the main developer promised that virtual STDs won’t affect the game too much). As it’s still in development, it’s unclear how STDs will be portrayed and whether the game could prove to be a lesson in safer sex, but it’s an intriguing concept.
As STD testing becomes more prevalent and the science of STDs better understood, will we see more occurrences in popular culture, or will even more be swept under the rug? Only time will tell.