Internalized homophobia in AIDS plays: an analysis of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America BA Thesis

Abstract

The AIDS epidemic in the United States has left a significant mark in the American queer consciousness, literature, and theatre. The aim of this thesis is to look at The Normal Heart and Angels in America, as examples of two generations of AIDS plays, to analyze how internalized homophobia, spurred into the limelight by the rapidly evolving AIDS epidemic, is represented in the two plays: as a universal gay experience that appears to be morally ambiguous or as something negative that impedes LGBT progress? An empirical analysis was written on both plays in question to explore the effect of internalized homophobia on their characters. It was found that internalized homophobia was portrayed as something negative in both plays, but this portrayal was more nuanced and closer to an unproblematic depiction in the second generation play Angels in America.