Hollywood’s Obstacles to Movies About AIDS

As any recent traveler to West Africa will attest, the truly ignored victims of AIDS are not homosexuals, intravenous drug users or even hemophiliacs. By far the largest bloc of AIDS sufferers are ordinary African men and women who are dying by the millions in conditions we in America can barely imagine.

These people far outnumber those unfortunate upscale homosexuals whose life styles are depicted in “Longtime Companion” (the subject of David J. Fox’s May 13 article, “They Found Out How Tough a Sell AIDS Really Is”).

Can we hope that a sympathetic screenplay is even now on a producer’s desk somewhere in Hollywood? Perhaps. But how many African-American producers are there who would have sufficient clout to lobby for such a movie to be made?

PAUL L. G. WARE

Tujunga